Search results for: "Conviction"

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  2. Working Hypotheses
     … Which is why stream-entry—the arising of the Dhamma eye—is the point where your conviction in these working hypotheses is confirmed. The Buddha doesn’t ask us to believe in a lot. As he said, the things that he taught were like the handful of leaves as compared to the leaves in the forest. The leaves in the forest were all the … 
  3. Many I’s, Many Eyes
     … So even though having a committee may be difficult in the beginning because they’re all pulling in different directions, if you learn how to gather them around the breath, and the breath feels really good, really attractive, so that you can immediately see the results, so that you’re not just going on the strength of conviction or the strength of desire, but … 
  4. Choices Now & at Death
     … Up to that point, it’s a matter of faith—or if you don’t like the word faith, use the word conviction. It’s a working hypothesis. Act on it and, the Buddha says, you’ll benefit. Everybody who’s reached awakening also says you’ll benefit. They’re the kind of people you want to believe.
  5. Directing Yourself Rightly
     … Try to gather up the strengths you can from within—the strengths of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment—and keep them directed in line with your determination that you’re *not *going to be a victim of circumstances. Your sense of direction will allow you to overcome circumstances so that regardless of where you are, your practice still takes top priority and doesn … 
  6. An Issue of Control
     … It’s our conviction in the Buddha’s awakening that convinces us that this is a worthwhile path to explore. So focus on what you can do right now to create a sense of ease, pleasure, well-being, refreshment in the present moment. Breathe in a way that feels especially refreshing to the heart and any other parts of your breath-energy body that … 
  7. Different Paths Go Different Places
     … all the treasures of conviction, virtue, a sense of shame and compunction, your knowledge of the Dhamma, generosity, discernment, and the food of good concentration. Nobody else can take these things away from you. These are treasures that are safe. The treasures out there in the world, as the Ajaan Lee likes to say, are like the gold chains that people wear around their … 
  8. Truths of the Will
     … Building on that, hold to the conviction that if you want your life to have a point, you have to give it a point, and you can do that. No matter how discouraging the facts you can observe in your life, don’t believe that the observable facts are telling the total story or that your future is already cast in concrete. You constantly … 
  9. Good Fundamentals
     … The more experienced the people are in terms of generosity, virtue, conviction, and discernment—particularly discernment into how to put an end to suffering—the more you benefit. What it comes down to is the Buddha’s realization that the Big Problem in life is the suffering we cause, and yet we don’t have to. Why do we cause that suffering? It’s … 
  10. Appropriate Attention Plus Admirable Friendship
     … is having admirable friends, in other words, people you can trust. He said there are four qualities you want to look for in the people you’re going to stay with. Conviction in the principle of action, in other words, belief that what you do really does matter, really will make a difference, generosity, virtue, and discernment. The Buddha said that one of the … 
  11. All About Change
     … strengths like conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. They may be weak now, but as you exercise them, they do get stronger. We were talking the other day about comparing exercising the mind to exercising a muscle. There are some parallels. For one, there’s a lot of repetition. But if it’s nothing but repetition, the muscle gets worn out, and the same with … 
  12. Appropriate Attention
     … If you have that conviction, the normal reaction will be then to look inside and see how the Dhamma talk applies to what you’re doing right now. That’s where the appropriate attention comes in. You listen to a Dhamma talk and ask yourself: How is it related to the suffering you’re creating right now? How is it related to the cause … 
  13. Cook Your Mind
     … It takes time to find joy in it, so learn how to cultivate your conviction. There have been many, many, many, many, many generations of people who’ve benefited from it. And it hasn’t depended on their nationality. It hasn’t depended on their gender. All it depended on was their willingness to be true in following the path, developing the path. And … 
  14. Simplify
     … But by taking refuge in the Dhamma we’re taking refuge in the conviction that developing the mind will cover all contingencies. And because the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment — all the seeds for happiness — lie right here, that simplifies matters. It also allows us to give our full energy to the things that matter most. So even if from the outside it … 
  15. How to Listen to the Dhamma
     … the conviction that you’re here to train the mind because the mind can be trained and it will make a difference in your actions, and your actions will make a difference in your life. The Dhamma that’s being taught can be applicable to what’s going on in your mind right now, what you’re doing in the mind right now, and … 
  16. The Noble Truth of Suffering
     … So getting started on the path is all based on faith, based on conviction. A lot of people don’t like the word faith. They take the attitude, “Didn’t the Buddha say not to believe anything that you can’t see for yourself?” That’s a very superficial reading of the Kālāma Sutta. He actually said that when you put something into practice … 
  17. Potentials Past & Present
     … There’s the strength of conviction that your actions can really make a difference—again, within limits, but the important opening is that you can learn how not to suffer even in the face of bad events. After all, we live in this world of birth, aging, illness, and death. Wherever there’s birth, there’s going to be aging, there’s going to … 
  18. Getting the Most Out of Now
     … In other words, how can you do this so that the mind will be willing to stay for more breaths the next time around if you’ve found yourself slipping off? Because it is possible, and you’ve got to have the conviction that you can do it. Then when the breath gets comfortable, what do you do with that? You’ve got to … 
  19. Always Willing to Learn
     … That means, one, having admirable people as friends — people you can trust in terms of their conviction, their virtue, their generosity, their discernment. Are they good people? Then, two, if they are, you try to emulate their good qualities. Which means that before you choose a teacher, you want to make sure that this person really does have those good qualities, qualities worth emulating … 
  20. Virtue & Right View
     … These things actually come under the heading of conviction. When we talk in terms of the strengths and the faculties, you’re convinced of the Buddha’s awakening. What does it mean to be convinced of his awakening? You’re convinced, one, that he did it through his own actions. And, two, he learned a lot about the power of human action as part … 
  21. Developing the Path
     … For discernment to become a faculty—in other words, a dominant factor in your mind—you have to actually develop conviction, persistence—which includes developing virtue—and then mindfulness and concentration. In other words, all the factors of the path have to be developed for right view to really become strong, to have a good solid foundation. Not only do you have to do … 
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