Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. A Practice, Personal & Social
     … This is why it’s good to have these skills developed deep down inside. So when pain comes up and you know death is near, how do you manage your mind so you don’t suffer? How do you manage it so that the transition is smooth? That’s a skill we learn through the meditation. It’s very private, very personal. And it … 
  3. Staying in Position
     … I once talked with an anthropologist who told me that when anthropologists go into villages, they try to learn every skill that the villagers have mastered so that they can get an insider feel for the culture. And one skill that no anthropologist has ever been able to master anywhere is the traditional skill of hunting. We in the modern world seem to have … 
  4. Fabricating against Defilement
     … If you were solely aware of the present moment and nothing else, you would have no memory of what had worked and hadn’t worked in the past, what was skillful, what wasn’t skillful. You’d be totally at sea. Mindfulness actually means keeping things in mind, reminding yourself that when something looks attractive, it’s not necessarily good for you, may not … 
  5. Appropriate Attention
     … What is the best course of action now? What’s the wisest course? In daily life, it comes down to which actions are skillful, which states of mind lead to skillful actions; which actions are unskillful, and which states of mind lead to unskillful actions. Skillful actions should be developed; unskillful actions should be abandoned. Notice that right view always has a series of … 
  6. Grace & Dignity
    All skillful qualities, the Buddha once said, are rooted in heedfulness. And when we talk about heedfulness, it also means non-complacency. When we think about heedfulness, we tend to focus on the dangers around us, dangers inside us, because they’re there. We have greed, aversion, and delusion, and there are parts of our minds that really like greed, aversion, and delusion. That … 
  7. The Buddha’s Protection
     … It’s a question of learning how to be skillful. This is the most basic of the Buddha’s teachings: the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions. One of his students was accused one time by people who said, “This teacher of yours is a nihilist. He doesn’t teach anything.” That was because the Buddha wasn’t giving answers to the hot questions … 
  8. Doing Nothing
     … Right effort means distinguishing what’s skillful and what’s unskillful in the mind, and learning how to block or end any unskillful states in the mind and how to give rise to skillful states and then how to develop them further. That’s ardency in the practice. The effort here is not just a blind effort. It has to involve a certain amount … 
  9. Work on Your Mind
     … It all depends on the skills and attitudes you bring. The right attitude, of course, is that whatever comes up, you can’t let the emotions of your mind overcome you, because then you’ll start doing things that are not all that skillful, and they’ll lead to more setbacks. So you’ve got to train your mind, you’ve got to fix … 
  10. Your Judgments Matter
     … the distinction between skillful and unskillful, a dichotomy that gets more refined in the four noble truths. As the Buddha points out there are things you do that cause suffering, and things you can do that can put an end to suffering. The other feature they have in common is that they deal with actions. Each of them has its shoulds. Skillful actions should … 
  11. What You’re Responsible For
     … Even though nothing much seems to be happening, the fact that you’re able to stick with this and stay interested in what might potentially happen in the breath means you’re developing a skill. And as with any skill, there’s a lot of repetition, doing things again and again to get them right and then to get them right consistently. Have a … 
  12. Goodwill as a Strength
     … There are times when pleasing words are actually not skillful, where gentleness is not skillful. You may not know the story by Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” This crazy guy has kidnapped a bunch of people and is holding them for ransom. He sits there and he’s talking—and he’s had a miserable life—and this one … 
  13. Perception
     … When you find yourself identifying with unskillful ways of behavior, teach yourself some new skills and then identify yourself around those new skills: the skills of being a meditator, the skills of being someone who’s generous, someone who’s patient, someone who’s wise. We have these choices. The part of the mind that keeps saying, “Well, this is the way I am … 
  14. Ask the Right Questions
     … The duties come down to trying to develop skillful qualities, those that lead to happiness, and trying to abandon unskillful ones, those that lead to suffering. That principle gets further parsed into noticing that if an unskillful quality arises, what do you do to get rid of it? If it hasn’t arisen, what do you do to prevent it? If a skillful quality … 
  15. Mindfulness of Death
     … That’s because the skills you’ll learn as you meditate are precisely the skills you’re going to need when you die. This is a point the ajaans in Thailand make over and over again. As we meditate, we’re learning how to die well, to die mindfully, alert, and ardent. You don’t just let things run their course. A lot of … 
  16. Strength in Humor
     … He says the development of these strengths comes from heedfulness—in other words, realizing that our actions really do make a difference, and if we’re not skillful, we can cause a lot of harm. But if we try to develop skill, we can avoid that harm. The principle of heedfulness builds on the realization that our actions are important, and they really do … 
  17. Love is Conditional, Goodwill Is Not
     … The Buddha talks about how when you see that there are skillful and unskillful qualities in the mind, and you work on developing the skillful ones, it gives rise to a sense of rapture. The Pali word piti can also mean a sense of fullness, a sense of refreshment. You might wonder what can give rise to that. Well, one, it’s learning how … 
  18. Every Little Bit
     … This reflects a teaching the Buddha gave one time, which is that when the mind is in an unskillful state, just giving rise to a finger-snap of a skillful mind state has value. If the idea of trying to maintain it is too much or seems too daunting, at the very least allow yourself to think that one skillful thought. Or develop a … 
  19. Into Position
     … So see the value of this skill. And it is a skill. Have some respect for the quietness of the mind. There’s a poem by the Buddha about the various objects that a good practitioner should have respect for, and concentration is one of them. The poem goes on to talk about the triple training, and yet concentration is part of the triple … 
  20. Your True Responsibility
     … This is what the teaching on skillfulness is about. If there’s any one issue central to the Buddha’s teachings, it’s the issue of skillfulness. How do you develop a skill? All of his teachings revolve around that question. Take the Four Noble Truths: They deal with suffering and the end of suffering. What do you do to bring about the end … 
  21. Healthy Conceit
     … Nowadays, of course, we tend to idolize the frontier pushers, even to the extent of thinking that they don’t have to learn the basic skills. Well, they do have to learn the basic skills, they have to go through all the steps that everybody else has to go through, learn how to do things well that they’re not automatically skilled at. Only … 
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