Search results for: "Generosity"
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- Skills to Make a Difference… When the Buddha talks about how you reflect on yourself as you meditate, he says you reflect on your conviction, you reflect on your generosity, your virtue, your discernment, your learning about the Dhamma, and your ingenuity. To be ingenious, you have to think outside the box a bit. It’s the craftsmen who think outside the box who move their craft forward. In …
- As Days & Nights Fly Past… thinking that what the mind did wasn’t that important, thinking that actions were not important, thinking all the generosity that they had given, all the precepts they had followed, were to no purpose. If you think that, that’s bad karma, and that bad karma can counteract a lot of the good you’ve done. It doesn’t wipe it out; it just …
- Inner Wealth Management… If your friends are admirable, they teach you about conviction, they teach you about discernment, generosity, virtue. They themselves are good examples in these areas. When you hang around people like this, you use your wealth wisely. You invest it not only in your pleasure in this lifetime, but also in your well-being in future lifetimes. Now, those are the principles that are …
- Desire… When you live a life of generosity and virtue, you find it really does make a big difference letting go of those unskillful desires. Then you start applying the same principle to the mind. This is why we meditate. Right effort is the first factor of the path that deals with meditation. It’s a factor of desire: It’s about generating desire to …
- Encouraging Perceptions… For example, reflection on your own generosity, reflection on your own virtue, recollection of the Sangha, remembering all those monks and nuns who went through a lot of difficulties. Some of them were on the verge of suicide and yet they were able to pull themselves together and ultimately gain awakening. That’s encouraging. They could do it, why can’t you? Any of …
- Into the Light of Consciousness… finding joy in the practice of generosity, joy in the practice of virtue, joy in getting control over your hindrances. That’s a skillful principle that helps you gain some control over the unskillful impulses without trying to hide them. Then there’s a sense of humor. Learn how to laugh at your defilements. Laugh at the impulses that would pull you in a …
- Four Steps for the Heart & Mind… It’s been looking at the breath all day long and it asks, “Can’t I have something else?” Well, yes, there are other things you can focus on, like your own generosity. You may have given a gift today, done something to go out of your way to be helpful. Think about that. Develop a sense of self-esteem around that. The same …
- The Wheel of Dhamma… Is it good to be generous or is it not? Is it good to be virtuous or is it not? Generosity and virtue are part of the path, so you want to develop them. And as you develop them, you begin to see that suffering falls away: the suffering of being stingy, of having a narrow mind, of not being true to your principles …
- The Seven Treasures… But if the mind can realize that these things are going to have to go someplace, sometime, anyhow, you can develop the generosity that comes from seeing that other people may need them and you happily give them away. Your mind becomes a lot more open, a much more spacious mind. That’s a mind that’s a lot easier to live in. This …
- Oneness… asked me to give the Dhamma talk in Thai. I had been translating Ajaan Lee, so I used one of Ajaan Lee’s images: comparing the practice to digging a well. Generosity was like a very shallow well, virtue a deeper well, whereas concentration was a well down to the water table. Afterwards he told me that the Dhamma talk had been too interesting …
- Parsing Out Suffering… in terms of the precepts, in terms of meditation, and the practice of generosity. We hold on to certain views about how the world works. And we hold onto ideas about who we are, at least to the extent that we’re the people who are responsible for our happiness—and we’re capable of finding it. But these particular views, these particular practices …
- The Five Hindrances… Stoke up on those qualities of mindfulness and alertness, virtue, generosity—the things you’re really going to need regardless of what happens. And you can do that only by meditating. These are some of the ways of dealing with the hindrances. If you find them getting in the way of your concentration, keep the fact in mind that they’re not your friends …
- Persistence: Lift Your Heart… This is where the other part of the learning how to stick with the duties of right view comes in, and that’s learning how to find some joy in doing the practice—as with generosity, trying to figure out new ways of being generous. If your mind likes to be creative, that’s a good place to look. Of the various parts of …
- Preparing to Meditate… So, when the Buddha teaches us to reflect on our virtues and reflect on our generosity as a way of bringing the mind to a state where it feels confident in itself so that it can settle down, you’ve got to have some generous actions, you’ve got to have some virtuous actions to reflect on. You can’t just make them up …
- Admit Your Stupidity… The qualities are conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. Of course, the discernment there becomes the internal quality, what the Buddha calls appropriate attention. It’s a matter of asking the right questions, questions that help you understand where you’re creating unnecessary suffering and how you can put an end to that. That, for the Buddha, was the big issue in life, the big …
- Between Either & Or… You pursue certain pleasures—the pleasures of jhana, the pleasures that come from mastering virtue and concentration, generosity—so that you can use them. Use the pleasure of concentration to put the mind in the proper mood and the proper frame of mind, making it stable enough so it can really see things in a balanced way. And often this requires a lot of …
- Three Recollections… the six recollections are a standard list—recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Saṅgha; recollection of generosity, virtue, and the devas. They fall into two sets. The first three, of course, have to do with the three refuges. The last three have to do with reflecting on yourself—in a positive way. So tonight I’d like to talk about the first three …
- Holding On to the Path… reach that point, though, hold on tight, because these things really do carry you through all kinds of dangers, all kinds of problems. Each of them is a kind of protection. Generosity is a protection, the precepts are protection, concentration, discernment: These things are all protection for the mind. As long as it needs protection, they provide it. So hold on to them. Work …
- Help Others, Help Your Mind… Maybe Buddhist practice includes more things, like generosity and virtue.” She was right.So try to see this as an all-around practice. When you’re helping other people, as I said, be clear on the fact that you’re not just pleasing them. You’re trying to do things that are actually good for them, which sometimes may or may not be pleasing …
- Intelligent Respect… We live totally off of people’s voluntary generosity. We learn how to keep our needs small so that we don’t burden them. And we find that by living off gifts, we can give the Dhamma as a gift, which creates a special environment for learning the Dhamma, teaching the Dhamma. You may not notice that immediately when you hear about how things …
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