Search results for: "Wisdom"

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  2. Recollecting the Buddha
     … It informs his wisdom, informs his purity, and informs his compassion—the virtues that are traditionally attributed to him. He was a very true person. It requires someone who’s true like that to find the truth. So contemplating the Buddha in that way—if you have doubts about the Dhamma—helps to overcome those doubts. The problem with thinking about how amazing the … 
  3. Three Types of Equanimity
     … There was an interview I saw on French TV recently, where the woman being interviewed was saying that the Buddha’s wisdom is all about accepting things as they are, and not trying to make any changes, accepting the fact that any changes you try to make are just going to make things worse. The interviewer asked the woman who was saying this, “Isn … 
  4. Firm in Your Intent
     … A lot of wisdom lies in realizing that: that you don’t just gain an insight into the nature of reality, but you also have to gain an insight into what you’ve got to do, how you can do it, and you just do it. That’s why he says one of the signs of discernment is when you realize there are certain … 
  5. Write It Down in Your Heart
     … The first two monks said, “You should practice equanimity.” When it came Ajaan Chah’s turn, he said, “Well, you do have to be equanimous, but you have to be equanimous with wisdom.” In other words, it’s not just a case of letting go. Ajaan MahaBua was famous for being strict, talking about going out and just punching out the defilements. But he … 
  6. Concentration Work
     … It’s in the listening that your mindfulness, alertness, and discernment develop and, acting together, bring the mind to a really solid concentration that can act as a basis for further wisdom, discernment, and insight to arise. You have to be willing to put in the effort, confident that the effort will pay off. What you give to the meditation is what makes all … 
  7. Near to the Buddha
     … They talk about wisdom, which is basically looking for long-term happiness, not running for short-term. As you listen to them talk, you start talking to yourself in those ways as well. You remind yourself: There are things you’ve got to give up in life. We go through life, seeing this pleasure and that pleasure, and we’d like to have them … 
  8. Mindstorms
     … And there’s a wisdom in learning how to stay there and watch, watch, watch, not to be impatient to get results, not to be impatient to see how things turn out. Learn how to be more stable in that watching, because the stability is what will allow you to see very subtle things, to see the tricks the mind plays on itself, the … 
  9. It’s Good to Talk to Yourself
     … It’s one of the hallmarks of wisdom, knowing which questions are worth pursuing and which ones are not. Just because a question has grabbed your attention doesn’t mean it’s really worthwhile. As you’re working with the breath, you begin to get a sense of which questions are helpful in getting the mind to settle down, which ones are not, which … 
  10. Compassion Without Clinging
     … that he’s gone, do you know where he’s gone?” “No.” “Where is this person you’re grieving for?” He’s advising her to develop some equanimity, to get some wisdom around the fact that she’s lost this unknown person who was, for a while, her son. I was teaching this story one time to a group in Canada. Someone in the … 
  11. Inner Poise
     … We think of wisdom or discernment as things you learn from books, but that’s not the case at all. You gain discernment from watching things consistently. When you’re staying with the breath, you’re in really good place, because that’s where the body and the mind meet. Anything that moves in the mind is going to have an effect on the … 
  12. Dualities
     … That’s a lot of what the Buddha’s wisdom and discernment are about: learning how to use things that eventually you’re going to have to let go—and not being in too great a hurry to let them go, either. For example, with these states of concentration we’re working on: You want to get very familiar with them before you’ll … 
  13. High Level Metta
     … This is the wisdom element in all this fabrication. Now, if you bring knowledge to this, it actually becomes part of the path. You’re developing right concentration. And as you get hands-on practice with these different kinds of fabrication, you begin to realize how you use them in different ways, creating different mind states throughout the day, different physical states throughout the … 
  14. Taking Apart Suffering
     … Learn to identify both in the body and in the mind the parts that are potential for a sense of ease, a potential for equanimity, wisdom, this patient observer, and then take apart the unskillful things. In other words, you master this ability that you have to put things together which we’re so good at—in the sense that we do it all … 
  15. Protective Meditations
     … With recollection of the Buddha, we think about his awakening, the qualities he developed—wisdom, compassion, purity—but the important point is that, in awakening, he learned a lot about the power of intention. After all, it was through the power of his concentrated intentions, his consistent intentions, that he gained awakening. And in the course of the three knowledges of the night of … 
  16. A Good Buddhist Ego
     … The Buddha said this is one of the measures of your wisdom. If you see there’s something you like to do but will give long-term bad results, you know how to talk yourself into not wanting to do it. Or if there’s something you don’t like to do but will give good results, you learn how to talk yourself into … 
  17. Stepping Back
     … Without the perspective there’s no wisdom, no insight. And without insight, you’re totally immersed in delusion. What is it like to be totally deluded? You’re totally unsure of things. Deep down inside, things don’t seem quite right, and there’s always an element of fear. As the Buddha said, “As long as you’re uncertain about the true Dhamma, there … 
  18. The Sublime Attitudes in Context
     … So it’s important that these attitudes be conjoined with wisdom, discernment, understanding, so that you use them when you need them—and then understand that you really do need them. They’re not just a nice gift to other people to make you feel good. You really need them to keep yourself in line, to make sure you’re not going to do … 
  19. The Pursuit of Pleasure
     … The beginning of wisdom is when you realize that it’s worthwhile to be able to forsake a limited happiness, a limited pleasure, a limited sukha, for the sake of the abundant. There’s also the distinction between samisa sukha and niramisa sukha. The word samisa literally means meat or flesh or bait. These are the kinds of pleasures that are bait for the … 
  20. Things as They’ve Come to Be
     … And how do you protect a good state of mind without squeezing it too much or forcing it too much? You learn this as part of the wisdom of seeing things as they have come to be.
  21. Equanimity in Action, Equanimity at Rest
     … wanting the ability to accept what you can’t change, the courage to change what you can change, and the discernment or wisdom to know the difference. But life is a lot more complicated than that. There are a lot of things that you could change but wouldn’t be worth it. And that requires real discernment. After all, even though we try to … 
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