Search results for: "Wisdom"

  1. Page 2
  2. The Wisdom of Ardency
     … So I think it’s wise to look into why Ajaan Lee would identify ardency as the wisdom faculty. Ardency relates to wisdom in two ways. The first is that simply trying to do your best is wise. You start out with right view, realizing that the causes of suffering lie inside. They come from what you do. So the wise thing to do … 
  3. Survival Dhamma
     … But he did say that concentration bears great fruit if it’s fostered with virtue; wisdom bears great fruit if it’s fostered with concentration. Again, it is possible to have wisdom or discernment without strong concentration, but that sort of wisdom is very, very shallow. It doesn’t really dig down deep into the mind. It can be very easily erased—and very … 
  4. The Beginnings of Wisdom
     … They say that wisdom starts with seeing how everything is inconstant. Then, from that point, you look at your desire for happiness and you realize that you’ve got to tame it, you’ve got to tone it down: Just accept that things are inconstant; long-term happiness is impossible. So you grab what you can. Of course, as a good Buddhist, you’re … 
  5. The Wisdom of Wising Up
    The Wisdom of Wising Up February 15, 2011 When you meditate during a Dhamma talk, pay very little attention to the talk. Give your primary attention to the meditation, to what you’re doing right now: focusing on the breath. If you find the mind wandering off, bring it back. The talk helps you realize when you’ve wandered off. It acts like a … 
  6. Basic Wisdom
     … This is how our practice of generosity, virtue, and meditation leads to wisdom and discernment. And it’s how the wisdom and discernment lead to the end of suffering. They’re embodied in the four noble truths. Craving leads to suffering. That’s an issue of action and result. The path leads to the end of suffering. That’s another action and result. And … 
  7. Dhamma Medicine
     … This as an essential principle in wisdom. Most often, when we think about the Buddha’s wisdom, we go straight for the subtle or the paradoxical, the really complex teachings: emptiness, dependent co-arising, and Abhidhamma. We tend to forget that the Buddha’s wisdom starts with some pretty basic things. One is the question, “What when I do it will lead to my … 
  8. Strategic Wisdom
     … The Buddha has an interesting test for wisdom. He said it’s your ability—once you see that there’s something you like to do but it’s going to give bad results—your ability to talk yourself into not doing it. In other words, wisdom knows not just cause and effect, but also how to manipulate cause and effect in the mind. It … 
  9. Bare Attention
     … I was talking recently with someone who was reflecting on the whole problem of connecting compassion and wisdom. Often it seems as if they are two very different strains. In Buddhism you have the compassion strain where you have a big tender heart for all beings. And then there is the wisdom strain that tells you that there’s no self or that beings … 
  10. Mature Happiness
     … It requires mature wisdom to attain it. As the Buddha said, wisdom starts with the question, “What, when I do it, will lead to long-term welfare and happiness?” The wisdom there is, one, seeing that it’s up to your actions: in other words, happiness isn’t just going to come floating by. And two, long-term is possible and it’s better … 
  11. The Size of Your Eyes
     … Remember that this is what wisdom is all about. Sometimes, when you hear about Buddhist wisdom, you think about emptiness or not-self or statements about the world. But the Buddha was always talking about wisdom in terms of what you do. The original question for wisdom is, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? What, when … 
  12. Strengthening Concentration
     … That’s one of the main measures of your wisdom. We tend to think of wisdom as something that comes at the very end of the practice: those short, pointed statements that come one per page, with wide margins, in books about wisdom. But to really develop wisdom, you have to develop a pragmatic approach to how you’re going to get things to … 
  13. Borrowing the Buddha’s Wisdom
    **](https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/evening/2024/240404-borrowing-the-buddhas-wisdom.html) April 4, 2024 One thing I’ve noticed in Thailand when the ajaans get old, is that their Dhamma talks tend to focus more and more on the essentials. When you’re younger, you have the time and the energy to talk about all kinds of things. But as time gets … 
  14. The Buddha’s Wisdom
    When we hear the word “wisdom,” we usually think of wise sayings, the sort of thing you find in books where you have one per page. You read them, they put your mind at peace. They remind you of things that are important that you tend to forget, or things that you’re holding on to that you don’t need to. You read … 
  15. Wisdom as a Tool
     … But the insight is to be measured by its immediate impact, what it does.” Wisdom after all is strategic. So ask yourself: How would you take that insight and use it as a strategy? Ajaan Lee had a useful piece of advice for making sure that insights don’t get you carried away. He said, if you gain an insight, ask yourself to what … 
  16. Mindfulness & Perception
     … But when you learn how to get around it, that’s how wisdom develops. So wisdom is an issue of cause and effect. That’s why right view is expressed in terms of the four noble truths, the causes and the effects related to suffering and its end. You’re not just watching things arise and pass away. If you get to a stage … 
  17. No Dharma Without Karma
     … In other words, they teach you some wisdom. As the Buddha said, wisdom begins with the question, “What when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” The wisdom here lies in the fact that you realize that happiness comes as a result of your actions. Suffering will come as a result of your actions, too. So you have to … 
  18. A Post-goodness World?
     … They, in turn, reinforce the basic wisdom in that original question: “What when I do it will lead to my long term welfare and happiness?” The wisdom lies in realizing that your happiness is going to depend on your actions. There is such a thing as long-term, and long-term is better than short-term. You have the choice as to what kind … 
  19. Training in Happiness
     … That’s where real wisdom lies. Wisdom doesn’t lie in memorizing a lot of information or even spouting a lot of the things that the Buddha said. Wisdom lies in learning how to manage your own mind. When you realize that meditating will make you happy, make the mind solid, trust worthy, reliable, then you learn how to talk yourself into wanting to … 
  20. Practical Wisdom
    Usually when we think about Buddhist wisdom, we think about things that are fairly abstract: emptiness, not-self, dependent co-arising. But the Buddha often explained wisdom in much simpler terms. For instance, there’s a verse where he says that a wise man sees that if there’s a greater happiness that comes from abandoning a lesser happiness, he’ll abandon the lesser … 
  21. The Walls of Ignorance
     … And the qualities he developed — truthfulness, compassion, wisdom, and purity — were the way to the end of suffering. He left us the Dhamma as his guide in how to develop those qualities. And he always based his approach in developing compassion, wisdom, and purity on the idea that we want happiness. He never assumed that we’re basically good or basically bad. He builds … 
  22. Load next page...