Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- A Sense of Time & Place… On one hand, you want to clearly recognize what’s skillful and unskillful. At the same time, you have to learn how to bear goodwill to everybody, regardless of whether they’re skillful or not, regardless of whether you like them or not. You have to learn how not to confuse what you like with what’s skillful and what you dislike with what …
- Healing Breath… The second factor is called analysis of qualities—i.e., qualities of the mind—seeing whether they’re skillful or not. It’s probably the most important distinction of the Buddha’s teachings. Some things are skillful, some things are not, based on the results they give both now and on into the future. So you have to learn how to read your mind …
- Refuge… It keeps looking for pleasure wherever it can, so you block off the unskillful avenues and say, okay, focus inside here because this is skillful. It’s going to require developing a skill. It’s going to take time, but after all, what are you being asked to do? Breathe. Breathe comfortably. Breathe in a way that feels nourishing. If your heart feels heavy …
- The Truth of Desires… What are the desires that get you out? There are lists of skillful desires as well: the desire to get rid of unskillful qualities that are there, and not to let them arise if they’re not there; the desire to give rise to skillful qualities, and then once they’re there, the desire to maintain them. These are truths about desire and the …
- Yes & No… You have to learn your skills. And saying Yes to the breath is one skill. Learning how to say No to everything else is another skill. All too often, when we say No to a thought, we clamp down on the energy in part of the body. And that feels uncomfortable. This is why you have to learn how to keep the breath energy …
- The Goldsmith… So, be ready with your full range of skills and learn what’s the right time and the right place for them, realizing that equanimity is one of those skills, but not the only one. And it’s not the ultimate skill. It’s one that has to find its place in a complete course of training.
- Heedful of Ruts in the Mind… As he said, “Heedfulness encompasses all skillful qualities; it’s the root of all skillful qualities.” It’s good to keep that in mind. Whatever skillfulness we develop as we practice doesn’t come from natural goodness; it comes from the realization that there are dangers, but that the dangers can be avoided if you’re careful. So you have to pay extra careful …
- Judging Your Thoughts by What They Do… You have to make them skillful. In other words, you have to be willing to learn from past mistakes, and apply that knowledge the next time you act. This principle applies not only to external actions but also to the actions of the mind—in other words, your thoughts. When we settle the mind down into meditation, it’s not simply to watch what …
- Many I’s, Many Eyes… As you stay with the breath, try to be skillful in your breathing, so that it feels good. Be skillful in evaluating the breath, so that it gets more and more satisfying. Be skillful in learning how to spread that sense of ease, well-being, and fullness through the body, so that you’re not pushing it too hard, you’re not forcing things …
- The River of Karma… In fact, a lot of his teachings on action come from the kind of lessons you learn by developing a skill. Think of any skill you’ve mastered: dancing, cooking, carpentry, plumbing, electricity, music, learning a language, learning how to teach. All of these things require that you observe your actions and learn from them. If you couldn’t learn from your actions, there …
- Action & the End of Action… One of them complained, “Why all this emphasis on skillful actions? Can’t we just open up to the oneness that connects us all?” This particular person happened to have his girlfriend there at the retreat, and I noticed in the breaks that he was not treating her very well. I kept thinking, “If anyone needs to learn how to be skillful, you’re …
- The Image of the Raft… As for skillful thoughts, he says it’s like being a cowherd during the dry season. The rice has been gathered. There’s no danger. The cows can go into the fields, and there’s nothing for them to eat, nothing for them to destroy, so they can wander as they like. But, as the Buddha noted, you can think skillful thoughts all day …
- Dharma Warriors… How are you going to face death? What skills are you going to bring to it? It is possible to die with skill, in a such a way that there’s no clinging, no craving, no suffering. And a life spent working on developing the skills for that battle is a life truly well-spent. So keep working on your skills. They may be …
- The Awful Truth… That’s a lot of what the skill that we need—so that we can be in charge of where our mind focuses, the questions it asks, the issues it takes up. This requires mindfulness, it requires alertness: the basic skills we work at when we’re staying with the breath. So have a sense of the importance of these qualities, and the importance …
- Success Through Maturity… If you’ve ever mastered a manual skill—a sport, carpentry, cooking, anything that requires time and energy to get really good at it—you’ve probably learned how to get your desire under control, get it focused on doing the steps right. When the steps are done right, the results will come. In this case, directed thought and evaluation are the causes. You …
- One Person… We make the decision—regardless of how other people are behaving, how responsible or irresponsible they may be—that we’re going to take responsibility for our actions, we’re going to do our best to make our decisions skillful. And as the Buddha said, even that first decision to act in a skillful way is, in itself, skillful. So you’ve got your …
- Full-Body Breath… That’s how the Buddha would treat his skillful thoughts: dividing the skillful and unskillful ones in terms of what kind of mind state they came from and what kind of results they led to. That’s a useful lesson right there: Learn how to step out of your thought worlds and ask, Where does this thought come from and where does it go …
- Concentration as a Skill… After all, you’re working on a skill, and the skill requires that you be dedicated to it. There has to be some sense of really wanting to do this, and then, once you’ve got it, you have to have a strong sense that it’s worth protecting. The essence of any skill is, on the one hand, learning the techniques. On the …
- Rebirth & Not-Self… So as you practice meditation, you want to get really good at being skillful in how you deal with these potentials, because as the body weakens, as the end of life approaches, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed. But if you’re confident in your skill, you can come out okay. The question sometimes comes up, as it came up today: When the …
- Virtue Contains the Practice… Is the Buddha really right about skillful behavior? If you try to behave skillfully and all you do is find yourself getting really tense about it, is it really all that skillful? Well, the real question is: Why are you getting tense? Is this the mind’s way of looking for an excuse not to stick with skillful behavior? There are ways of sticking …
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