Search results for: "Conviction"
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- Skillful Thinking… Those topics help foster conviction in the path and in your own ability to practice the path. After all, the members of the noble Sangha are human beings just like you. They started out with all the strengths and weakness you have and somehow they were able to use those strengths to overcome those weaknesses in the face of all kinds of odds. If …
- Balancing Effort & Patience… Right view starts out with conviction in the principle of karma: that the pleasure and the pain, the happiness and the sorrow you experience, depend on your actions. They come from your actions. Your actions are real. You’re the one responsible for doing them, and they give results in line with the intention. That’s how much you’re asked to believe. Now …
- Circumspection… You try to associate with people who have conviction, people who are generous, people who are virtuous, people who are wise and discerning. Those are the people you want to hang out with. Those are the people you want to open up to, to talk about what’s in your heart. But as for people who don’t meet those standards, you’ve got …
- Magha Puja: Showing Respect with the Practice… And at this point, you develop a more certain refuge, a more solid refuge inside, when that refuge gets really solidified to the point where you have no more doubts about it because your faith and conviction in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha have been confirmed, that these teachings, these practices really do lead to a deathless freedom from suffering. Then you …
- Focus on the Precepts… As for larger principles, the Buddha uses them for issues like contentment, non-entanglement, persistence, conviction, but he doesn’t translate the precepts into larger principles, because you can get into trouble that way. For example, some people say the first precept teaches the sanctity of life. Well, if life is sacred, then you can use that principle to justify lying to protect some …
- Look in the Mirror… Now, what’s interesting is the Buddha applies this analysis not only to unskillful mental states, but, ultimately, also to the path—as when he has you analyze the five faculties: Conviction has its allure, but it has its drawbacks. Persistence has its allure, but it has its drawbacks. The same with mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. Even these are things you have to gain …
- Merit: Goodness of the Heart… Who would he teach first? He first thought of teaching his old teachers, the ones who had taught him about conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment as they understood it. He wanted to share what he’d found with them. But it was too late. They had been reborn in states of the cosmos where they were out of touch with everybody. Then he thought …
- Being Reliable… You get it by being generous, by being virtuous, by developing thoughts of goodwill, by developing your powers of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are all things that benefit you and other people. With things like generosity and virtue, the help really obvious. With goodwill it’s obvious. When you’re mindful to be looking for happiness inside, you’re not taking …
- Glad to Be Here… Ajaan Suwat would talk about this very often. “Come with a sense,” he would say, “of conviction that this is a good thing to be doing, and confidence that if you master this skill, it’ll take you far. And that you do have the ability to master it.” This is why it’s important to have a cheerful attitude as you do this …
- Stupid about Pleasure… Until discernment is strong, everything else — your conviction, your persistence, your mindfulness, your concentration — can sway back and forth. You may like your concentration, but you can also like whatever else life has to offer. You treat your life like a big flower garden or a vast buffet where you can choose all the things you want. That’s your preferred attitude. You come …
- Meaning & Happiness… It requires determination; it requires conviction; it requires circumspection. Be very careful about how you choose your models. Don’t listen to just anybody. Once you’ve chosen a good model, see what’s getting in the way of following that model. Be willing to give up the things that get in the way. Hold onto the things that are maybe difficult to do …
- Dharma Warriors… Develop a sense of conviction, develop a sense of feeling inspired by the meditation as you sit down to do it. So if you find yourself sitting here wondering why you’re doing this, looking at your breath for another whole hour after you’ve been looking at the breath for the whole day, remind yourself that this is something you really want to …
- Building Character… until he became a Buddha, he was born for the sake of mastering these perfections. The list of good spiritual materialism in the suttas is the list of the noble treasures: conviction, a sense of shame, a sense of compunction, virtue, learning, generosity, and discernment. These are treasures that, as you build them into your mind, are there for a good long time. No …
- Fire… But even on the way there, the treasures that we build into the mind – our conviction, our virtue, our sense of shame and compunction, our learning, our generosity, our discernment – are treasures that no outside fire can burn. Just make sure your inner fires don’t burn them up, and you’ll be safe.
- Push Yourself… In the meantime, you have to go on conviction. It’s not the case that in every day and in every way, the practice is going to get better and better, easier and easier. There will be ups and downs. There will be long fallow periods. How you handle those fallow periods is what tests your mettle as a meditator. You have to learn …
- A Seeker’s Habits… You want to develop conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. You work on these, and as you work on these, they begin to make a difference. The one thing he asked you to believe was in the principle of karma: that what you do makes a difference. So as you’re sitting here meditating, it’s not that you’re sitting here waiting for something …
- Courage… He was able to stir up within himself the conviction that even though there is pain in the practice, you can’t let that push you off track. The same goes for mental pain—the aversion, the emotional difficulties that we all face in the practice, especially when you find yourself running up against some pretty strong defilements and they seem just totally stubborn …
- You Can’t Eat the Buddha… s showing us: This is how you learn how to feed yourselves so that you eventually reach the point where you don’t need to feed anymore. You develop internal strengths: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are qualities we all have to some extent, but we’ve got to learn how to strengthen them, and they in turn make the mind stronger …
- Acceptance Isn’t the Issue… how to have conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, how to be generous, how to be virtuous, how to develop your discernment. These are things we can learn from one another. The people who embody these qualities are the people we should search out; we should learn from them and emulate them. It’s not the case that we accept people or don’t …
- Something Good to Cling to… That helps you develop the strengths that are needed, starting with the strength of conviction that, yes, your actions really do make a difference. And because they make a difference, you have to be very careful about the mind, because actions come from the mind. Persistence: sticking with what you know is skillful, trying to let go of what’s not. Mindfulness: The Buddha …
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