Search results for: "Discernment"
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- The Need for a Purpose… Someone asked the Buddha one time, “What is virtue for?” “Virtue is for the sake of developing concentration.” “What’s concentration for?” “Concentration is for the sake of developing discernment.” “What’s discernment for?” “For the sake of release.” “What’s release for?” “For the sake of unbinding, total freedom.” “What’s unbinding for?” The Buddha said, “No, stop there. Your question is going …
- Skillful Thinking… This is the Buddha’s guideline for discernment. Actually his guidelines go back even more simply than that, pointing out that there are actions that you may like to do that give good results, actions that you may like to do that give bad results, actions you don’t like to do that give good results, and actions you don’t like to do …
- Determined to Be Undefeated by Death… The first is that you use your discernment: Remind yourself of why it’s good to settle down, the benefits of getting the mind to rest and to have a chance to see itself clearly as it’s reflected in the breath, and whatever other ways you can think will make yourself want to stay here. The second step is that you’re true …
- Magha Puja… Those two activities will help you cleanse the mind, so that the mind will be bright, a light to itself, filled with the light of discernment. Those candles that we were carrying around the sala tonight: Those stand for discernment. The flowers stand for concentration, the mind that blooms. The incense stands for virtue. As the texts say, the fragrance of virtue is greater …
- Mindful Judgment… It says we don’t discern suffering, which sounds kind of strange. After all, everybody knows that there’s suffering. It’s one of the most basic facts of being aware. Being a conscious agent, we’re bound to come into pain, suffering, mental suffering, physical pain. These things just right here, but we don’t really discern them. To “discern” them means to …
- A Willingness to Learn… And in the course of doing that, it gains a lot of discernment. And this is the discernment that ultimately leads to release, the total cure. There are passages where the Buddha talks about getting the mind into strong states of concentration and then staying there long enough, not being in a hurry to jump onto the next stage. Otherwise, you get lost in …
- Food for the Mind… And when concentration is strong, discernment develops. When discernment is strong, the mind is released. So these five qualities—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment—are the qualities that give strength to the mind. And in particular concentration. There are many passages in the Canon where the Buddha talks about the mind feeding on the rapture of jhāna, or of jhāna as being provisions …
- Still… After all, we’ve read so much about how you don’t want to get stuck on concentration, that the real business in the meditation is the discernment. But a lot of discernment comes from maintaining the concentration. The part of the mind that’s antsy to move on: When you can learn how to relax it, the antsiness, the tension, dissolves away. You …
- Dichotomies… There was a famous translator one time who translated that passage and then wrote a footnote saying he didn’t understand how this was the proper description for discernment. I guess he was assuming that discernment had to mean seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. But the Buddha’s wisdom teachings are all about “two’s.” The two teachings he says are …
- Your Judgments Matter… So try to exercise your powers of judgment, because for the Buddha this is an important part of discernment. When he talks about developing analysis of qualities, the discernment factor in the factors of awakening, you start out by seeing what’s skillful and what’s unskillful. In a similar vein, the Buddha would talk about developing your discernment by looking at things in …
- A Dhamma Bucket List… The last quality is discernment. The Buddha calls this penetrative discernment into arising and passing away that leads to the right ending of stress and suffering. You don’t simply watch things come and go. As you meditate, you try to get a sense of which things are good things to come and which things are good things to go. That’s what’s …
- Pleasures & Pains on the Middle Way… It’s a path that requires discernment. Extremes are easy—easy in the sense that they don’t require much thought. But finding the point of just right requires discernment. And it’s in developing your sensitivity to that point of just right in different circumstances that your discernment becomes sharp enough to see something that goes beyond.
- Breath Energies… You want to keep it protected—because as you do, your powers of mindfulness grow; your powers of concentration grow; your discernment gets more and more sensitive. Discernment isn’t just a matter of learning words and then applying them to what’s going on. It’s a matter of sensitivity—noticing what you’re doing. And sometimes what you’re doing is very …
- Dhamma Survivalism… It’s composed both of concentration and discernment. The concentration is what gives you that sense of well-being, simply being here right now, breathing in, breathing out, focused in the body, gaining a sense of the different energies flowing around, and seeing what you can do with them—learning to take an interest in this dimension of your awareness, because it has a …
- Five Steps to Insight… through mindfulness and through discernment. The Buddha himself makes the comparison. He says mindfulness is like a dam that stops things. In other words, you remind yourself you don’t want to go with that thought, so you block it. Discernment is what cuts the current, takes it apart. So you may want to look into it—when this distracting thought arises, exactly how …
- Making an Effort… It’s got to be used with discernment—the discernment that sees what’s skillful and what’s not, what works and what doesn’t work. And it’s in learning how to be observant about these questions: That’s how discernment develops on the path. So if you’re planning any vows for the rains retreat, make sure that you allow for the …
- Directing the Flow… the training in heightened virtue, training in heightened mind, training in heightened discernment. The precepts for example: They’re meant to be clear-cut. They’re promises you make to yourself because the practice of learning to keep a promise to yourself is very important for the whole rest of the practice. You make up your mind you’re not going to kill, steal …
- Selecting from the Teachings… Otherwise, you can’t gain discernment. We often want to meditate with sound bites, but it doesn’t work. Discernment requires time. It requires observation. Only if we’re willing to invest those two qualities can we ever expect any real results.
- Doing the Right Thing… And sometimes we actually see what would be the right thing to do, the skillful thing to do, but we don’t have the strength or the discernment to actually do it. So there are three problems: one, not seeing clearly; two, not having the strength even when you do see clearly; and sometimes, you can see clearly and have the strength, but you …
- Getting Untangled from Thorns… This is one of the main ways that we develop discernment in the practice. If the practice were simply a matter of going to a far extreme, whatever that extreme may be, it wouldn’t require much thought or discernment. It would require just a lot of pushing. As the Buddha said, his path is a middle path, and it’s “middle” in lots …
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