Search results for: "Wisdom"

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  2. Ego
     … A lot of the wisdom of the ego comes down to seeing that if you really look at what you want to do and look at the consequences, look at the whole story, you realize it’s not something you want. So how do you say No? Start with this ability to sublimate, to find healthy, harmless pleasures. These pleasures come not only from … 
  3. Determined to Make a Difference
     … You’re not simply watching things arise and pass away, thinking that there’s wisdom in seeing them arise and pass away. You have to see how they’re caused. When the Buddha uses the word cause, samudaya, here—sometimes translated as origination—it means a cause arising in the mind. So, you keep looking inward. There’s some activity in here that’s … 
  4. The Burning House
     … He taught people to think, and to think in the long-term: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” That’s the question that lies at the beginning of wisdom and discernment. So to be discerning, you’ve got to think out to the long term as to what is really important. And that gives you a … 
  5. Your Tranquility & Your Insight
     … This goes against what we hear so much about the wisdom of oneness or non-duality. Actually, oneness is an affair of concentration. Before we get to really good, solid states of oneness, we have to learn how to separate ourselves out from the things that disturb the concentration. Here the questions are: How to regard fabrications? How to investigate them? How to see … 
  6. Insight Is a Judgment Call
     … Or, if we think of the payback down the line, we say, “I’ll deal with that later, but I want something that I like right now.” The ability to say No to things like that is a measure of your wisdom, a measure of your discernment, and it comes down to seeing what’s worth doing, what’s not. Like the fact that … 
  7. The Culture of the Practice
     … You want people who have powers of endurance, people who have wisdom. They can put up with difficulties to inspire you to put up with difficulties. One time Ajaan Fuang was going to have an all-night sit without much advance notice. I had been working hard that day. I told him I didn’t think I could do it, and he said, “Well … 
  8. Head, Heart, & Gut
     … We tend to think that Buddhist wisdom or Buddhist discernment has to do with very abstract principles. But the basic principle is this: knowing how to psyche yourself out, knowing how to make yourself want to do what will be skillful even if the mind is reluctant, and making yourself *not *want to do things that you’ve liked to do in the past … 
  9. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … The first two ajaans, who were senior to Ajaan Chah, basically said, “Practice equanimity.” But Ajaan Chah said, “Well, equanimity is useful, but you have to apply wisdom at the same time.” So you don’t just let go, let go, leaving things as they are. Have some good sense about what you should let go and leave alone, and what you really have … 
  10. An Examined Life
     … What’s really worth thinking about? What’s not? What when you think about it will actually help lead to a good solid happiness, and what’s going to lead to happiness that just vanishes in your hand, like trying to catch hold of a mirage? That, the Buddha says, is where real wisdom starts: when you decide that you want to work toward … 
  11. Inconstancy
     … That’s how you use insight into inconstancy with wisdom and discernment, so the teaching fulfills its intended purpose.
  12. Seeds of Becoming
     … The Buddha commented on how, in getting to know other people—getting to know their virtue, their resilience, their honesty, their wisdom—you have to focus on the right aspects of their behavior and you have to be observant. That takes a lot of time. Well, the same point applies to your own mind. You have to focus at the right spots, where craving … 
  13. The Swinging Balance
     … If you want to know about the person’s stamina and wisdom, you have to see how they deal with hardships and difficult topics and you have to be observant. In other words, it takes time and you have to use your powers of observation. These are the two things you really have to apply as you’re practicing so that you get a … 
  14. Contentment vs. Initiative
     … A lot of the wisdom that you develop in the course of the practice is learning how to figure out what the right time and place is for these things, so that you prosper both outside and inside. And the Dhamma helps as a tool in your search for that prosperity.
  15. Insight Is a Judgment Call
     … So a lot of the training is learning how to read our actions so that we can make a better judgment call as to what’s worth doing, what’s not. Wisdom begins with those questions: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering … 
  16. Basic Meditation Instructions
     … The Buddha once said the beginning of wisdom is this question: What when I do will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? That’s the basic motivation for what we’re doing here. We want something that really is lasting, a happiness that doesn’t let us down. In the course of focusing the mind on the breath like this, you’re … 
  17. The Buddha’s Revolution
     … That’s a sign of wisdom. And that’s where freedom lies—you’re freed from your likes and dislikes, because they’re so arbitrary. Think about the foods you like now, and the foods you used to like ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Your taste in music, your taste in all kinds of things, keeps changing. It’s all very arbitrary. If you … 
  18. A Greater Happiness
     … The desire for true happiness, for long-lasting happiness, the Buddha said, is the beginning of wisdom. We’ve seen the kind of happiness that sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations can give to us. We sense that it’s not enough. We want something deeper, more long-lasting. As the Buddha said, “If you see a greater happiness that comes from abandoning … 
  19. Self-Reliance
     … You’re developing the faculty of the mind that turns discernment or wisdom into something that really is yours. Otherwise, it’s just something you’ve heard from other people, or something you’ve thought through. But when you put things to the test like this and learn to judge the results, that’s when your insights really become genuine. You’ve seen for … 
  20. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … The Buddha once said that wisdom starts with the question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? And what when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” That’s getting you to think in terms of the four noble truths right there, noticing that what you do is going to be a … 
  21. Strong-hearted
     … developing both a good mind and a good heart, developing these strengths of the heart—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—so that our wisdom, our discernment, has a good grounding, the kind of grounding that keeps it honest. This is a total training, and it deserves our total attention, our total conviction. The more we give ourselves to the practice, the more we gain … 
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