Search results for: "Conviction"

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  2. You’re Already Dead
     … The first treasure is conviction in the Buddha’s awakening and what it means for your life. In other words, he was able to find true happiness through his own efforts, developing qualities in his mind that you have in a potential form in your mind. Virtue: being restrained in your actions, not harming yourself, not harming anybody else, Having a sense of shame … 
  3. Fix Your Views
     … Their confidence and conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma, and the Sangha have been confirmed. That’s the point where their view really is right. Of course, you don’t stop there. You learn how to use right view properly to take you even further, from right view to right knowledge. What this means in practice is that, as we’re starting out, our views … 
  4. Getting the Most Out of the Present
     … Goodwill, he said, is a form of wealth, as are conviction and a sense of shame—the sense that certain actions are beneath you. That’s a form of wealth. Compunction, the attitude that’s not apathetic about the results of your actions that really does want to do things well; virtue, learning, right-effort: These things are forms of wealth that we develop … 
  5. Training Your Cynical Voices
     … At the same time, learn how to bring in some more confidence, conviction in this path. For most of us, it’s not a path that we learned about when we were growing up as children. It’s something new. And as a result, it often can feel foreign. But what’s really amazing about this path is that it’s common to human … 
  6. The Buddha’s Currency
     … You think about the people who taught you this, starting with the Buddha, and you get a greater sense of conviction in the Buddha’s teachings. That gives you energy to develop more skillful qualities of the mind as well. You think about the good people who’ve taught you these things, and you realize that you wouldn’t want to do anything unskillful … 
  7. In Training
     … But he can teach you ahead of time about right view—in other words, something you take on conviction because it makes sense. You don’t know for sure that it’s true, but you know that if you take it on as your working hypothesis, you’re going to act in honorable ways that you feel good about—so you take it on … 
  8. Purity of Heart
     … We strengthen the mind in our conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. When these qualities are developed, the mind reaches the point where it doesn’t have to depend on any kind of food at all for its happiness. They say that arahants have understood food, and they’re totally independent of nutriment, and, as a result, you can’t trace their path, in … 
  9. Pleasant Practice, Painful Practice
     … the Buddha said, what determines whether your practice is going to be pleasant or painful is which kind of contemplation leads you to develop the five strengths and the five faculties: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. “Concentration” in both cases means the jhanas, but the theme leading you to develop those jhanas, and from there on into discernment, is something that varies. Some … 
  10. A Safe Space Inside
     … ve got lots of rafters working together in your practice, so simply having right view is not going to be enough. You need support. This is where you develop other strengths. Conviction in the principle of action is the beginning of right view. Then there’s persistence. You really stick with it. Whatever is going to be skillful, you try to give rise to … 
  11. Anybody Home?
     … We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves, with the conviction that we’re going to benefit from this. Now, you notice that the Buddha never says what’s left after the job is done. If he had said that there were no beings to begin with, you’d wonder, “Then why does he keep saying that the arahant, after … 
  12. The Power of Human Effort
     … One of the things I’ve always found inspiring about the Buddha was his conviction that human effort can make a difference. And that’s an important point to keep in mind: He wanted to make a difference. All too often, we hear that the teaching is about acceptance, and although it’s true that there are* *some things you have to accept, you … 
  13. To Purify the Heart
     … But he also knew that if he said it couldn’t be done, Ajaan Lee would say, “Well, in that case, I’ll find someone else who does have the conviction to do it.” So the next morning, Ajaan Fuang got all the able-bodied monks and novices under the ordination hall, wrapped ropes around the thing and tried to pull it, used crowbars … 
  14. Fear
     … You build up your conviction in the power of your actions, that the good you do is not erased, it’s not for nothing. The effort that it requires is not wasted. When you believe in that basic principle, believe in the principle of karma—skillful intentions do lead to happiness; unskillful ones, to pain, suffering—you’re going to be very careful about … 
  15. Overcoming Obstacles
     … You’re not asked to sign on with total conviction to begin with. But you have to give it a fair chance, a fair opportunity. There are so many dilettantes in the world who have opinions about all kinds of things but haven’t tested anything at all. Their opinions, their knowledge is worthless. If you want to know the truth, you have to … 
  16. Dethinking Thinking
     … In each case, he developed conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment appropriate to that particular path. When the path didn’t work, he had to ask himself, “Well, why?” That required some thinking, some analysis, to figure out the drawbacks of that path, because that was going to determine what his next path might be. But as for what kind of thinking was actually … 
  17. The Carpenter’s Adze
     … Your faith and conviction in the Buddha’s path and the Buddha himself won’t be confirmed until stream-entry. But there are milestones along the way. There are skills to develop along the way. As you see the results of developing those skills, you gain more and more encouragement: Yes, this is a promising path. And it’s a good path to be … 
  18. The Skill of Stillness
     … He’d say at the beginning of each meditation session, “Try to develop a sense of conviction and confidence that what you’re doing here is good work. You’re inspired by the example of the Buddha, of his noble disciples; you’re inspired by his Dhamma.” The other side, of course, is realizing the dangers of not doing the work. You can get … 
  19. A Thread into Awareness
     … If there’s any pain, be firm in your conviction that the awareness will outlast the pain. Just stay right here because when you’re with this awareness, that’s when you can see even really subtle things arising: the craving to go here, the craving to go there. You’ll be able to catch sight of this in time because there’s a … 
  20. Virtue Fosters Concentration
     … As you stick with it, you bring in qualities of healthy shame, healthy compunction, conviction in the principle of karma, learning how to practice delayed gratification. In other words, there may be an instantaneous pleasure that comes from breaking a precept, but you realize that down the line it’s going to be bad. Or there may be difficulties in observing the precepts, but … 
  21. Not Just a Witness
     … If there was a course of action he thought was worthwhile, if it seemed likely to bear fruit, he would follow it with all his conviction and persistence and mindfulness and concentration and discernment—in other words, putting all his strength into the practice. When he got results—when he was convinced that these were the best results you could get from that practice … 
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