Search results for: "Discernment"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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.
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Choices that Matter… You’ve got to deal with them somehow, so you take what powers of concentration you have, what powers of discernment you have, and you put them to use. It’s in this way that they get developed. It’s like when you’re hungry. You look in the refrigerator, and the food is a little bit spoiled but not so badly spoiled that …
- A Genius about Your own Mind… conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are all things we have to develop and in many cases they require a lot of work. Having conviction in the Buddha’s awakening is pretty demanding because it sets forth the possibility that human beings can find a deathless happiness. There are a lot of people, even people nowadays teaching the Dhamma, who shy away from …
- Choices in the Present… You need to develop mindfulness, concentration, discernment—all the factors of the path—because they’re your allies in trying to comprehend suffering and letting go of its cause. After all, to comprehend it, you have to sit with it, you have to watch to see when it comes, when it goes, what comes along with it, what goes when it goes away, so …
- How to Leave Meditation… It’s only in taking an interest in cause and effect, which is a lot of what discernment is, that the meditation can become a skill and a good foundation for deeper discernment. Finally, remind yourself that even though the visual field may be really interesting, you’ve got to maintain a sense of the breath-field as well. That’s what allows your …
- Relate Everything to the Breath… As they say, there’s the discernment that comes from listening and the discernment that comes from thinking. But real knowledge comes with the discernment that comes from actually developing qualities of the mind. Because there’s also ignorance that comes from listening and ignorance that comes from thinking. You read the words in the texts, and they mean one thing to you when …
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