Search results for: "Conviction"

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  2. Conceit
     … Once you’ve got that amount of conviction, drop the “you,” drop the “me,” the “I,” and then set to work. That right there makes it a lot easier. And this way you become your own best friend.
  3. How the Tree Leans
     … Whereas if you develop the treasures of the mind—virtue, conviction, a healthy sense of shame, a healthy sense of compunction, learning, generosity, discernment: These things lean the mind in the right direction. Even more so, there’s the noble eightfold path. Why do you want the mind to lean? Well, think of a tree. There are trees that are leaning over all the … 
  4. Meditation as Play
     … The Buddha talks about how we go from suffering to getting a sense of conviction in the teachings. The very next step after that is joy. So remember, you’re here to enjoy the meditation. There are so many techniques where they tell you, “Simply follow the instructions. Do what you’re told. Don’t do any thinking.” That gets very grim very fast … 
  5. A Post for the Heart
     … So what do we have inside that’s really firm? Well, part of it’s our conviction that our actions are what really matter, and that we can learn how to develop a refuge inside so we don’t need to depend on things being a certain way. If this has to be that way, and that has to be this way, the mind … 
  6. Nurturing Your Inner Adult
     … the faculties of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. The word for faculty, indriya, is related to Indra, the king of the gods, the dominant deva. The implication is that you want these faculties to be dominant in your mind, you want them to have power. They’re your inner adults. So you use the breath to put them on top, to keep them … 
  7. Shame & Compunction
     … people who have conviction in the principle of karma, people who are generous, virtuous. Listen to what they have to say. The second thing that’s not noticed is that the Buddha is not saying just to observe your own behavior. There are passages where he says you test the Dhamma on your own by putting it into practice and seeing what results. He … 
  8. Self Esteem
     … As the Buddha emphasized, the only way out of this sense of terror or dismay is to develop strong confidence and conviction in the principle of karma, the principle of action. And that requires that you be willing to learn what’s skillful, what’s not. So when you see the mind refusing to look at mistakes you’ve made in the past, you … 
  9. Evaluation
     … it’s not simply thinking about the fact that there **are devas, but thinking more about the qualities that make them devas. You realize you’ve got those qualities in yourself: conviction, virtue, generosity, learning the Dhamma, discernment. They may not be fully developed, but they’re there. Or you can think thoughts of goodwill. This is especially useful to pull you out of … 
  10. Dangers Outside & In
     … You have conviction in the Buddha’s teachings because you realize that these teachings protect you from danger. And you develop persistence: You work on developing the good qualities that the Buddha said will lead to happiness and abandoning the unskillful ones that lead to unhappiness. You have to keep this in mind, so you’re mindful. Then you get the mind into concentration … 
  11. Delight in the Breath
     … He stuck with that conviction: There’s got to be something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die. He found it inside. We’re following his example. He’s made a lot of the errors for us. Of course, we’re still going to make errors ourselves, though. We listen to his teachings and can come up with all kinds … 
  12. Taking the Long View
     … When the Buddha talks about the treasures that we can develop in the mind— things like conviction, virtue, shame, compunction, learning, generosity, and discernment—we can also develop their opposites. So the question is, which side do you want to take with you—the skillful side or the unskillful side? Because these are the things that you can take with you. The things of … 
  13. Looking for Happiness Inside
     … Sariputta, “Do you believe that by developing the five faculties of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment that they lead to the Deathless?” And Sariputta says, “No, I don’t believe that. I know.” Try to get to the point where you can say that, too.
  14. Undividing the Mind
     … It means you have to use all of the strengths you have—the strength of conviction, the strength of persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—to figure out: What is the appropriate right effort right now? How much effort? What kind of effort? That way you won’t feel the regret later on that maybe if you’d developed those strengths a little bit more, they … 
  15. Meaning in a Meaningless Universe
     … If you decide to take the Buddha’s path, you start out with conviction in the four noble truths, and you try to apply that. That turns everything into the path. When the path really comes together, it leads to something that is beyond. You have your first taste that it really is true what the Buddha said: There is this dimension outside of … 
  16. Potentials
     … It’s in this sense that conviction in the Buddha’s awakening is helpful. He shows the potential of what a human being can do. Of course, he was a very special human being, but the qualities he had developed to make himself special are qualities we all have in potential form. Resolution, ardency, heedfulness: These are things that we already have to some … 
  17. Good Eating
     … It gives you the conviction that you can do this, that you are a worthy person. Virtue is also a good form of food for the mind. When you make up your mind that you’re not going to harm yourself, you’re not going to harm other people, and you stick to that promise that you make to yourself, you can look at … 
  18. The Wall of Discernment
     … compunction as a moat and a road around the fortress. You need mindfulness as the gatekeeper, and right effort as the soldiers, knowledge of the Dhamma as their weapons, concentration as their food. Conviction is the foundation post. All of these things working together enable discernment to do its work to make sure that your fortress, and the protection it provides, can be complete.
  19. Make a Difference
    When we first hear the four noble truths and we have a sense of conviction that they’re true, the proper response is to see them as an opportunity to make a difference. You realize you’ve been acting in ways that lead to suffering, but you don’t have to continue in those ways. This means that the Buddha doesn’t simply teach … 
  20. Allies
     … Start out with a sense of conviction in what you’re doing. The skill we’re working on here has been something that has been handed down for the past 2,600 years because it works. The people who found that it works are people of integrity, people we can trust. What we’re doing is learning how to use this skill to become … 
  21. Abandoning Effluents (1)
     … Where is the suffering? What is the suffering? What’s the best way to relate to that? What’s causing the suffering? What’s the best way to relate to that? What actions can lead to the end of suffering? What’s the best way to relate to those? That line of thinking, even though it’s not knowledge yet, at least is conviction … 
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