Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. W.W.B.R.
     … Ajaan Maha Boowa calls this discernment fostering concentration. He wrote a whole book on the topic. As he says in the book, sometimes things don’t go right in line with the way they’re listed in the texts: that first there’s virtue and then there’s concentration and then there’s discernment. He says your defilements don’t stand in a neat … 
  3. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … This is why we suffer from our own lack of skill, from our own lack of discernment as to what we can do that will lead to happiness. We have other ideas that pull us away someplace else. So we can’t be complacent. The Buddha’s last instructions were to achieve completion through heedfulness—in other words, sensing that there’s danger, but … 
  4. Advice for a New Monk
     … This doesn’t mean that you don’t deal with the problems that come up in life, simply that you learn how to deal with them in a way that’s motivated by mindfulness, alertness, wisdom, compassion, and discernment, rather than simply using them as chess pieces in the game of trying to get whatever pleasure you can get out of life, whether the … 
  5. A Meditation Karma Checklist
     … From there, you can discern other variations in the breath. Then be aware of the whole body as you breathe in and breathe out. There’s an effort you have to exert to maintain that sense of whole body awareness. Then you calm the fabrication of the body. In other words, you calm the way the breath has an impact on the body. These … 
  6. As Days & Nights Fly Past, Fly Past
     … So you have to be convinced that we’re here to work on our precepts, work on our concentration, work on our discernment—that all the energy that goes into those skills is well spent. Another quality you look for yourself is learning: We have the opportunity to learn more about the Dhamma. Especially now with the Internet, you can get all kinds of … 
  7. No Running Away
     … It’s through discernment that you let go. This doesn’t have to be the sort of discernment you read about in books. It simply means the discernment of how to handle things in the mind: how to test the limits of physical properties in your body, of the thoughts in your mind. See how far they go in leading to true happiness and … 
  8. Respect
     … But if it’s based on generosity, on virtue, on concentration, on discernment, there’s no need for those boundaries. This is why the Buddha said that when you train your mind, you’re also helping others; when you help others, you’re training your mind. The two processes go together when you’re looking for this kind of happiness. And it’s something … 
  9. Chickens from Hell
     … At the same time, you get more and more discerning about which chickens are the ones that are actually feeding on you. Those you can stop feeding. At the same time, you also get more discerning about what’s the chicken shit and what are the chicken eggs, so that when you have to think, you’re eating only eggs. As you get really … 
  10. Persistence
     … He says, “You tune your persistence to your level of energy”—in other words, what you’re capable of right now—“and then you tune all the remaining faculties—conviction, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment—to that first string. Then pick up the theme of your meditation.” He’s playing with a lot of words here. Picking up the theme is the same as picking … 
  11. Strategic Friends
     … When you couple that with discernment, which is the ability to see cause and effect, and figure out which effects are things you want, which ones are not, which causes are skillful and which ones are not, you find you can really take your life in hand. So you start doing the things that lead to the results you want more and more. This … 
  12. The Treasure of Equanimity
     … And finally discernment: the ability to see what’s skillful and what’s not, to see what is your business and what’s not your business. This is where equanimity and discernment come very close together. As the Buddha said, “A fool tries to take on duties that are not his. A wise person takes on only the duties that are his.” So you … 
  13. May I Look After Myself with Ease
     … This is where the discernment comes in, as you gain a sense of what really is important in life. To what extent can you straighten out the world? You can straighten it out a little bit, but there’s never any closure, never any completion out there. The work of the world never gets done. When people retire, it’s not because their work … 
  14. Pain & the Middle Way
     … As the Buddha said, without the pleasure of concentration, there’s no way that discernment would be able to do away with your attachment to pain, because as long as you don’t have this alternative pleasure, then no matter how much you understand the drawbacks of sensual pleasure, you’re going to keep going for sensual pleasure. As you go for sensual pleasure … 
  15. The No Common Sense Zone
     … Try to develop a sensitive touch, because it’s in that sensitivity to little things that larger discernment arises. And it’s through that sort of discernment that there comes release.
  16. Borrowed Goods
     … You use them as you develop discernment as well. Because what is discernment? Directed thought and evaluation, perceptions—different kinds of perceptions and fabrication, basically. So you want to get some comprehension out of the aggregates. Think about the duty in those terms: not so much you’re just comprehending them; you’re getting some comprehension out of them, understanding how the mind creates … 
  17. Educating Equanimity
     … This means that equanimity requires wisdom, it requires discernment, so that you can learn how to read a situation: Is this one where you can make a difference? Or is it one where you can’t? And given the way the brahmaviharas are set out—starting with goodwill, compassion, and empathetic joy before they get to equanimity—the basic message is that you work … 
  18. Because the Mind Is Purposeful
     … The ardency is the discernment factor here. You’re ardent with a purpose: trying to do this as skillfully as you can. That’s the kind of discernment we’re after: practical, pragmatic, purposeful. Ajaan Lee points to ardency as the discernment factor in mindfulness practice for several reasons. One is that, out of these three factors, ardency is what makes the others right … 
  19. Sensuality
     … This is one of those areas where you want to use your wisdom and discernment to develop concentration. It’s the theme of one of Ajaan Maha Boowa’s books. In fact, his book of meditation instructions is entitled, Discernment Fosters Concentration. You have to think about these things for a bit to realize the drawbacks of sensuality, realize the advantages of finding a … 
  20. Intent
     … This relates to the other quality you’re trying to develop, which is discernment. You use your discernment to say No to the unskillful impulses in the mind, and you do it in a way that’s effective. You’re not driving these things underground. You say No because you understand them. And the No that comes from discernment is the most effective of … 
  21. A Sense of Direction
     … And this is why we need to train the mind, to develop its powers of awareness, mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment, so that we can see which kind of direction is the direction you want to go in and which directions really lead off to more suffering. Because this is a lot of our misunderstanding right here: We do things that bring some happiness … 
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