Search results for: "Persistence"
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- Undefeatism… You’ll see that other voices will come up and say, “Well, I don’t know if I can do this.” Ask yourself, who are those voices? What do they want? You’ve got to maintain the determination to stay, the persistence. Then you examine it: What would be involved in having a daily practice? What would some of the problems be? What arguments …
- A New Framework… things like conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. You have to be very alive to the difference that your choices make. This is where we push ourselves out of the bell curve: by being very careful about what we do. Ardent: This is usually translated in terms of right effort. You recognize what’s skillful, you recognize what’s unskillful, and you do what you …
- The Gift of Meditation… analysis of qualities; persistence, which means right effort; and rapture. These things energize you. In other words, you analyze what’s going on in the mind to see what’s skillful and what’s not skillful. If you see that something is skillful, you try to encourage it; if it’s not, you try to discourage it. This means, on the one hand, if …
- Maintenance Work… So these qualities of consistency, persistence, stick-to-it-ivedness, training the mind so it can really trust itself, depend on itself, rely on itself in the midst of all the inconstancy in the world: These are the qualities that make all the difference in the meditation.
- The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough… That, in turn, moves into persistence when you actually try to abandon what’s unskillful and develop what is skillful. When you do this skillfully, you get a sense of fullness, a sense of rapture. And then the mind settles down into the remaining factors for awakening: calm, deeper concentration, and equanimity. The equanimity itself, though, is not the end. The Buddha talks about …
- Change Your Habits… Strength comes from your conviction, your persistence, your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment. Figuring things out is the ultimate strength. Of the five strengths the Buddha talked about, discernment is the big one. Ajaan Lee has a nice quote. He says for a person with discernment, all you need is a machete and you can set yourself up in life. Even if you have …
- Everything Gathers Around the Breath… mindfulness, analysis of qualities, and persistence. In other words, you remember to stay on topic and you analyze what’s going on, what’s working and what’s not working. You make an effort to do what’s skillful. That effort then gives rise to rapture, serenity, concentration, and equanimity. As you deal with the breath in these ways, you’re developing the factors …
- Four Bases of Success… And if it’s not comfortable, you use your effort and persistence to make it comfortable. Try longer breathing, shorter breathing, fast breathing, slow breathing, heavy, light, deep, shallow. At the same time, use effort on the mind. If the mind is wandering off, you bring it right back. It wanders off again, you bring it right back again. You’ve got to show …
- Compunction & Awe… It’s not just telling you, “Don’t do these things.” He teaches you the mental strengths you need—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—so that you’re strong enough to resist the temptation to do something unskillful, and you can feel more and more secure in yourself. The result of having confidence of this sort is that you behave in a moral way …
- Ripples Go Far… You’ve got to be persistent. You’ve got to put effort into this. You’ve got to be mindful to remember what you need to do and what you really have learned from your many years of experience. Develop the members that are focused, the members that are discerning. These are the strengths in your mind. These are the committee members that you …
- Doing the Practice… That requires mindfulness, it requires alertness, discernment, persistence, all of which are qualities we can train in, we can develop in the mind. Staying focused on the breath, staying with the body in the present moment, is a good way of developing these qualities. To begin with, it’s very basic. Breath is something you always have as long as you’re alive. The …
- Firmly Intent… Try to be as consistent and as thorough and as persistent as possible in those messages. Those messages, of course, will raise some questions. How do you go about being aware of the whole body as you breathe in? Or go even further back: What is the breath? Where does it start? Where does it end? You may have some preconceived notions, but you …
- Learning Through Healing… The more persistence you show in trying to get the mind to settle down, the more you’re going to learn about the mind. And especially if you’re doing the meditation not just while you’re sitting here, but also as you try to keep the mind centered, alert, and equanimous as you go through the day. You begin to see the different …
- The Dhamma Bucket List… Generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity: Which of these qualities is lacking in your mind? See if you can squeeze some of that out of your activities. And how would you go about developing those qualities? You can develop them in daily life. You can develop them by making up your mind you’re going to make a special donation …
- When You’ve Played Enough With the Breath… analysis of qualities, persistence, rapture. If it needs to be calmed down, you focus on the more calming factors: calm, concentration, equanimity. In other cases, though, he treats the factors for awakening in a linear way. You start out mindful and alert and then you go straight for the analysis of qualities—analyzing what’s skillful and unskillful in your mind—and then make …
- Analysis of Dhammas… That’s how you develop this factor, because it connects with the next one, which is persistence, i.e., right effort. Once you know that something is skillful, you try to develop it. If it’s unskillful, you try to drop it. You’re not learning these things simply, as they say in Thai, to decorate your mind. You’re learning these distinctions so …
- How to Look, How to Listen… It may be slower than you thought it should be or may put out a few extra shoots that you didn’t expect, but as long as you’re putting the right conditions in, in terms of your sensitivity and your desire, your persistence, your intent, and your ingenuity—the four qualities that lead to success—the plant’s bound to grow, and it …
- Making a Refuge… by your principles; you hold by your precepts. You hold by your determination not to harm anyone. Of course, that means looking constantly into your mind. That’s the next step: persistence. If you see anything that’s going to be unskillful—that if you followed through with it, it would lead to unskillful behavior—you’ve got to figure out some way to …
- Stick with It… This quality of persistence is what makes a difference in your practice. If you’re with the breath for a little bit, then wander away, come back for a little bit, wander away, it’s no different from any other thoughts you may have in the course of the day. When you meditate, you’re trying to see what happens to the mind when …
- True Friends… So have some patience, but also be persistent. Just keep coming back, coming back, coming back. This is a skill that you’re going to need: getting some control over your mind, some control over your thoughts. It’s so easy for your thoughts to run wild, and you can make yourself miserable. Years back we had a meditation session. We were sitting outside …
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