Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Faith in the Practice… We hear that the practice starts out with virtue and then goes to concentration and then to discernment. But actually, you have to develop all three at once: virtue in your day-to-day actions, while trying to develop your concentration and your discernment at the same time. This way, they strengthen one another. Now, for most laypeople the five precepts are plenty, but …
- A Home of Your Own… You have to have some discernment as well: the discernment to see what is really important to think about and what’s not. When something is not worth thinking about, you know how to take it apart so that it doesn’t take over. This means that getting the mind still is not just a matter of resting, it’s also a matter of …
- First Principles… But in figuring things out, that’s how you develop your discernment. Again, it’s not somebody else’s concepts pasted across your experience. It’s your sense of what works, what doesn’t work; which actions are worth doing, which ones are not worth doing. And when you are tempted to do something unskillful, how can you talk yourself out of it? When …
- Today Is Better than Yesterday… That’s the strength of discernment. One of the images in the Canon for discernment is of a fortress wall covered with plaster. In other words, it’s smooth. Your defilements have no foothold to make inroads into the mind. The only way you can make your mind smooth like that is to be as continually aware as possible, and to be especially leery …
- Admirable Friendship… conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. If you’re wise, you look for people who have these qualities and you try to emulate them. Conviction means conviction in the principle that your actions do matter and that you’re the one making the choices. You can’t blame other people for the choices you make. And your actions have results. They have consequences, so you …
- Good Fences… It’s the discernment, though, that’s going to end the problem. It cuts things off at the source. So have this combination of mindfulness and discernment, remembering that in Thai, the words for mindfulness and discernment, *sati *and pañña, when put together mean “intelligence”: the practical intelligence of someone who knows how to take the knowledge they’ve been getting from the Dhamma …
- Goodwill as Right View… We have to use our own discernment. But it’s an important insight to realize that discernment has to be based on goodwill. That is a rule of thumb. When you’re dealing with yourself—say, when you’re meditating—you want to meditate with goodwill. This doesn’t mean being kind to yourself by giving yourself ice cream all the time. But it …
- May All Beings Be Heedful… What makes them skillful? They’re the proper answer to that question that lies at the beginning of discernment: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” So, basically, developing heedfulness—thinking in the long term—is what you want. Heedfulness is the realization …
- Sitting & Walking… Walking meditation is more for discernment. Ajaan Suwat would often mention that he got his best insights while doing walking meditation. But you have to know how to do it well. There are a few rules for walking meditation that are different from sitting meditation, having to do with the big differences between the two: One, the body is moving and two, you’re …
- In the Land of Wrong View… And finally, you want friends who are wise and discerning in terms of seeing what really does cause suffering and what doesn’t, what leads to true happiness and what doesn’t. So those are the four qualities: conviction, generosity, virtue, and discernment. These are the people you want in your inner circle of friends, the ones you go to for advice, the ones …
- From Anxiety to Confidence… Then finally, there’s discernment. Of all the treasures, this is the most valuable. This is what teaches you how to use the other ones. The Buddha’s discernment is strategic. It’s based on finding long-term happiness. Remember, it begins with the question, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” with the realization there is …
- Virtue Fosters Concentration… Where is this going to get your mind in terms of virtue, concentration, and discernment? And who’s doing the looking, who’s doing the listening? Are you doing it, or is greed? Or is it lust? Anger? Are they taking over? Remember Ajaan Lee’s analogy of all the little beings inside your body. Maybe they’re looking through your eyes instead of …
- Positive Right Speech… After you’ve got the factors for discernment, the very first factor is speech. That’s the test for how well you’ve internalized the Buddha’s message as to what’s right view and what’s right resolve. Right view is seeing that the causes of your suffering are inside, not outside. And you want to reflect that in your speech. Right resolve …
- Sending Happiness… And then discernment: This is defined as penetrative discernment of arising and passing away. Now, “penetrative” discernment doesn’t mean simply watching things come and go. To be penetrative means noticing that when some things come, they’re really good; other things come and they’re not. And when they come, why do they come? So you penetrate into their causes and then you …
- Goodwill for Free… Beyond that, though, developing goodwill is one of the bases for developing discernment. It leads to a type of concentration that is conducive to discernment if you apply it in that direction. From there it liberates you to the noble dwellings. So keep these points in mind. Goodwill does depend on a sense of right and wrong. Even though it’s immeasurable, there’s …
- Don’t Be Afraid of Mistakes… That’s what discernment is all about, learning how to look at your actions and to judge them properly. We hear all too often that meditation is about being non-judgmental. Actually, even though you don’t want to be judgmental, in other words jumping to conclusions, you do have to develop your powers of judgment. In fact, insight is a judgment call as …
- Strength to Be Good… You combine conviction with discernment, in which you realize that there are short-term kinds of happiness and long-term kinds of happiness. The beginning of discernment is when you see that you want to be willing and able to abandon the short-term ones, if necessary, to gain the long-term ones. It’s a trade. Then there’s the strength of effort …
- Be Precise … That’s how the perfection of concentration leads to discernment, moving it into the four noble truths. But you don’t have to think in terms of the four noble truths. Just think, “What is this disturbance right here? And how can I stop it?” Try to be very precise in how you observe these things. We had a question this afternoon about what …
- Impossible Things… He said they’re a measure of a person’s wisdom and discernment. He didn’t say they’re a measure of your willpower. You need to use discernment to do the things you don’t like to do but give good results and to not do the things you like to do but give bad results. The discernment lies not only in seeing …
- Anti-slacker Dhamma… As for discernment itself, every way of thinking that’s not in line with discernment, you’ve got to develop dispassion for that. Only then, when all these factors of the path have done their work, do you turn the three perceptions on them as well. And then you’re free. What this means is that the Buddha didn’t start with the three …
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