Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. Good Heart, Good Mind
     … But it’s going to require some discernment, the discernment that comes from sticking with it. When Ajaan Lee explains the different factors of mindfulness, for him the discernment faculty is ardency, which is another word for persistence, realizing that the ability to get your mind to settle down is so important that you should keep at it regardless of how long it takes … 
  3. Discernment & Determination
     … The four are discernment, truth, generosity, and calm. Notice that discernment comes first because the discernment is what sees there’s a certain job that needs to be done—a quality that needs to be developed or certain qualities that need to be overcome—something to be accomplished. We’re not just sitting here enjoying the present moment. The present moment is a means … 
  4. Producing Discernment
     … This is how your discernment grows. This is why we say it’s your discernment. You borrow the Buddha’s discernment to help you get some ideas of what’s possible. You borrow the discernment of the ajaans, like Ajaan Lee’s maps of the ways the breath can go. Or you may have learned some other maps. Chi Gong and Tai Chi will … 
  5. Helping Others
    The Canon often presents a linear picture of the practice, where you work on your virtue and then you work on your concentration and then on your discernment. We like to think it’s nice and stepwise that way. But, in practice, we discover that you have to work on all three at once. Virtue without concentration gets very dry after a while and … 
  6. Concentration Nurtured with Virtue
     … So the practice of virtue, if you take it seriously and do it skillfully, develops a lot of discernment. It requires discernment. Ajaan Lee makes the point that people sometimes practice virtue to help their concentration, and practice concentration to help their discernment, but they don’t think about turning around and using their discernment to help with their virtue and concentration, which is … 
  7. Clearing a Space
     … So, the question is, how are you going to use your discernment to get around that question? How are you going to use your discernment to maintain your precepts even when it gets difficult? The same when practicing concentration. You have to use a certain amount of discernment just to get the mind to settle down. Figuring out which object you’re going to … 
  8. Reflect
     … So, the evaluation is part of the concentration, but it’s also the beginning of discernment. As the Buddha said, there is no jhana without discernment, there’s no discernment without jhana. Right here is where it happens. Ideally, your concentration should contain that element of discernment, but it doesn’t happen to be that way in every case. You’ve got to notice … 
  9. Pro-self, Pro-help
     … It’s important to realize the extent to which wisdom or discernment requires action. You see this in another one of the Buddha’s teachings, which is the list of five strengths. They start with conviction; then there’s persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. Discernment comes at the end. But as the Buddha says, to develop any of these requires heedfulness, which contains an … 
  10. Discernment Is in the Details
     … All of these are areas where you have to use your own discernment. Exercise your discernment; it’s in the details of these things that your discernment gets sharpened. It’s only through exercising your powers of discernment, your powers of evaluation, that you gain a sense of when you can trust them. So don’t be too quick to rush through the details … 
  11. Study & Practice
     … That’s when you really can say that you’re discerning. Otherwise, you just have the names of discernment, the ideas of discernment. But when you actually encounter what’s going on in your mind—both the good and the not-so-good things—and decide you’re not just going to sit there and allow them to run rampant as they have in … 
  12. Four Determinations
     … The first, the Buddha says, is “not to neglect discernment.” What does it mean to neglect discernment? It implies that you have some discernment already, but you’re not paying attention to it. Remember that the basic principle of discernment is that you look at your actions to see which of your actions lead to long-term welfare and happiness, and which ones lead … 
  13. The Wisdom of Dualities
     … He said, “This is supposed to be the discernment faculty, and yet it talks about skillful and unskillful actions.” I myself was surprised at the translator’s “and yet,” because that’s what discernment is: seeing what’s skillful to do. The translator was probably assuming that discernment meant seeing things as inconstant, stressful, and not-self. But that’s only one aspect of … 
  14. Discerning the Middle Way
     … But it requires a lot of discernment. This is why in every description of the path discernment is necessary. And why all the teachers talk about how discernment is what makes all the difference. This is not just the discernment that comes at the end of the path. You have to exercise it all along the way as you figure out what’s just … 
  15. Virtue, Concentration, Discernment
    There’s a passage in one of his books where Ajaan Lee blurs the distinctions between virtue, concentration, and discernment. Concentration, he says, is a developed aspect of virtue: As you’re sitting here, you’re not only observing the five precepts outside, but as you get the mind into concentration you’re observing them inside. You’re not killing your good qualities; you … 
  16. Discernment Through Right Effort
     … After all, you’ve got to develop your own discernment there—your own sense of responsibility. Otherwise, the path just doesn’t work. These are some of the ways in which discernment does get developed when you put forth right effort—putting forth whatever effort you can and then making it right. That’s how discernment grows. That’s how it actually achieves its … 
  17. Developing Discernment
     … That’s how you exercise your discernment. Because with discernment, we can’t wait until the very end of the path and say, “Now that my virtue is perfect, now that my concentration is perfect, I’ll start thinking about discernment.” It doesn’t work that way. Everything you do in the path, even beginning with generosity—your ability to talk yourself into being … 
  18. Strength of Discernment
    The Buddha defines the strength of discernment as the discernment of arising and passing away that’s penetrative, noble, leading to the right ending of stress. Some people hear that definition and they focus on the arising and passing away, thinking that all you have to do is just sit back and watch things coming and going, and agreeing with the Buddha that, Yes … 
  19. Interested in the Breath
     … But it’s in actually doing the practice here that we gain discernment. How do you gain discernment watching the breath? There are two big issues that are related to gaining discernment with any skill, and they apply particularly to gaining discernment into the mind. Practicing with the breath is like practicing the piano. You have to be observant about what you’re doing … 
  20. Hitting a Wall
     … But the point of putting the factors of the path in the order they are helps you understand that your discernment develops as you develop all the eight factors. It’s not that you do discernment and then you drop it and then you do resolve or do your virtue. You bring the discernment to the virtue, and the virtue teaches your discernment to … 
  21. Patience & Urgency
     … It’s in this way that you strengthen your discernment. Because it’s not always the case that you can wait until the discernment is fully strong and ready to tackle the big issues. You have to develop your discernment bit by bit, all along the way. A good comparison is with lifting weights. You can’t just sit around and wait until your … 
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