Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Three Levels of Refuge… discernment, purity, and compassion, and he gives instructions on how you can develop your own discernment, purity, and compassion. Discernment starts with that question: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” You don’t just ask the question in a floating way. You look for good people to put the question to, and they’ll teach you …
- Being Responsible… his wisdom, or discernment, his compassion, and his purity. And as the Buddha taught, wisdom comes from finding answers to the question, “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” In other words, wisdom begins with the realization that your happiness and suffering depend on your actions, long-term happiness is possible, and it’s better than short …
- Gradually Sudden… What’s gradual about the practice is the gradual development of your discernment. The things we’re going to need to know are all right here, but because our discernment is weak, we don’t see them. We don’t see the connections. We don’t see the steps. A lot of things come up in the mind and they seem to be unarticulated …
- Concentration & Insight… The same with your discernment: You start out with the blatant stuff, deal with that, and then start working into the subtler issues as your discernment gets more precise and clear. Now, as you’re working on these questions about where’s the stress here, or what else is going on in the mind that’s creating stress, sometimes you find that as you …
- Mindful to Be Skillful… He wants you to practice the precepts, work on concentration, work on discernment specifically for the sake of discernment, the kind of discernment that can be used to put an end to suffering. That comes from learning to be observant, to experiment, with the idea in the back of your mind that you always want to try to do the skillful thing. This can …
- In Tune… ferreting out our defilements, developing discernment. Think of the questions that lie at the basis of discernment: “What, when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” The discernment lies in several things. One is realizing that long-term happiness is possible. It’s not the case—as you sometimes hear—that pleasures and pains just come and go like …
- A Wilderness Mind at Home… You’re developing discernment as well, because you find yourself in situations where it seems tempting to lie, or it might even seem to be the compassionate thing to lie to somebody to prevent them from hearing harsh truths. But once you’ve made the promise to yourself not to lie, you have to find a discerning way not to lie, and yet not …
- Measuring Progress… It was because she wasn’t developing any discernment, and she wasn’t using the discernment she did have, consciously applying it for the rest of the day. Part of the problem was that when she was in concentration it was very intense, and she couldn’t even think. She didn’t have the ability that Ajaan Fuang was trying to teach her, which …
- You Are Not a Textbook… the discernment factor, the wisdom factor. The translator was saying in the footnote, “This is the wisdom factor, and yet it’s defined as to be sensitive to what is skillful and what is unskillful in the mind.” I was puzzled by the “and yet.” Apparently the translator was thinking that insight or discernment means seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. But …
- A Flammable Mind… Sometimes people can develop strong powers of concentration, but if there’s no real discernment to go along with it, then even that cool fire can go out. The mind is then back to what it was, the same old flammable state. This is why concentration has to be coupled with discernment—the discernment that sees how the mind creates these issues, how it …
- One Point, Two Points, Many Points… After all, the purpose of concentration is to be aware all around as a basis for discernment. Discernment can arise only when you’re aware all around. If your concentration is the sort that blocks things out, it’s not going to be a good basis for discernment. You won’t see unexpected connections. You’ll have huge blind spots in your range of …
- Sensitive to Stress… It’s in developing this kind of sensitivity, both through your concentration and through your discernment, that you can get to what the Buddha’s talking about. There is a state that is totally free of stress. It’s the ending of karma, but it’s found through skillful karma, i.e., the karma of concentration, the karma of discernment. It requires a sensitivity …
- Above the World… It specifically refers to concentration practice but then beyond concentration to discernment and then ultimately to release. That’s the mind that’s really heightened. In other words, instead of spinning around after the world, we lift our minds up above it, so that no matter how the world spins, what direction it spins, whatever its ups and downs, the mind isn’t effected …
- Borrowing the Buddha’s Wisdom… He also gives instructions on how to do it—the noble eightfold path, which boils down to virtue, concentration, discernment. This is the raft. He gives instructions in virtue in terms of right speech, right action, right livelihood; concentration in terms of right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration; discernment in terms of right view, and right resolve. He spells it all out. Now, there …
- Filling in the Buddha’s Outline… That’s how discernment develops, and it’s through discernment that we overcome our foolishness and the problem gets solved.
- The Psychology of Virtue… Then in terms of discernment, you say, “Well, how do these intentions create states of becoming? And where in that process is the craving that leads to the clinging, which is the suffering?” So this is all of a piece, this triple training—virtue, concentration, discernment—in getting you to step back from what’s going on in your mind and realizing that you …
- Eyes in the Back of Your Head… Second, it primes you for discernment. The whole issue of discernment is: What is the mind doing? If you just look at one spot, you miss all the other things that are happening around that spot. Often it’s the things that are happening around: Those are the issue. You can apply this principle either in the concentration itself or when you’ve come …
- The Gatekeeper Doesn’t Just Note… This is where you bring in the work of discernment, because seeing things arising and passing away is only part of the Buddha’s strategy for dealing with the things that create trouble in the mind. You see something arise, but you don’t just watch it arise. You try to see what arises with it, what causes it. When it passes away, what …
- Seeing Danger in Birth… heedful in our virtue, heedful in our concentration, heedful in our discernment. Heedful in virtue means realizing that whatever we might gain by even the slightest infraction of the precepts isn’t worth it. Those little gains get washed away, and then you’re left with the kamma. Heedful in your concentration means trying to be as careful as possible in your efforts to …
- Help Others, Help Your Mind… It’s also the discernment faculty in the list. I read a translator one time putting a footnote on this, saying he didn’t understand why the Buddha, in defining discernment, defined it in terms of skillful and unskillful actions, or seeing what’s skillful, what’s unskillful. Apparently he thought that discernment had to mean seeing things in terms of the three characteristics …
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