Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Strengthening Concentration… Without the strength of the concentration, your discernment won’t be strong enough to deal with the defilements. The two of them have to work together: Your discernment strengthens your concentration; your concentration strengthens your discernment. Upasika Kee’s image is of washing your hands. Your left hand has to wash your right, and your right hand washes your left. That’s how they …
- Path & Goal… And it’s in the refinement that your discernment gets developed. You think of the path: The image the Buddha gives is of the continental shelf off of India. There’s a gradual slope as you go out and then a sudden drop. The gradual slope is the gradual development of your discernment as you get more and more discerning as to what’s …
- Refuge & Strength… That relates to another strength, which is the strength of discernment. The Buddha puts that strength at the very end of the list of strengths, but they all work together. As you discern what your actions really accomplish, you begin to notice which ones are skillful in which situations, and which ones are not. That becomes your own knowledge, your own strength. So take …
- The Lotus in the Mud… But by going through that mud and analyzing these things and understanding them is what gives rise to the discernment that can cleanse the mind. As the Buddha said, the mind is cleansed through discernment. It’s not cleansed through concentration. Concentration allows the discernment to do its work, gives it a place to stand, but the discernment is what makes all the difference …
- Factors for Awakening… If you discern that something is unskillful, you try to make it go away faster. If something skillful is not there, you try to give rise to it, and then you prevent it from going away. Now, as you do this properly with the breath as you’re settling down, a sense of rapture or refreshment will arise. That’s the next of the …
- Mental Movements… It wasn’t until toward the end that Ajaan Mun sort of gave him a kick and said, “Okay, now it’s time to work on developing discernment.” Now, you do develop discernment to some extent as you’re practicing concentration. You can’t develop concentration without it. There’s a certain level of discernment that’s needed to get the mind to settle …
- Clinging to Karmic Diarrhea… You have to learn how to use your powers of evaluation to get to know your own mind, and this is a necessary part of developing discernment. We’re here to comprehend suffering. That’s one of the duties we have with regard to the four noble truths—and, as the Buddha said, to comprehend means to develop a sense of dispassion. You might …
- Skillful Fears… You’re not using your discernment. In other words, you’re trying to fight off things, but if you learn how to side-step them, you don’t have to fight them off.” When you lay claim to things in the body or to things in the mind, and then they get painful, you’ve set yourself up for a problem. But if you …
- Life’s First Question… How do you talk yourself out of doing it? There’s a strategic element to his teachings on wisdom and discernment. Again, very direct, very simple. It all comes down to this principle of action and result. This is why discernment is based on virtue, by way of concentration: in other words, learning how to look at your actions and being able to admit …
- Skills to Make You Free… The next two skills are that you train yourself in virtue and train yourself in discernment: your ability to see what’s going on in the mind, what choices you’re making, which ones are skillful, which ones are not. The final two skills are the ability not to let the mind be overcome by pain and not to let the mind be overcome …
- Inner Refuge… We have a certain amount of virtue, a certain amount of concentration and discernment. Our refuge lies in developing these things to the point where we really can depend on them, when they’re all-around. As Ajaan Mun once said, you have to make your practice in the shape of a circle. Keep going around and around and around in a circle and …
- One Thing Only… But you’re not going to gain discernment that way. You gain discernment from making choices and then learning how to read them. It’s not the case that you’ll go immediately to total understanding of what’s the past karma you’re experiencing right now and what’s the present karma. You learn bit by bit. Start by trying to get the …
- Always Observe Your Mind… The Buddha talks about four qualities conducive to a good rebirth—conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment—and there’s a lot of overlap between that list and the list of factors in the path to the end of suffering, especially in the virtue and the discernment. More basically, there’s overlap in the sense that, as you’re following those four practices that lead …
- Born for the Perfections… generosity or giving, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. The list doesn’t have a progressive nature, which is why I like to discuss it under the headings of determination. There are four qualities that go into determination, and the different *paramis *can fit neatly under the four qualities. The first determination is discernment. That includes the perfection of discernment …
- Do You Want to Stop Suffering?… But your discernment has to get more and more refined for you to see it, which is why the path is gradual. The awakening is sudden. Once the discernment sees this, it sees it through and through and knows for sure, without any doubt that there is a deathless. But for your discernment to get to that level of subtlety, you have to train …
- Strength in Humor… You can make your strength more efficient by using discernment; in other words, realizing which things you have to carry, which things you can let go of, which things you have to take on as responsibilities, and which things you don’t. An important part of discernment is having a sense of humor. Even in bleak situations, it’s important to find the humor …
- A Good Place to Stay… That, too, is an important part of gaining discernment into the mind. If the mind’s in a foul mood, it’s not going to want to listen to your discernment because, basically, what discernment’s going to see is areas you’ve been making mistakes—your bad habits, especially your bad mental habits. And very few of us like to admit our bad …
- It’s What You Give… The same with mindfulness, concentration, discernment: It’s what you put into it that makes all the difference. With the discernment, you have to ask questions. Your mind gets into concentration, things are very still and very pleasant, and you could just sit there. But as Ajaan Mahā Boowa says, it’s like getting all the raw materials for a house gathered together and …
- The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough… Then, based on concentration, you have to develop discernment, and that’s a different practice entirely. It’s based on concentration, and there’s an element of discernment that comes into concentration, but you really have to emphasize the discernment part if the concentration based on the brahmaviharas is going to take you to genuine awakening. Specifically, you develop the seven factors for awakening …
- Learning & Respect… I was reading something recently where someone was saying, “Why would the Buddha want you to have your mind still, when he wants you to develop discernment? You have to think in order to gain discernment.” Well, there is the discernment that comes from thinking, and it’s an important part of learning. You learn something new, and then you think about how it …
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