Search results for: "Wisdom"

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  2. Patience
     … So what’s the great compulsion? In other words, a lot of patience is not just resilience and the strength to bear up with things, it’s also the wisdom to see through the unnecessary burdens we place on ourselves. Even the lies we say simply because someone gives us a funny look, or we’re afraid we’ll look stupid in their eyes … 
  3. The Buddha’s Shoulds
     … This why Ajaan Lee, when he’s talking about mindfulness and the different qualities that work with mindfulness, says that ardency is the wisdom factor as you develop mindfulness in order to bring about concentration, realizing that the teachings are there to be followed. The shoulds are to be taken seriously because they give serious benefits.
  4. What Should I Do?
     … As the Buddha once said, one of the signs of wisdom is knowing which duties fall to you, and which duties don’t fall to you. Completely changing the world, arranging the world, controlling the world is not one of your duties. Being prepared to help when your help is needed: That is one of your duties. And that’s something you can prepare … 
  5. Learning How to Talk to Yourself
     … And this is a wisdom that leads to your long-term welfare and happiness. That’s the kind of wisdom you want.
  6. Character
     … As the Buddha said, with the things that you should do but you don’t want to do them, if you can talk yourself into doing them, that’s a sign of wisdom. In other words, you don’t simply force yourself to do the duties. And you don’t say that you’ll do only what feels good to you already. You learn … 
  7. Conspiracies in the Mind
     … If greed, aversion, and delusion can dress themselves up as wisdom, as Dhamma, they can fool you very easily. So you have to be very careful. As for conspiracy theories outside, there probably are some conspiracies going on. As someone once said, just the fact that you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that people aren’t really conspiring against you. But even if there … 
  8. Noble Priorities
     … You have to develop compassion, you have to develop wisdom, you have to develop purity as part of the path. In other words, you have to be pure in your actions, acting, speaking, and thinking in ways that cause no harm to yourself or others. So it is a noble quest. You look at the world around us and ask yourself: How much nobility … 
  9. A Healthy Body Image
     … All the great ajaans were people who had enough wisdom to realize that this opportunity was something really valuable. And it was a good use of their bodies. So when you find that you need to fast, to do without food, to do without sleep in order to practice, don’t worry about what it’s going to do to your looks or do … 
  10. Concentration & Renunciation
     … It’s in developing this taste for pleasure, becoming more sophisticated in your palate you might say, that you develop wisdom, you develop discernment. And you become a better and better judge of which kinds of pleasures really are in accordance with the Dhamma and which ones are not. Which kinds of pains are in accordance with the Dhamma and which ones are not … 
  11. Success by Approximation
     … Concentration is very calm; wisdom is very clear; virtue can be pure. But their calm, clarity, and purity are all fabricated, whereas the calm, clarity, and purity of the goal are on another level altogether. You get there not by imitating the goal; you get there through a process of approximation. Even though awakening can happen in a moment, and you’re awakening to … 
  12. The Right Focal Length
     … So what wisdom have you developed in order to be able to withstand these things? What inner strengths have you developed so that you can say, “Well, I can live with the food that’s here. And I can live with the conditions that are here. And it’s okay. I don’t have to go way out of my way to create a … 
  13. Wise Endurance
     … The Buddha emphasizes its importance at the very beginning of the Ovāda-pāṭimokkha: “Khantī paramaṃ tapo titikkhā—Patient endurance is the highest austerity”—the burning away of defilements—but it has to be endurance with wisdom. We’re not talking about the endurance of a water buffalo. Water buffalos just put up with anything. They’re standing out in the sun; shelter is nearby … 
  14. Freedom from Fear
     … Years back, I read a statement by a Mahayana teacher saying that the wisdom that comes from the precepts is learning when to follow them and when not to follow them. But there’s nothing special about that discernment. It’s the way of the world in general. People are constantly making exceptions to the precepts. The Buddha himself never made those exceptions. The … 
  15. Rooted in Heedful Desire
     … that all wisdom begins with consciousness of death. Realizing that we’re going to die forces us to take stock of our lives and our actions, in light of the fact that we have a limited amount of time and it’s important to make the most of the time we’ve got. Of course, that reflection can go off in all sorts of … 
  16. Training like an Adult
     … In other words, we’re not trying to make a self or create a self around our virtue, around our restraint, around our renunciation, around our concentration, or around our wisdom. We’re doing these things because they work. So learn how to look at what you’re doing, learn how to read the results of what you’re doing, starting from the outside … 
  17. Testing Karma
     … doesn’t ask you stop desiring happiness. He simply says to try these different ways of looking for happiness. As you do that, your conception of happiness is going to change. Wisdom begins with this question: What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? Right there in that question you have the seed for the big issues of … 
  18. Dhamma Medicine
     … But it was a sign of the wisdom of the Buddha—and probably of Ven. Ananda or whoever was responsible for the fact— that we have all these discourses that describe who came to the Buddha with what particular problem. We get to see the Buddha as a doctor in action, treating his patients. Unfortunately, Pali is not a living language anymore, so there … 
  19. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … We’ve talked about how taking refuge in the Buddha means developing his qualities, taking him as an example in terms of wisdom, compassion, and purity. The same with the Sangha. You take the Sangha as an example. They practice well. They practice straightforwardly. For the sake of knowledge. They practice masterfully. You think about their example and it gives you inspiration. But what … 
  20. Refreshment
     … We tend to think wisdom is a matter of abstractions, but it’s not. It’s a matter of skill, skill in seeing what is the right thing to do, and why it’s right. Of course, primarily, we should be asking ourselves: What are the right things to do in the mind? You want to be able to watch what the mind is … 
  21. On Top of Your Actions
     … But if you realize that there are other beings in here, other voices, other opinions in there, try to figure out which ones are speaking wisdom right now and listen to them. Get to the observer who wants to watch the ones that are acting. That way you can use the committee of the mind to good advantage.
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