Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Determined to Stay with the Breath… It allows you to take the discernment that you used at the beginning and sharpen it. All four of these qualities—the discernment, the truth, the relinquishment, and the calm—strengthen one another. That way, when you make up your mind you’re going to do something really worthwhile, you accomplish it. Your life is not littered with good intentions that never get fulfilled …
- The Brightness of Life… Now, to do that requires that we develop our concentration, we develop our discernment—all the qualities of the noble eightfold path, but particularly the discernment. You engage in the path and then you reflect on it. The Buddha said this is how the Dhamma is found—by committing to the path, and particularly committing to what he calls the heightened mind: getting the …
- Useful Vocabulary… This is why you need a combination of stillness and insight, or calm and insight; concentration and discernment. These two qualities have to go together. When they’re put together in the right proportions, then it’s hard to make the distinction between concentration and discernment because they’re right there together, working together. You get the mind still. You see something. You let …
- The Use of the Present… In the Buddha’s image, virtue cleans your discernment, and discernment cleans your virtue. And under the term “virtue” in that passage, the Buddha included the practice of the jhanas and the knowledges you can gain based on jhana. As virtue and discernment clean each other, he said, it’s like one hand washing another hand or one foot washing another foot. Both sides …
- A Refuge Inside… He used the concentration to develop discernment that led to release. So you take his example and follow it in your own life. You try to develop mindfulness and alertness as well, to gain a sense of being centered and at home in the present moment with a sense of ease—even of rapture. Then you use that concentration to develop discernment to see …
- The Need for Agency… Some of it has to come from your own powers of observation, because your discernment is the factor that’s going to make the difference. You can borrow other people’s discernment for a bit, but real discernment depends on your own sensitivity to what you’re doing and to the results you’re getting from what you’re doing. That’s how the …
- Nobody’s Servant… If you think about it with some wisdom and discernment, you realize you’ve got the choice to do something really good with your life in the course of your search for happiness. The Buddha offers refuge: a happiness outside of the world. You can choose to go there, you can choose to do the practice that leads to refuge. And the refuge isn …
- Fighting off Ignorance… As you develop your powers of evaluation, that develops your discernment. As you become more sensitive to this part of your awareness, you realize it really does have an impact both on the body and on the mind. You can decide whether the impact is leading in the direction of more stress or less stress, and you can see that the less stress you …
- Truth Without Air Quotes… There was someone one time who asked the Buddha, “What’s the purpose of virtue?” Virtue is for the sake of concentration. “What’s concentration for?” Concentration is for the sake of discernment. “What’s discernment for?” Discernment is for the sake of developing dispassion. Dispassion is for the sake of unbinding. “What is unbinding for?” The Buddha stopped there and said, “No, you …
- In Line with the Dhamma… The same with working on developing mindfulness, concentration, and discernment: Develop enthusiasm for these things because they’re good things. They’re useful in all kinds of activities, and especially the activities that lead to awakening. The Buddha talks about this kind of desire as being an important element in right effort. It’s the kind of desire you have to generate. You have …
- The Path is Fabricated… Some of the discernment is developed simply in getting the mind to settle down and reach very subtle states of concentration so that you can see things more clearly. As you clear away grosser levels of fabrication, you’re left with the more subtle ones. And with time, you learn how to sense those as well, to see that they, too, have their ups …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
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