Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- Where to Look in the Present… But meditation is a skill. The whole concept of skill is basic to the Buddha’s teachings. We’re working on a skill here, which means you have to be observant and learn from things. Keep in mind what you want to accomplish here. You do want to get the mind to settle down. You do want it to be clear. You do want …
- Responsible Happiness… So in the Buddha’s terms, we’re looking for a happiness that’s skillful and blameless, one that doesn’t develop bad qualities in the mind, doesn’t impose unfairly on other people. When the mind has a sense of well-being right now, then even the idea of acting in an unskillful way becomes very unattractive. So you’re changing the balance …
- The Buddha Didn’t Play Gotcha… You generate desire to give rise to skillful qualities and bring them to the culmination of their development. In other words, the desire here focuses primarily on the path. Nibbana itself is beyond skillful and unskillful, but the factors of the path, such as right mindfulness and right concentration, are skillful qualities you want to develop, to give rise to, and then bring to …
- Your Own Karma… Your past actions were done with the desire for happiness, and now you’re experiencing the skillfulness or lack of skillfulness in your past actions, in your past desires for happiness, your past efforts to bring about happiness. When you have that attitude, it’s a lot easier to live with other people. If they do something outrageous, you realize that you probably were …
- Fixing the Present… It’s in this way that the meditation becomes a skill. The Buddha’s word for skill is vijja, which is the opposite of avijja. Avijja means ignorance, but also means a lack of skill. It’s one of the causes for suffering. So as we develop more and more skill in how we approach the present moment, we find that we’re going …
- A Path of Aggregates… So you’re engaged in fabrication, it’s simply a matter of learning how to distinguish between what’s skillful and what’s not. A lot of people don’t like this because it takes time. There’s a gradual improvement in your detection of which actions are skillful, which thoughts are skillful, and which ones are not. That requires that you have to …
- Giving Meaning to Life… But in the meantime you develop a skillful sense. There is a sense of self-esteem that comes with knowing that you can learn. No matter how old you are, no matter how little or how much time is left to your life, you can still learn. The issue came up a while back: People who are really driven to accomplish things, really driven …
- Integrity — In Memory of Luang Loong… The skills you develop, and here skillful means skills of the heart and mind, good qualities of the heart and mind: Those are the things you take with you—paradoxically, by leaving a lot of them behind, giving them to the world. So try to make this an auspicious occasion. Look at your life and see in what areas you can improve it, what …
- Humility… Delight in the opportunity it gives you — each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out — to abandon unskillful mental qualities and develop skillful ones: more mindfulness, more alertness, more consistency in the way you make an effort in the meditation. Several skills are involved here. In addition to the attitude of empathy with the breath and humility in learning the Dhamma, there …
- Safety All Around… not only telling you that there is such a thing as skillful and unskillful action, but also telling you which actions are skillful, which actions are not. Then there’s training in the heightened mind, which basically is training in concentration. You’re finding an escape from pain other than in sensuality. The problem with sensuality is that it sets you up for all …
- Cooking the Present Moment… It’s a new skill. As you master the new skill, you find that it changes a lot of that balance of power inside. It also changes your sense of what’s good food—what really feels nourishing. Some of that old “comfort food” is actually bad for you—and it’s not really all that comfortable. It’s just that your old level …
- Discerning Actions… The Buddha recommends that you then go and ask someone who has attained true happiness, “What’s skillful? What’s not skillful? What’s blameless? What’s blameworthy? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” The emphasis there is on your actions. What …
- The Power of Perception… A lot of the skill in meditation is learning how to maintain this perception of breath without dropping it. That’s how your meditation begins to take on power, the power to change your mind. Normally, the mind is fragmented with all sorts of perceptions, ideas, and intentions, and they can affect the mind for good or bad. The problem in many cases is …
- Discernment in Concentration… Ajaan Lee says that we’re working on a skill here. Part of the skill you learn from a teacher. For example, if you’re going to make a basket, the teacher teaches you how you weave the basket, how to make different designs in the weave, and what shapes you can attempt. Then you have to make your own basket—and your first …
- All Three Functions of Mindfulness… The second is to remember to recognize what’s coming up in the present moment, and specifically what you’re doing, to see what’s skillful, what’s unskillful. If, say, a thought arises in the mind, you can label it simply as a thought. Or if it’s a specific hindrance, you can remember, “This is sensual desire,” “This is ill will,” or …
- The Power of Intention… You gain a sense of the power you have when you’re choosing to focus on something and, from that skillful focus, you can fabricate things skillfully and create a sense of ease even in the midst of a lot of pain. This is an important skill to develop. You might scan through the body to see where there’s some tension that you …
- A Position of Strength… You can also use whatever skillful intentions you see here as your allies. You want to make the present moment a position of strength, so that whatever you choose to do or say or think comes from a position of strength and not a position of weakness. The strength there is the strength of skillful qualities in the mind: conviction in the importance of …
- Who’s in Charge Here?… As the Buddha said, this principle of heedfulness is what underlies all skillful activity, all skillful qualities in the mind. Then, based on that, you can develop other skillful qualities, too. One is compassion for yourself, compassion for people around you, realizing that if you really love yourself, you’re not going to let yourself do unskillful things, no matter how much you like …
- The Buddha Respects Your Potential… He said that if human beings couldn’t develop skillful qualities or abandon unskillful qualities, there would be no reason to teach. But he saw that we do have this potential within us, that we can train ourselves and develop our skill in looking after the mind so that we can put an end to suffering, totally. And because he respected that potential within …
- Gratitude, Goodwill & Generosity… The Buddha once said that, for him, the beginning of getting on the right path was learning how to divide his thoughts into skillful and unskillful, and then to encourage the skillful thoughts so that they could crowd out the unskillful ones or undercut them. And then it was easy for the mind to settle down. So if you find yourself having trouble sticking …
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