Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- Pushing the Three Characteristics… You always want to make sure that no matter what, no matter how good or bad the situation is, you always try to apply the skillful approach into the present moment, add as much skillful energy, as much skillful attention as you can. In other words, you have to try to be as constant as you can. Even though the results may be inconstant …
- Study & Practice… So it’s only in the actual application of right effort—in other words, noticing what’s skillful and what’s unskillful and doing your best to encourage what’s skillful and discourage what’s not—that the discernment really develops. This is why ardency is what Ajaan Lee identifies as the discernment element in mindfulness practice. You’re not just sitting there, watching …
- Alone with Your Mind… This is one of the causes of suffering, but as the Buddha said, there’s a skillful role for craving, too. That’s what you want to take advantage of here while you meditate. You give the mind a specific task. What’s giving it the task? Your craving, but it’s informed craving, skillful craving—craving based on the desire to gain some …
- Dhamma in Line with the Dhamma… The reason we suffer is our own lack of skill, our own need to feed. We learn how to overcome that need to feed by developing our skill. That’s the only way it can be done. You can’t develop skills for anyone else. But you’re not the only person who benefits from your own skills. You’ve pulled out of the …
- Free Sources of Energy… So even though the past may be delivering some raw material that you’d rather not have to deal with, you do have the choice right now of fabricating it in a more skillful way: thinking to yourself in a more skillful way, talking to yourself in a more skillful way, breathing in a more skillful way. There’s always the potential for something …
- A Room of Your Own… You can begin to pass judgment on what’s skillful and what’s not skillful, not in a judgmental way but an intelligent way, a useful way. “Judgmental” means that you come to quick judgments without really seeing all the evidence. “Using your judgment” means being discriminating and wise in how you evaluate what’s going on And that wisdom allows you to change …
- Cornered… You try to develop a skill. You’ll find yourself running up against your lack of skill here and there, but over time you begin to realize there are some things that you actually can change. You can develop more skill in some areas. In other areas, it’s just beyond you. This is where you discover the limitations of fabrication within yourself. And …
- Making a Refuge… And you try to develop the skills that are necessary, because some of the work that needs to be done is not just simple cleaning up. There’s more skilled work that needs to be done, too, and if you have those skills, then you’re welcome wherever you go. This is part of having an internal refuge or being your own refuge: the …
- Be Bigger Than Your Pains… That’s the skill we’re working on as we focus on the breath: developing qualities of mind we’re going to need to find that true happiness. We start with mindfulness because it’s a pretty simple mental faculty: just keeping something in mind, reminding yourself why you’re here: that you want to act in a skillful way, think in a skillful …
- Wisdom for Dummies… This is what’s meant by “skillful.” The distinction between skillful and unskillful is another basic principle. Once one of the Buddha’s lay students was accosted by someone from another tradition who asked him, “Well now, does your teacher teach about the origin of universe, or whether it’s finite or infinite?” He went down the list of the big issues of the …
- The Best of a Bad Situation… They haven’t learned the skills to deal with bad situations. Some people said that the attacks burst their complacent Buddhist bubbles. Of course that’s an oxymoron, a “complacent Buddhist.” But that was the kind of Buddhism we had back in those days. It was very complacent. People were used to consuming good things, not learning how to produce good things in their …
- 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 …
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