Search results for: "Skillfulness"
- Page 36
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Single-minded… They say that people who’ve mastered skills, who are really good at a particular skill—whether it’s music, carpentry, sports, surgery—have to start out with a strong sense that there are dangers in not being skillful, and a lot of advantages in developing that skill. So the reflection just now on the dangers of the world is there to remind you …
- Survival Tactics… And these skills that we’re working on when we’re sitting right here, they’re your survival skills, both on a day-to-day level and also when the time comes for the mind to separate from the body, to separate from all its mental events, everything associated with this life. If you do it skillfully, the awareness that’s left will separate …
- Strong Through Commitment… When you’re thoroughly committed, when you’re really strong like this, then you can withstand not only the onslaughts of your own defilements, but also of things outside, with a lot more skill. That’s the skill that the Buddha is offering to us. So you can ask yourself, “Are you willing to commit to it? If you don’t commit, what do …
- Refuge in the Dhamma… And what does the Buddha say about states of becoming? There are skillful ones and unskillful ones. The skillful ones are to be developed; the unskillful ones, abandoned. That’s what the establishings of mindfulness are for: to look at your mind states in a more impersonal way, to step back from them and ask yourself, “If this mind state were in somebody else …
- The Psychology of Self… That’s sublimation, learning how to take joy in being skillful. Instead of just indulging in your whims, doing what you want, learn to appreciate life as a skill, and that you’re appreciating the skill you’re developing. There’s a very deep sense of happiness that comes when you realize that you’ve done something skillful—much deeper than simply enjoying nice …
- A Home for the Mind… focusing on their actions, trying to see where they were skillful, where they were not, learning from their mistakes, and holding on to that desire to become more and more skillful in every aspect of their behavior. You can maintain that as a steady goal only if the mind is well trained, if you’re mindful, alert, concentrated, discerning. These are the qualities that …
- Refreshment… It’s a matter of skill, skill in seeing what is the right thing to do, and why it’s right. Of course, primarily, we should be asking ourselves: What are the right things to do in the mind? You want to be able to watch what the mind is doing while it’s doing it. And you get good practice in that by …
- The Self-correcting Mind… But he also found that the path was something that had to be done within the mind—because we suffer from our lack of skill in how we handle sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and all the thoughts of the mind. No one else can make us skillful. Other people can show us by example that the skill can be mastered, they can …
- Ego… But in addition to being strong, it needs to be strategic, for its role as a negotiator requires a lot of skill. Psychologists have traced five skills that are essential for a healthy ego to negotiate well, and they all have their parallels in the Buddha’s teaching. There’s a misconception that the Buddha taught us to have no self or no ego …
- Load next page...
