Search results for: "Persistence"

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  2. The Challenge of Faith
     … It requires persistence, patience, resolution, ardency. As Ajaan Fuang once said—and it’s a pun in Thai—we have to do something just a little bit, but we have to keep at it consistently. And the keeping at it is the hard part, because the little bit is just being mindful, being alert. But the keeping at it means we have to protect … 
  3. Questioning & Conviction
     … It requires persistence, patience—qualities that we in the modern world tend to have in only minimal amounts. So it’s very easy to give up. You need to keep on generating that desire, keep on reminding yourself why you’re here. You’re here to learn about the potentials in the mind: How far toward true happiness can these potentials go? Our belief … 
  4. The Four Jhanas
     … So which ways of breathing help the mind get more refined? In terms of mental qualities, which ways of breathing are associated with the hindrances, which ways of breathing are associated with the factors for awakening? For example, the first three factors—mindfulness, the analysis of qualities, and persistence—are related to your directed thought and evaluation, trying to see what’s skillful and … 
  5. Intelligent about Change
     … From that conviction comes persistence. You stick with the path and you use whatever tool comes to hand. A true warrior is not very picky about his weapons. He tries to have the best weapons possible, of course, but when they’re not at hand, he has to use what is at hand. That’s when unexpected things can show their power. There was … 
  6. Feeding Frenzy: Dependent Co-arising
     … When you learn to feed here, you really develop the various strengths of the mind—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment—that can strengthen it to the point where ultimately it doesn’t need to feed anymore. That’s a great gift right there, both to yourself and to everyone around you.
  7. The Choice Not to Suffer
     … This is the effort, or the persistence, which is the third factor for awakening. If you really stick with this, you can bring the mind to states of concentration, the concentration you need in order to maintain this stance of being able to step outside your thoughts. In the factors of awakening, this concentration is described as four of the factors: rapture, serenity, concentration … 
  8. Breath Meditation: The Third Tetrad
     … The ones that lift you up are persistence, rapture, and analysis of qualities—i.e., when you try to figure things out in the mind. For example, if your mind is sitting here getting kind of sluggish, you give it work to do, to figure out something. What’s going on? Is the breath getting to the right places right now? Which parts of … 
  9. Path & Raft
     … If you can learn how to develop the patience and persistence needed to use the raft—or to walk along the path—some day it will get you there. It may not be as quickly as you’d like, but the fact that you know you’re on a path, not wandering lost through the jungle—or you’re on the raft and not … 
  10. Respect
     … But here you’re developing kindness, compassion, mindfulness, discernment, alertness, persistence, reliability: all good qualities, qualities that feel good in and of themselves and are conducive to true happiness. So it’s not only a good goal, but it’s also a good path. And you develop a greater sense of self-esteem, self-worth as you follow the path. That’s the beginning … 
  11. Appropriate Attention
     … You want to have the desire to work on the skill, you want to be persistent, stick with it, and be intent on what you’re doing. Be really observant. Then finally use your intelligence to ask questions, bring that property of appropriate attention to what you’re doing. When things don’t work, use your imagination, use your ingenuity to figure out other … 
  12. Imagine
     … desire, persistence, intentness, and ingenuity. In terms of concentration, the first step corresponds to giving rise to a nice pleasant state right here in the present moment. Can you do that? If you want to, you can. As the Buddha said, all phenomena are rooted in desire. So how are you going to use desire to give rise to that pleasant state? You can … 
  13. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
     … Make it persistent, be mindful, develop concentration so that you can develop the discernment that sees these things clearly. This is how you strengthen the mind to the point where it finds something inside that doesn’t need to feed, and that’s when all your eating disorders, subtle and obvious, will end.
  14. The World Is Swept Away
     … Then there’s the determination on truth, which includes the perfection of truth, the perfection of virtue, and the perfection of persistence. There’s the determination on relinquishment, which includes renunciation and generosity. And there’s the determination on calm, which includes endurance and equanimity. Look at these as qualities you could develop in life. When you develop them, they’re really yours. Once … 
  15. Wake Up from Addiction
     … This is what the factor of persistence is: If you see something that’s unskillful, take it apart. Don’t simply fall in with it. Step back from it. And the more you can analyze it into discrete sensations, discrete feelings, or discrete thoughts, the less power it has. It’s because these things connect up that they create a strong impression, an overwhelming … 
  16. Acceptance
     … That leads to the next strength, the next empowerment, which is persistence, energy, the effort we put into the practice. We realize that we can do this, and we don’t have much time, so we’d better get right to it. And stick with it. We practice when we feel like practicing, and we also practice when we don’t. We can’t … 
  17. The Raft of Concepts
     … In the beginning, you begin to see that this belief does help here, it does help there, so you pursue it more and more persistently. Then ultimately you discover that it’s a big help in putting an end to suffering. That’s your real proof that the concepts work — and only then do you get beyond concepts. Even when you’re in concentration … 
  18. Audacious & Undaunted
     … It leads to persistence, it leads to mindfulness, concentration, discernment. This is relevant to us, because the Buddha’s message was that he found it and we can find it too. On the night of his awakening, he learned some important insights. After getting the mind into solid concentration, he turned the power of that concentration to the question, “Is death the end, or … 
  19. Attention to Your Potentials
     … On this follows persistence, and here again you look for the potential for energy in the body. This factor for awakening counters sloth and torpor. The remaining factors have to do with getting the mind into good concentration: rapture, calm, concentration, equanimity. These are things you develop. You look for the potentials there in the mind for it to settle down—because the mind … 
  20. Training Your Minds
     … Are you being persistent enough? Sometimes when you put away, it goes away for a while, but then it comes back again. You put it away and it come back again. You begin to feel that you’re going to lose out to it. You’ve got to show that you’re more determined than it is. So you keep at it. Every time … 
  21. Watching Over Time
     … When the mind is too sluggish, you should try to develop qualities that are more enlivening, like actively analyzing what’s going on in the present moment, putting in effort, being really persistent in what you’re doing, and trying to develop a sense of rapture with the meditation—rapture is enlivening. So it’s good to get a sense of where your energy … 
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