Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Pissing on Palaces… So what skills sets have you been collecting? Focus in on that, listen to that question, keep that question in mind because that’s what enables you to hear the Dhamma in the other things you notice around you. You see other people and some of them are working on good skill sets, while others are working on who knows what: the skills of …
- Joy in Getting It Right… So you’re not just good, but you’re also inquisitive as to what it means to be really good, to be skillful, to act on good intentions so that they give the best possible results. Skill in generosity goes beyond the simple impulse to be generous. You’re trying to develop the right attitude toward the act of giving a gift. You’re …
- Anchored by Skillful Roots… They did survive, but at a huge cost, the cost of the skillful roots in the mind. It’s by nourishing the skillful roots that the health of the mind survives. Even if we have to leave this particular body, at least the mind has the potential for sending out skillful roots wherever it finds itself the next time around. It’s nourished with …
- Mindful, Alert, & Ardent… It feels more awake, more alive, more interested in doing skillful things, because as the mind gets stronger, you find that not only as you’re sitting here meditating, but also as you go through daily life, you have more energy for choosing the skillful alternative. A lot of times in day-to-day life, we know what would be skillful or unskillful, but …
- Doing… Of course, the question of control has a lot to do with the question of skill. This is why the Buddha focuses so much attention on the issue of skillful and unskillful action. He wants you to explore how much control you actually ga as you try to develop more and more skill. He doesn’t tell you at the very beginning, “Well, just …
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