Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. A Skillful Attitude
     … There’s a tendency to regard concentration practice and discernment practice as two different things, but ideally they should come together. And what are the four noble truths aside from a way of looking at your experience from the point of view of someone who wants to be skillful? You see where there’s discomfort or dis-ease—i.e., where there’s something … 
  3. Dhamma Medicine for Free
     … You learn to develop your own powers of evaluation, your powers of discernment, and you start using them for your own well-being. All too often, we spend a lot of time thinking about issues that deal with temporary happiness—or anything but true well-being, true happiness—and we get really distracted. So our discernment doesn’t give us as much benefit as … 
  4. What Are You Doing?
     … As Ajaan Lee once said, if you see causes without effects, it’s not discernment. If you see effects without causes, it’s not discernment. You have to see the connections between the causes and effects. That’s discernment. Which means that you have to be alert to these things. So whatever the problem is that you’re going to encounter in your meditation … 
  5. Invest in the Breath
     … You’re really refining your discernment, because this kind of concentration has to be just right. If things get too still in the mind, you blank out. If they’re not still enough, you don’t see things clearly. It’s when you have the sense of just right that your discernment gets exercised, and you can start seeing deeper and deeper and deeper … 
  6. Confident, Steadfast, Resolute
     … Yet you do know that you’ll need some good qualities in the mind, like mindfulness, concentration, discernment. So you keep reminding yourself that by meditating, you’re not running away from problems, you’re actually developing the qualities that you’ll need to solve unexpected problems. No matter what happens—good or bad—you’ll need mindfulness to handle it well, concentration to … 
  7. Respect for the Path
     … virtue, concentration, discernment, based on generosity. So you show your respect for yourself by showing respect for what you do. Be careful in what you do, because it will have a big impact on not only the present moment, but also the future. When you take on the precepts, you’re being careful in what you do. No killing, no stealing, no illicit sex … 
  8. Pulling Out of the Narratives
     … A lot of the discernment lies right there—in particular, the kind of discernment that leads to release. Release is going to be something unexpected. It’s outside our normal patterns of thinking. So a useful lesson in meditation is to remind yourself that there is more in this world than is dreamt of in your philosophy—that old line from Shakespeare. There are … 
  9. The Desire to Be Free from Desire
     … This, of all the methods for keeping the mind from wandering off, requires the most desire, the strongest determination, and the least discernment. But if you think of these different methods as tools in your toolbox, this is the sledgehammer. Sometimes you need a sledgehammer when the finer tools are no match for the job. The important point is that you’re ardent in … 
  10. Metta Can Hurt
     … This is why we have to teach our discernment to be heedful and wary. If you think you can trust your quote-unquote “innate” compassion, you’re setting yourself up for a fall—and you’ll hurt others in the process. You have to learn how to bring discernment to your practice of the brahma-vihāras so that you can turn them into right … 
  11. Self View & Conceit
     … This is discernment. Discernment is not just a matter of repeating a formula, like “inconstant, stressful, not-self.” It’s a matter of learning to be more and more sensitive to what you’re doing and the results of what you’re doing. As you get more and more sensitive, things will start showing up that you didn’t see before. And in that … 
  12. Equanimity After Victory
     … So use the concentration to fight off the hindrances and then use it to develop other, subtler forms of discernment. When the mind has come to discernment—the discernment that comes as you peel away layers of fabrication on the mind—then you can arrive at equanimity. But you don’t stop with equanimity in the practice of concentration. You use that equanimity to … 
  13. Can Do
    There’s a passage in the Canon that says, “Concentration nurtured by virtue leads to discernment. Discernment nurtured by concentration leads to release.” When we hear that, we should keep it in mind, because when we come to the practice, we’re coming out of ignorance. We’re going to be doing things that, in many cases, we’ve never done before. And yet … 
  14. Strength for Stillness
     … Then there’s the strength of discernment. As you watch what you’re doing and you notice what’s skillful and unskillful, that use of evaluation and concentration actually becomes an important part of discernment. It’s how the two qualities go together. Ajaan Suwat would often speak of this. He’d say, make it your signal in your mind, something that you keep … 
  15. Building Character
     … There’s the list of the perfections—generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance—all those good Capricorn virtues; truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity. As Ajaan Fuang liked to say, when the Buddha was born in all his many lifetimes up until he became a Buddha, he was born for the sake of mastering these perfections. The list of good spiritual materialism in the suttas is … 
  16. The Mirror Inside
     … Discernment turns into great discernment.” In the same way, these ordinary qualities can yield extraordinary results if you really develop them.
  17. Friends with the Breath
     … And discernment comes into the equation as well, because you have to be discerning in how you focus your mind. So find a good object to focus on. Once you clear the decks through your reflections, look for your breath. It’s always there. The question is whether your thoughts obscure it or not. The kind of thinking that comes from the reflections we … 
  18. Fear of the Truth
     … the fact that you are capable of doing these things; you are capable of being more mindful, more concentrated, gaining more discernment, developing more patience, more equanimity, more compassion for others. Sometimes this confidence is hard to gain. It takes a while. But as you keep chipping away, chipping away, you find that your confidence becomes confirmed, verified. And yes, this does work. You … 
  19. Arising & Passing Away
     … The way to work around that is through the discernment that cuts through your clinging. One of the Buddha’s definitions for the strength or faculty of discernment—“faculty” here being a bad translation for the Pali word indriya. It means more like a dominant factor in your mind, something that’s powerful and strong in your mind. One of the definitions for the … 
  20. Dissolving Your Thoughts
     … This is one of the ways in which concentration leads to discernment—discernment of exactly what’s happening when a thought occurs, and discerning your ability to step out when you don’t want to get involved.
  21. The Knife of Discernment
    The Knife of Discernment April, 2002 The mind feeds on its moods and its objects, so you’ve got to find something good for it to feed on. We have the choice. There are all kinds of things you could focus on right now. It’s up to you to choose the right place to focus, the right place to feed. So look around … 
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