Search results for: "Wisdom"

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  2. Motivation
     … And the desire has to be coupled with wisdom, one, so that it’s neither too excessive—in the sense of getting you all frazzled—nor too weak. And, two, it has to be aimed at causes: what you’re doing to get there. And then three, the effort really does have to be directed at the right causes. There’s that image in … 
  3. Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing
     … The wisdom lies in the realization that, yes, happiness will depend on your actions, long-term is possible, and it’s better than short-term. But the terms of the question can also get translated into another teaching: the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. Look at “my long-term welfare and happiness.” If something is inconstant, it’s not long-term … 
  4. Pissing on Palaces
     … What we’re living for as meditators is to develop the qualities—in some cases they’re called the noble treasures—of conviction, virtue, a sense of shame and compunction over the idea of doing something harmful, the willingness to learn, generosity, and wisdom. These are qualities of mind you can take with you, and you don’t want to scrounge around for them … 
  5. Hope
     … If life were entirely passive, if we were just receivers of experiences, then wisdom would lie in learning to accept things, saying, “This is as good as it gets, we might as well learn how to accept it.” But that’s not the way it is. The fact is that we’re creating experience and we can do a better job. And the process … 
  6. Suffering Is a Feeding Addiction
     … Ajaan Lee identifies this as the wisdom faculty in mindfulness practice. In other words, simply knowing things is not enough. The wise person actually takes good knowledge and puts it to use. But to do that requires strength, because often our feeding addictions, or whatever our addictions may be, are at their strongest when we’re feeling weak and tired. That’s when the … 
  7. Not Crushed by the World
     … So, you want to make sure that wisdom is looking, discernment is looking, not your greed, aversion and delusion. You have to see the way you engage with your senses as a cause-and-effect process. What you’re looking for, what you’re listening for, will have an impact on the mind. So be very careful about how you go about these things … 
  8. Right View Comes First
     … But with the right view, we’re borrowing the Buddha’s wisdom, we’re borrowing his discernment. And he’s freely given it to us. So try to make good use of it, because it’s the only way out.
  9. Worldly Narratives
     … So it’s part of the Buddha’s wisdom that if sankhara, this process of mental fabrication, is a problem, the only way to get out is not just to tell yourself to stop thinking. It’s to tell yourself to start thinking in ways that are useful, that bring the mind back to the path. When the Buddha analyzed suffering in his first … 
  10. The Buddha’s Basic Therapy
     … The Buddha said the sign of wisdom is when you look for long-term happiness. And sometimes long-term happiness requires letting go of short-term happiness. So the teachings on karma and rebirth help give you a long view. The Buddha never tried to prove that these things were true, but he said that they’re a really good working hypothesis. And they … 
  11. The Noble Truths Come First
     … No matter how much you tell yourself that these things out there are not satisfactory, you say, “Well, that’s all I’ve got.” And sometimes that’s how Buddhist wisdom is interpreted: a willingness to accept that “Well, this is all we’ve got, so let’s satisfy ourselves with what we’ve got.” But the Buddha realized that the hungers of the … 
  12. The Right Piece in the Right Puzzle
     … Then, based on that, the question that’s the starting point for wisdom or discernment is: What is skillful, what is unskillful? The Buddha further refines that: What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? And, what when I do it will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? Those are the questions that the anatta teaching … 
  13. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … But if things stopped there, it would be like the Serenity Prayer, “May I have the courage to change what I can change, the patience to accept what I can’t, and the wisdom to tell the difference.” But there’s more. When you take the powers of discernment you’ve developed as you’ve been getting the mind to settle down and you … 
  14. Matters of Life & Death
     … Age doesn’t automatically bring wisdom. At the same time, though, youth doesn’t automatically bring foolishness. We can take our youth, to the extent that we still have it, and devote it to the practice. The Buddha has a passage where he talks about future dangers, reflecting on the fact that you’re now young, you’re strong and healthy, you’re still … 
  15. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … As Ajaan Lee points out, of those three qualities—mindfulness, alertness, ardency—ardency is the wisdom factor. It really burns into things, tries to understand them, and tries to do this well. So these are the qualities that go into right concentration. You’re not just zoning out. You’re not just blissing out. The bliss is there, but one of the skills of … 
  16. Long-Term Welfare
    The Buddha once said that the quest for wisdom, the quest for discernment, starts with a question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This may sound strange, because we’re used to hearing the Buddha’s take on discernment or insight as dealing with inconstancy, stress, and not-self, which sounds like the very opposite of … 
  17. The Ennobling Path
     … 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 to figure out which ones really are skillful. We need to sort out … 
  18. A Rite of Passage
     … the results of your actions so that what you actually do and say and think is in line with your ideals. That’s the quality that the Buddha calls purity. So. Wisdom, compassion, purity—these are the qualities of the Buddha. These are qualities that come from practicing this rite of passage aimed at true happiness. It’s not a rite of passage where … 
  19. The Duties of Happiness
     … things like wisdom, compassion, purity, discernment, and integrity. These are all good things. As we stay with the breath and we get it comfortable like this, we’re providing a safe space right here in the present moment where are all the parts of the mind can come together. And particularly, the parts that we tend to identify with, the head and the heart … 
  20. Questioning & Conviction
     … That’s how you develop your wisdom, how you develop your discernment, motivating yourself to realize that this really is a worthwhile project to pursue. Even though lots of people might say, “What could you possibly learn by just focusing on the breath?” you realize that staying focused here exercises your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment, all the qualities you’re going to need … 
  21. Doing the Right Thing
     … one, not seeing clearly; two, not having the strength even when you do see clearly; and sometimes, you can see clearly and have the strength, but you don’t have the wisdom to deal with the unskillful members of your mind’s committee. Boil it down to those three issues, and the training that the Buddha gives in virtue, concentration, and discernment helps right … 
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