Search results for: "Wisdom"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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.
  8. 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 … 
  9. The Limits of Control
     … It allows us to gain the wisdom that ultimately goes beyond them. As I was saying last night, you do develop a healthy sense of self as you pursue the practice. You do get a greater sense of control—but you have to make sure it stays healthy. Avoid the unhealthy senses of self that can develop around the practice. As the Buddha says … 
  10. The Conditions for Goodwill
     … All the qualities that go into determination, wisdom, truthfulness, relinquishment, and calm are conditions for developing goodwill. So even though goodwill is unlimited, it’s not unconditioned. It requires the proper conditions inside you in order to stay unlimited. And, of course, it meets upwith situations where there are people who are suffering and there’s nothing you can do about it; or times … 
  11. Refuge
     … You’re trying to develop the wisdom that the Buddha developed, to see where there’s suffering and what kind of suffering is totally unnecessary. The fact of being born and living in this world, where other people who, like us, are born, grow ill, and die, can leave the mind ragged. So it needs to be healed. A lot of healing has to … 
  12. The Buddha Respects Your Potential
     … He said it is possible to find a happiness that is deathless, a happiness that does not disappoint, and it involves developing good qualities like wisdom, compassion, and purity as you pursue that happiness. He’s telling us to raise our sights as to what we can do, what we as human beings have in our potential. So have some respect for the potential … 
  13. The Basic Pattern
     … At the same time, you learn from the wisdom of other people. The Buddha doesn’t recommend that you reinvent the Dhamma wheel every time you act. If, however, you notice that there was no harm from your actions, the Buddha says, “Take joy in your practice and continue with the training.” There are a lot of important principles here: the principle of truthfulness … 
  14. True Protection for the World
     … When people are happy or creating the causes for happiness, goodwill means that you rejoice in their happiness, or the wisdom of their actions. You appreciate what they’re doing, or what they’re experiencing. That’s goodwill applied. Then there’s equanimity. When you realize that certain things are beyond your control, either because of that person’s past karma or your past … 
  15. Unburdensome, Part 2
     … This way, you have full-time practitioners permeating society, where they can share their wisdom, share their example. And it’s in the context of this mutual dependence between the monastics and the lay people that we have the opportunity to help one another. If we have time to practice fully, that’s what we do; and if we don’t have time to … 
  16. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … It’s not the kind of wisdom you find in pieces of chocolate that say, “Have another piece of chocolate, you deserve it.” It’s more in line with the principle of being unburdensome. You want to be able to provide for your happiness and not burden other people. This requires developing skills. This is one of the reasons why we meditate. Sitting here … 
  17. The Uses of Pleasure & Pain
     … So we carry these five khandhas, these aggregates, around with us, and the wisdom of the Buddha is in taking these aggregates that tend to weigh us down, like big lumps of metal in a suitcase, and opening up the suitcase to look inside. That’s when you begin to see that they’re not just lumps of metal. They’re tools, tools that … 
  18. For When the World Can’t Help You
     … In terms of the Buddha, he’s said to have had three qualities—wisdom, compassion, purity—and you try to develop those within you. In terms of the Dhamma, the Buddha has said when you take the Dhamma as your refuge, you’re taking yourself as your refuge. In other words, you internalize the teachings. In particular, you establish mindfulness right here at the … 
  19. The Armored Car
     … It basically means realizing that the causes of suffering come from within, from our own unskillful behavior, so a better part of wisdom is to say, “I’m not going to have ill will for anyone, because if I have ill will, I’m going to start acting in unskillful ways. I have to be harmless. And I have to try to overcome my … 
  20. Battling Darkness
     … The qualities of insight, discernment, wisdom are like a sword. They cut through all the confusion, they cut through all the connections that keep those defilements together, that keep them strong. As you get to know the movements of your mind, you begin to see that there are lots of little events in the mind that you tie together. You connect this one with … 
  21. Doing Meditation
     … In Pali they have nouns for them, too, but they also have corresponding verbs, which is one of the reasons why I prefer to translate paññā as discernment rather than wisdom. In English we don’t have a verb for “wising,” but we do have a verb for discerning. So remind yourself that while you’re meditating, you are doing something. There’s an … 
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