Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. Inner Wealth
     … Ajaan Lee once said that of the various treasures of the mind, the most valuable one was discernment, because if you have discernment then you can make use of whatever you get. Even if you get only a little, you can turn it into a lot. So as you wonder about what you take with you as you go in this wandering around, focus … 
  3. Focus on the Precepts
     … As they get you to focus specifically on your actions, that’s training in discernment. After all, discernment is focused on: What exactly are you doing? You’re doing the causes of suffering someplace in your mind, and you want to see those actions along with why you do them. You want to develop the actions that lead to the end of suffering. So … 
  4. The Positive Side of Heedfulness
     … You can focus on developing powers of patience and endurance, or you can focus on your discernment—because work does require discernment. We had a question today about whether creativity was in line with the Dhamma as you work. Well, it’s an exercise of your discernment. Again, all too often, we think of discernment as simply observing things as they’re happening. But … 
  5. Looking at Your Life
     … One is discernment, looking at what really is a good thing to accomplish in life in the time you have remaining. You want to look at your strengths; you want to look at your weaknesses. What strengths you have to bring? How can they be developed? How can you build on them? And what would be a good use of them? Once you’ve … 
  6. Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana
     … But to get there requires feeding the mind with a lot of mindfulness and concentration that can strengthen your discernment to see these things. The deathless is available at any time, but our discernment isn’t refined enough, isn’t precise enough, to detect it. This is why discernment has to be trained. This is why the path is a gradual one. But it … 
  7. How to Be Happy
     … This combination of inner virtue and discernment lies at the basis of what’s needed to get the mind into good concentration. We talk about gaining discernment from concentration, but you also need to have some discernment to get the mind into concentration to begin with. Discernment is what allows you to know what to do, where to look, where the real problems are … 
  8. Caring Enough to Doubt
     … You need more discernment, more mindfulness, all the good qualities that are developed, as you can see, by focusing on the breath. It’s interesting that when the Buddha talks about the cure for doubt or uncertainty, the cure is the same as the program you follow for developing discernment—in other words, looking at what’s skillful and what’s unskillful in your … 
  9. Circumspection
     … The same with discernment. You develop the discernment that sees through your attachments. It shows you how you can let them go. And then you have to let go of that discernment, too. That, Ajaan Lee says, is where you have to turn around and apply the insight that all dhammas are not-self to that insight as well. It, too, is not-self … 
  10. Worry
     … It’s also important that you have some discernment. And here the discernment comes in having a sense of priorities, realizing that everything we have in life we’re going to have to lose—except for one thing that we don’t have to lose, and that’s the skillfulness of our actions. And fortunately, that’s our most important resource, our most important … 
  11. The Field Hospital
     … That way, you start protecting your concentration with discernment, and you strengthen your discernment with your concentration. Of the factors of the noble path, these two are the ones that are the most important: right view and right concentration. So see if you can get them working together—so that you can maintain your field hospital. That way, when you get wounded, you have … 
  12. Start the Year Right Here
     … It starts turning into knowledge and discernment that really can have a revolutionary effect on the mind. In the way you relate to yourself, the way you relate to people around you, you begin to see patterns you didn’t see before. You see some patterns that really are unskillful. Well, you can change them. There are patterns that are skillful. You maintain them … 
  13. Food for Endurance
     … So, in this way, there are three sources for happiness, just as there are three sources for discernment. In the texts they talk about discernment coming from listening, discernment coming from thinking, and discernment coming from developing good qualities. Well, the same three categories apply to happiness: There’s happiness that comes from listening—you realize that there’s still good Dhamma in the … 
  14. Up for the Challenge
    When the Buddha teaches wisdom or discernment, he always talks about things that are in pairs. For instance, there’s one teaching where he says a sign of wisdom is when you know which duties fall to you and which ones don’t. It means there’s a distinction. There are some things you’ve got to work on, some things you’ve got … 
  15. Succeeding at Happiness
     … Then use your discernment, your powers of analysis, both in the act of giving and in reflecting on it. As you give, try to maintain a good attitude in the mind. As the Buddha said, have the attitude that something important will come of this. There were people in his time who said giving didn’t really accomplish anything at all. Everybody was going … 
  16. The Gift of Discernment
     … But the first thing the Buddha wanted to talk about—what, for him was the most important part of his teaching—was discernment. He provided us with admirable friendship so that we would be inspired to adopt what he thought was the most important internal factor, which was appropriate attention: applying discernment to the present moment. In his first sermon, he starts out with … 
  17. The Dhamma Wheel
     … Have you been able to identify where in your mind is the suffering? We have that chant that says, “those who don’t discern suffering,” and the first time around it sounds strange. “Everybody can discern suffering,” you might say. But even though everybody has a sense of suffering, they don’t really discern it. They blame it on all kinds of things that … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. Determination
     … The first quality is discernment. You have to figure out: What’s a really wise goal to have? What would be a worthwhile way of dedicating your life? Because you do have the choice: You can dedicate your life to a particular goal or you can just say, “Well, I’ll just go with the flow of whatever comes to me.” But the flow … 
  20. Perception
    Perception August 19, 2005 That phrase in the chant just now — “those who don’t discern suffering” — sounds a little strange, doesn’t it? You’d think that everybody would discern suffering, but the verb here is important. Everybody experiences suffering, but not everybody discerns it. “Discerning” means to understand, to see it for what it is, to the point where you can let … 
  21. Being Your Own Teacher
     … And through the practice, you develop what the Buddha calls bhavanamaya-pañña—the discernment that comes from actually developing qualities in the mind. You can hear things and you can think them through. That gives you one level of discernment. But the real discernment that’s going to cut through your defilements has to come from putting the teachings into practice, being your own … 
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