Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Conceit Defanged
     … Now, with the fact that conceit is one of the last fetters that’s abandoned, you’ve got some people who say, “In that case, I don’t have to worry about it right now.” But conceit has its skillful and unskillful uses on the path, and it’s important to notice the difference. The unskillful ones are referred to in the passage we … 
  3. The Search for Happiness
     … The more open you are about the fact that, yes, you are searching for happiness, the more skillful the search is going to be. The more skillful the search, the more rewarding the outcome.
  4. Determined Goodwill
     … Even when we go through all the brahmaviharas and get to equanimity, the reason we use equanimity is for the sake of mature goodwill, realizing that there are areas where we would like to see people do what’s skillful and to experience the results of skillful actions, but for one reason or another, it’s not going to happen. If you have genuine … 
  5. Impatience
     … So even though we may have trouble with the judging faculty in our mind sometimes, that, too, can be trained to be more skillful so that it passes judgments skillfully, makes suggestions skillfully. These are all skills that can be learned. We’ve probably picked a lot of the unskillful habits up from people around us but those bad habits can be unlearned. Good … 
  6. Not-self Is a Value Judgment
     … That’s the same pattern of inquiry that he has us adopt for every activity, skillful and unskillful. There are times when you drop unskillful activities for the sake of skillful ones, and then you drop certain skillful activities because you want to move onto something even more skillful. When you gain a sense of awareness and fluidity around this, you learn how to … 
  7. Skills Needed at Death
     … The skills you develop as you meditate are precisely the skills you’re going to need at the moment of death, so take them seriously. Give your full attention to mastering them. This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration, to give the mind direction. That’s the most important thing you’re going to need at that point: a direction. And … 
  8. Tenacity
     … In other words, you let go of unskillful mental habits, but you work on developing the skillful ones. This takes work. This takes dedication. It takes tenacity. It requires that you hold on. You hold to the precepts. It’s the whole point of having precepts. You make a promise to yourself. We all already follow the precepts to some extent in our lives … 
  9. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … No matter how much your past karma may weigh on you, you always have the choice to do the skillful thing in the present moment. First, of course, that requires getting more sensitive to what the skillful thing would be. Then, once you see it, you make the choice: “Okay, I’m going to go for what’s skillful,” regardless of what you might … 
  10. Three Levels of Refuge
     … You look for good people to put the question to, and they’ll teach you about skillful behavior: avoiding things like killing, stealing, illicit sex, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and idle chatter. They’ll also teach you about learning how not to be greedy, how not to have ill will, and how to develop right view. These are the things that are skillful … 
  11. Cooking Food for the Mind
     … So learn to think about it in a skillful way. This, too, is like learning how to be a skillful cook. There are some foods out there that can be good for you if you fix them the right way, but if you don’t fix in the right way, they’re actually poisonous. And this is one of them. If you’re feeling … 
  12. The End of Uncertainty
     … Your thoughts are skillful or unskillful, your words and your deeds are skillful and unskillful, depending on the extent to which they put an end to suffering. So always keep this principle in mind as thoughts come in and out of your mind. You may have heard that the Buddha taught, say, that there is no self. To what extent is the non-self … 
  13. Choosing Freedom
     … That’s the skill he perfected, and that’s the skill he’s passed on to us. So it’s a good skill to practice. The skill comes down to knowing where to focus your attention and knowing what to do, and reminding yourself why you’re doing it. We’re doing this for the end of suffering. We’re doing it to find … 
  14. Broaden Your Range of Choices
     … The more skill you have in being generous and the more skill you have in being virtuous, then the more you realize you’ve got lots of choices. Sometimes your choices force you into difficult situations, but that’s where you can develop your discernment. For example, if you make up your mind you’re not going to lie, there are certain things you … 
  15. Wild Horses
     … Whatever—skillful or unskillful— comes up, just be okay with it. But that attitude doesn’t take you anywhere at all—at least it doesn’t take you anywhere new. If you really want to overcome your sense of self, you dedicate yourself to developing skillful qualities no matter what you might like to do. You tell yourself, “I’m just going to do … 
  16. The Meaning of Happiness
     … There are good intentions and there are skillful intentions. With good intentions, you may mean well, but you can end up causing a lot of harm because you’re not really looking carefully at what you’re doing or the results of what you’re doing. You’re deluded. Skillful intentions, which are free from delusion, are the ones that actually do lead to … 
  17. Attention to Your Potentials
     … what’s skillful and what’s unskillful. In the beginning, he’ll give you some lists as to which actions are skillful and which ones are not. But as you get into the practice, you realize that question of what’s skillful and what’s not gets more and more subtle. It’s a very basic distinction, but it’s not as simple as … 
  18. Practicing Your Scales
    Developing skill as a meditator is very similar to developing skill as a musician. You start out with the scales—say you’re learning the piano—and you want to play beautiful music, but they have you playing these dumb scales and it can be pretty boring. But if you don’t stick with the scales, you can’t play the music. Over time … 
  19. The Ennobling Path
     … We can direct them, seeing which desires are skillful, which desires are unskillful. And learn the persistence and wisdom that enable us to follow the skillful desires and put the unskillful ones aside, seeing what truly is in our own best interest. In other words, we sort through the imperatives our appetites place on us, and the imperatives that society places on us, learning … 
  20. A Confident Ego
     … The skill with which you treat your thoughts, your words, your deeds; the skill with which you encounter sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations: That’s a skill you have to develop on your own. No one can do it for you. And it does make a big difference in your life. So whether it takes a short time or a long time is … 
  21. Prepare to Die
     … And as you develop those skills of the mind, you really do touch a dimension there that doesn’t die. This is why contemplation of death is not a depressing or discouraging thought. It’s the basis for heedfulness, and heedfulness is the basis for skillfulness. Skillfulness is the basis for release. So learn to think about death in this way and you find … 
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