Search results for: "Discernment"
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- A Safe Place… Perhaps he saw that Ajaan Maha Boowa was going to have to do some radical work with his discernment, and that kind of radical work requires really strong concentration—partly because you need a lot of stillness to see subtle things in the mind, and partly that you need a safe space: a place where you feel at home, at ease. You feel confident …
- A Safe Harbor… Sometimes alertness is translated as clear comprehension, and the commentaries slough it over into discernment—understanding the not-self nature of things—and it becomes quite intricate. But in the Canon, it means something pretty simple: just being alert to what you’re doing. This is something we tend to miss. We pay too much attention to other things. But if you want to …
- Ups & Downs… That’s where you really learn how to measure your discernment by how skillful you are in getting yourself to want to do the right thing. So discernment is a matter not just of knowing the words, but also of knowing strategies: how to talk your mind into doing things that you know are skillful, but it doesn’t really feel like doing them …
- Caught in a Thorn Bush… We are, after all, on a middle way here, and that requires a lot of discernment. If we were on a path that involved a lot of extremes—say, just do without anything, any pleasure at all—there are people who could probably do that. It wouldn’t take much thought or discernment, they would just ram through the practice. But here we have …
- In Accordance with the Dhamma… the discernment he had developed not just through reading, not just through thinking things through, but actually putting the Dhamma into practice and seeing the results. Having that kind of discernment, he was in a good position to teach others. He changed his thoughts, his words, and his deeds to fit in line with the Dhamma and gave them an example. We should allow …
- The Buddha’s Encouragement… This is true all the way from the practice of virtue through concentration and discernment. Sometimes in the practice of virtue it’s a matter of brute determination: that you’re just going to see it through, not let yourself get discouraged. One of the images is of a soldier who hears that there’s an army coming; sees the cloud of dust; actually …
- Mindfulness Aims at Concentration… In the noble eightfold path, discernment comes before effort, mindfulness, and concentration, while effort comes before mindfulness. In the seven factors for awakening, mindfulness comes before effort, and discernment comes after mindfulness. But there’s one pattern that’s consistent in all the sets: Mindfulness always comes before concentration. When you look at the description for mindfulness, it’s easy to see why. It …
- Friends with Pain… That chant we had just now, “Those who don’t discern suffering”: You think, “Who in the world doesn’t discern suffering?” We know it, we experience it, but we don’t discern it. That’s the problem. We don’t really look into it. The first thing that happens when pain comes is that we think, “How do you get rid of it …
- What’s Not on the Map… This is part of discernment. It starts with learning from what you’ve heard and then thinking it through. Real insight, though, comes from developing these qualities in the mind. It’s like going out in the wilderness. You read the maps, you make your plans, but when you get out in the forest you realize that the forest doesn’t look like the …
- Recollecting the Devas… This leads to the fifth quality that makes you a deva, which is discernment. Now, even though not all devas are reliable guides all the way along the path, they still have at least some discernment, at least some insight into what’s skillful and what’s not. That’s how they got where they are. The central point in this discernment is seeing …
- Evaluation… Evaluation is on the discernment side. This falls in line with what the Buddha said about how you nourish the Dhamma by committing yourself to it and then reflecting on what you’ve done. The commitment there is in directed thought and singleness of preoccupation: focusing your mind solely on the breath and trying to keep it there, not letting anything else come in …
- Acceptance… This is why concentration requires some discernment. As the Buddha once said, “There’s no jhana without discernment.” To get the mind to settle down, you have to reason with the obstreperous parts that want to go off someplace else, to think about other things, plan other things. You have to reason with that particular set of selves to show them that their notions …
- The Self-correcting Mind… As the Buddha said, there’s the discernment that comes from listening and there’s the discernment that comes from thinking things through. But the discernment that really works in making a difference for the mind, allowing it to gain release from its suffering, is the discernment that comes from developing qualities in the mind. This means that the understanding you’re going to …
- Admirable Friendship… The Buddha said there are two factors that help most in the arising of discernment, that help you most along the path. The foremost internal factor is appropriate attention. The foremost external factor is admirable friendship. And it’s important that you reflect on what admirable friendship means, because even though you’re supposed to be looking at your own thoughts, words, and deeds …
- Undividing the Mind… So you have to use all your intelligence all around to figure out how much and what and how is the right effort right now—the effort that makes use of your discernment and, as you develop the effort, develops your discernment. This is a very important skill. And always keep that in mind: It is a skill. This is why we have the …
- Adolescent Practice… And what is discernment but heightened sensitivity? We often think of discernment as trying to clone our minds into seeing things the way the Buddha tells us to see them. But that ends up just adding one more layer of conjecture to our ignorance. When he tells us to look for the inconstancy and the stress in things, he’s not telling us to …
- Finding Your Own Balance… It’s in finding balance that your discernment develops. Without that sense of balance, without that sense of time and place, there’s no real discernment. There’s just a rote idea of what must be right, and you follow it blindly without looking around you. That doesn’t gain you any genuine discernment at all. There’s no way you’re going to …
- Respect for Suffering… Qualities like mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment, though, are the things that will help you comprehend suffering. So try to strengthen those as much as you can. Once they’re strong, then we can really look into the issue of why the mind is creating unnecessary suffering for itself. So our first issue is to develop mindfulness and concentration. Mindfulness is the ability to …
- 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 …
- Warrior Knowledge… That’s why the Buddha said that there’s no jhana without discernment; no discernment without jhana; no solid concentration without understanding; no understanding without solid concentration. The two have to go together. In other words you’ve got to have at least some understanding of the workings of the mind before you can really settle down. Otherwise you’ll fall for all the …
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