Search results for: "Wisdom"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. What to Tolerate, What Not
     … This is one of the basic principles of wisdom: figuring out what you’re responsible for and what you’re not, learning how to put aside the things you’re not responsible for, the things that are not your duty, not your burden, and to focus on the things you do have responsibility for, the things you can change. This is why, when the … 
  9. Part I : Basic Instructions
     … What you need now is another set of skills, the skills of wisdom, compassion, and purity that the Buddha exemplified. Those are the things you want to work on right now. So very few of any of your thoughts are in any way related to those qualities, so the wise thing right now is to learn how to step back, be an adult about … 
  10. Honoring the Noble Ones
     … Because there is a wisdom in realizing that the Buddha’s teachings are not just to listen to or to think about or to argue about. They’re here to put into practice—to train the mind. And in training the mind, you have to move it in directions it might not normally want to move. This is why it’s good to learn … 
  11. Actualizing Your Potentials
     … The beginning of wisdom or the beginning of discernment lies in this ability to get a sense of what’s really important and what’s not. Back in the time of the Buddha, there was a list of the hot issues of the day: Is the world eternal or is it not eternal? Is it finite or is it infinite? Is the life force … 
  12. Creating a New Self
     … It may sound like wisdom, but it’s actually very unhealthy. What you really want, as you get with the breath, is to have a very strong sense that this is where you really belong, and it’s good to be here, and this is a more reliable self—so that you do have a place where you can stand. And, yes, you are … 
  13. Mature Strategies
     … The Buddha said that this is the beginning of wisdom. When you find wise people, you ask them, “What can I do that will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Then you reflect on their answers. You compare them to the strategies you’ve been pursuing and you see what’s worth giving a try. Most of our strategies work to some … 
  14. Mindfulness 2.0
     … Ajaan Lee, when he explains mindfulness practice, points to the wisdom in ardency. You don’t just know about things. You know that something has to be done with them. And this is hinted at even in the sutta. When it talks about dealing with the hindrances, dealing with the factors for awakening, dealing with the fetters that arise at the six senses, it … 
  15. A Sense of Yourself
     … As the Buddha said, the sign of wisdom is knowing what duties fall to you, what duties don’t fall to you. You take on the duties that do fall to you, and you leave aside the ones that don’t. The duties that do fall to you regardless deal with your defilements. You have to take them on. You can’t just give … 
  16. The Five Hindrances
     … So remind yourself of the wisdom of charging the batteries of the mind so that regardless of what happens, you’re ready for it. As we were saying this morning, there’s so much change in the world. It’s particularly evident right now. But the wisest way to prepare for all this change is to make sure that the qualities of your mind … 
  17. Resources for Endurance
     … As the Buddha said, this is a sign of wisdom: When it’s a difficult decision but you know it’s going to lead to good results down the line, you can focus on those good results in such a way that you can stick with that good decision, that good intention, that determination you’ve made. This is why, for instance, when we … 
  18. Taking Responsibility
     … Were the results harmful or not? Wisdom, he said, starts with that question: What will I do that will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? And when you’re meditating, he says, you go to a teacher and you ask questions: How can I get the mind to be more still? How can the mind be focused? How can it be settled … 
  19. Catch Yourself Lying to Yourself
     … This is why, when the Buddha sets out the factors for the path, after he talks about the wisdom factors of right view and right resolve he focuses on speech, what you say. Because what you say to others reflects what you say to yourself . And vice versa. The two processes go together. If you find that you can get away with lying outside … 
  20. Happiness is a Skill
     … Whatever wisdom he had came through mastering the skill of the practice. And he was the happiest person I’d ever met. That, too, came from the skill of the practice. So as we take on this skill. There are a lot of things we don’t know. The Buddha says there is such a thing as nibbana, but we don’t know. He … 
  21. Concentration & Insight
     … It’s simply a matter of learning how to do it with wisdom and discernment. We all want to be happy, and you’d think that we’d act in ways that would create happiness, but look at our behavior: So many times we do things that lead to stress and suffering and harm, and yet we wonder, “Why?” Well, it’s because we … 
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