Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. The Mirror Inside
     … Discernment turns into great discernment.” In the same way, these ordinary qualities can yield extraordinary results if you really develop them.
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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.
  12. 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 … 
  13. The Door of the Cage (2)
     … to be virtuous, to be generous, to develop powers of mindfulness, concentration, discernment—things that are good for you and for the people around you, noble qualities of mind, qualities that ennoble you as a person. And if you practice this Dhamma, people who wish you well would be happy for you. Now, with those first two ways of thinking, notice what the Buddha … 
  14. The Perfection of Freedom
     … Then there’s discernment, which allows you to see distinctions. The mind has a tendency to glom a lot of things together and not really look very carefully. It says, “Oh, that’s this, this is that.” It’s that old world again, so you know your role for that old world and you just take on the old role, even though it may … 
  15. Wise About Pleasure
     … What is concentration for? It’s for developing discernment. What is discernment for? He keeps pursuing the questions. Finally, they get to nibbana. He asks, “What is nibbana for?” She says, “You’ve taken this line of questioning too far. Nibbana isn’t for anything. It’s where you’ve arrived.” There’s nothing else in the world that can qualify in that way … 
  16. The Values of Stillness
     … We’d like to have the discernment that would go straight to the jugular, take care of all our defilements with one fell swoop. But that kind of discernment doesn’t come without practice. And it doesn’t come without concentration. Don’t look down on the concentration or be in too great a hurry to move on to what comes next. With all … 
  17. Inner Poise
     … Also, it’s through concentration, through this ability to stay here continuingly in the present moment, that you start gaining discernment, too. We think of wisdom or discernment as things you learn from books, but that’s not the case at all. You gain discernment from watching things consistently. When you’re staying with the breath, you’re in really good place, because that … 
  18. Goodness
     … And then there’s the strength of discernment. Once you have this extra energy, what are you going to do with it? The Buddha said that the best thing is first to take care of the problem of how you create suffering for yourself. I don’t know how many people say that this seems selfish, but it’s not. You take care of … 
  19. Rivers of Craving
     … Then there’s the strength of discernment as well, and the strength of discernment is something else. It’s when you see and understand why it is you go for these things. If you were to die right now, say you were in a lot of pain and you had been in pain for a while, and the time came when you discovered that … 
  20. New Feeding Habits
     … You don’t have to feed off your virtue; you don’t have to feed off your discernment. The goal is that good. The path is a good path. After all, learning to be a person of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—these are all good things: good things to do, ennobling things to do—which is one of the reasons why this is … 
  21. Commit & Reflect All Around
     … The Buddha defines discernment as “knowledge of arising and passing away—noble, penetrative, leading to the ending of stress.” On the surface, it sounds like simply watching things come and go. But notice that it’s actually “noble, penetrative, leading to the ending of stress.” It’s not just watching things come and go. Noble knowledge is what puts you on the path to … 
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