Search results for: "Wisdom"
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- Factors for Awakening… What are the needs of body and what are the needs of the mind? How can you meet them so that they’ll be willing to stay together? Seeing this distinction is analysis of qualities, which is the wisdom faculty in the factors for awakening. You’re bringing right view to bear on your mindfulness practice. With persistence, you’re bringing right effort. You …
- Don’t Believe Everything You Feel… The phrase we chanted just now—chandam janeti, generating desire to abandon what’s unskillful and to develop what’s skillful—is a sign of wisdom and discernment. When there are things you feel like doing that you know are going to be harmful, you’re able to talk yourself out of doing them. As for things you know are good for you, but …
- In Your Power… Which means you have to try to find a path that leads to wisdom, to knowledge. That’s what the noble eightfold path is all about: letting go of qualities that get in the way of knowledge. You abandon wrong speech, abandon wrong action, abandon wrong livelihood. Why is that? Because those things make you dishonest. When your mind is dishonest, its left hand …
- Don’t Practice in a Row… As Ajaan Lee points out, that’s the beginning of your wisdom and discernment, as you learn to evaluate what’s working in your concentration, what’s not working, and what you might do to make it work. You also need discernment to help you with your virtue. There are times when what you want to do, what you like to do, is going …
- Totally Secure… One of the definitions of discernment or wisdom is all-around knowing of this process of fabrication. As you start by looking at what you do, and what you say, you see that this is why we have those precepts. What are you doing with your body? What are you creating? What are you creating with your words? It’s interesting to reflect that …
- Using Right View Rightly… That’s why Ajaan Lee says that when you’re practicing mindfulness, ardency is the factor of wisdom, the factor of discernment. In other words, you don’t simply notice skillful and unskillful qualities, but you realize the wise thing to do with the skillful qualities is to develop them. The wise thing to do with the unskillful qualities is to abandon them. Or …
- Only One Person… You want be a generator of virtue, you want to be a generator of generosity, a generator of concentration and wisdom. That’s how these things come out into the world. You’ve got the source right here. So grant yourself that dignity: that you’re going to create a good source in every possible opportunity. Now, generosity has its limitations. You can have …
- An Admirable Friend — In Memory of Luang Loong… You see the wisdom of generosity. As Ajaan Lee used to say, it’s like getting a coconut. You squeeze the milk out of the coconut flesh and you throw the dregs away. You take the milk. In the same way, when you give something away, you’ve basically squeezed all the good out of that thing. The object itself is like the dregs …
- Resistance… It’s also an act of wisdom. When a particular reflection or contemplation brings up uncomfortable issues in the mind, realize that that’s part of its purpose: to bring up those uncomfortable reactions, if they’re there. If they’re not there, you’re fine. If they are there, you want to know. As I said, sometimes when they come up they just …
- Restraint Leads to Freedom… When you look at something, why are you looking at it? Who’s doing the looking? For what purpose? Is greed doing the looking? Anger? Delusion? Or is wisdom doing the looking? What is your purpose in doing these things? This is one of the insights you’re going to have to develop as you meditate as it gets deeper and deeper and more …
- Right Resolve… Mindfulness is like the gatekeeper; wisdom is like the smooth walls that nobody can climb up to cause danger. And right concentration is like the food you have stored away to keep yourself nourished. This way, as you develop skill in your pursuit of happiness, you find that you need fewer things outside. There’s less need to compete with others over things outside …
- Sensitivity Through Generosity… This principle of generosity is an important foundation for wisdom. In other words, learning how to be generous, learning how to accept generosity, learning how to take care of other people’s generosity – not just in terms of things but in terms of the things they do for you: That kind of sensitivity then gets turned into your own sensitivity to yourself – what the …
- Respect for Tranquility & Insight… In that way, you borrow the Buddha’s wisdom. But you also want to learn to create some of your own. For that, you need to get the mind really, really quiet so that you can step out of the formation of thoughts and see them as something other. We live so much in our thought worlds, and we often can use one thought …
- Potentials… do something with our feelings, with our perceptions, with thought fabrications, and with consciousness. That’s how we create the path: looking for the potentials we have here and developing them. Wisdom isn’t simply a matter of accepting things. It’s seeing potentials and learning how to develop them in the proper way. There are some unskillful potentials, like the potential for sensuality …
- Good Eating… This is why the Buddha said that the beginning of wisdom is when you ask someone who knows, “What, when I do it, will be for my long-term welfare and happiness?” In other words, you’re going to learn to feed off of your actions, and you try to feed off actions that give long-term gratification, rather than just a short, nice …
- Slowing Down to Look… This is one of the problems of translating pañña, the word for discernment, as “wisdom.” We tend to think of wisdom as being wise sayings, and you can memorize lots and lots of wise sayings, but then the wise question is: When are they relevant? Discernment is a matter of seeing things as they actually arise, seeing what’s skillful and what’s unskillful …
- Make a Difference… in a better position to pass judgment on them. We hear so often that we’re not supposed to be passing judgment. Well, that idea doesn’t come from the Buddha. Wisdom, discernment, for him, is a matter of passing judgment: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What will lead to my long-term harm and …
- Training the Whole Mind… It rearranges all the power balances in the mind so that truth begins to take over, wisdom begins to take over, discernment begins to take charge. These become the big powers in your mind, the ones in charge of any discussion. When that’s the kind of mind you have, it’s a really good mind to live in. We live in physical places …
- Bowing & Chanting… In case of the Buddha, those qualities are compassion, wisdom, and purity. If you really want to take refuge, you try to bring these qualities into yourself. The Dhamma teaches virtue, concentration, discernment, release. The Sangha represents your willingness to practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma—in other words, not just in accordance with your preferences, but in accordance with what the …
- Mindfulness of Death… But you want to make sure that your goodness survives, your wisdom survives. Your mindfulness, your alertness, your ardency: You want them to be right there. You want them to be habitual. The more they become habitual, the more likely you’ll be able to draw on them. So as you’re sitting down under the trees, walking through the orchard, you don’t …
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