Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. The Noble Pursuit of Happiness
     … And it’s a skill that you can then share with others. You can’t make them skillful, but you can give advice. And, through your example, you can show other people: This is how it’s done. We need more people like this in the world. So learn how to develop all four of the brahmaviharas as a way of adjusting your attitude … 
  3. Inconstancy
     … Once you’re mindful of the breath, for instance, you begin to see that there are skillful and unskillful qualities arising in the mind and that you’ve got to learn how to distinguish them. That’s called analysis of qualities, the second factor for awakening. Then you foster the effort to do away with the unskillful ones and to encourage the skillful ones … 
  4. The Wisdom of Ardency
     … Right effort builds on right view in the sense that it makes the distinctions between skillful actions and unskillful actions, skillful qualities of mind and unskillful qualities of mind, and then it tries to do something about them. You have the duties of the four noble truths. You try to comprehend stress, abandon the cause, realize the cessation of stress, and develop the path … 
  5. Consistently on the Path
     … That way, you can continually bring knowledge and skill to the way you talk to yourself, to the way you picture things to yourself. The word vijja, in Pali, the opposite of avijja, or ignorance, means both knowledge and skill. That is, avijja, ignorance, can also mean lack of skill. We’re working on a skill here. It’s like learning how to play … 
  6. Right View, Right Attention
     … Appropriate attention is the quality of mind that takes what you’ve learned from right view about what’s skillful and what’s not skillful, what leads to suffering, what leads away from suffering, and actually applies that knowledge—in this case, each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out. What this means is that you’re approaching the present moment with … 
  7. Stubborn Clinging
     … You notice as you go through life that the more skills you have, the wider the range of different senses of self you can develop around those skills. You have an enlarged sense of what you can manipulate, what you control, and if one set of skills doesn’t help in a situation, you can try another. Mastering concentration gives you a new range … 
  8. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … And whether it’s a skill that comes easily or a skill that comes hard, it’s a skill you’ve got to master. And fortunately, it’s something human beings can do. This is where that element of conceit that Ven. Ananda talked about is useful: “Other people can do this. They’re human beings. I’m a human being. I can do … 
  9. You’re Already Dead
     … This practice is recommended for people who have already developed a sense of what’s skillful and what’s not, and desire to do what’s skillful, because there are people in this world who would like to come back and inflict a little revenge if they had the chance. But if you’re serious about doing what’s skillful—trying to be compassionate … 
  10. More than Just Letting Go
     … After all, each of us suffers from craving and clinging through our own lack of skill. And no one else can come in and make us skillful. They can set a good example of what a skillful way to live would be, a skillful way to think. And they can give advice. But beyond that point, it’s up to you. What areas in … 
  11. The Power of Present Kamma
     … You learn these skills and then whatever the suffering is, it’s something that can be overcome. Even though there may be bad things coming in from the past, you still don’t have to suffer from them because your present karma is what determines what you experience. And that’s something that you can master. That’s a skill that you can work … 
  12. Practice in Dying Skillfully
    Ajaan Fuang used to say that when we meditate, we’re gaining practice in the skills we’re going to need when we die. It’s true of the big problems that’ll happen as death approaches. There’ll be distraction and pain—the same problems we deal with as we’re meditating, sitting here trying to get the mind with the breath. First … 
  13. The Boundaries of Mindfulness
     … It’s remembering this issue of skillful and unskillful: where is the skillful place to focus, what are the skillful qualities of mind to bring to a situation, what are the things you’ve got to watch out for. You’ve got to keep these things in mind in a way that’s appropriate to what you’re doing right now. For instance, with … 
  14. The Lessons of Equanimity
     … The other direction of that teaching on karma is you have within you the ability to develop some skills so that whatever comes up, you don’t have to suffer from it. You can avoid doing unskillful things and actually do positively skillful things that will make a difference now and on into the future. In other words, it’s not the case that … 
  15. Perplexity
     … As for skillful thoughts, you encourage them. As the Buddha noticed, you can think some skillful things that are not involved in any sensual desire, not involved in ill will, not involved in harmfulness. But even then, sitting and thinking them for a long period of time can tire you out. So it’s even more skillful to bring the mind to concentration. So … 
  16. Fear & Anger
     … Learning how to figure out which one is appropriate right now and learning how to master it as a skill: That’s the meta-skill of the meditation. It’s the line of thinking that can set you free.
  17. As Days & Nights Fly Past
     … You can still use your skills, because all the skills of meditation are going to be useful at that point: the ability to stay focused, the ability to detect unskillful currents in the mind and then say No, the ability to maintain your right view, that your actions really are important.” And you remind yourself: Even though you may have some bad karma from … 
  18. Nimble with Your Questions
     … This is why the Buddha mentioned that one of his skills as a teacher was skill in questions: knowing how to deal with different questions, knowing which questions are not worth asking and which ones are. And it’s important that we bring that understanding to the practice as well. If you expect that a particular technique is going to do the work for … 
  19. Resistance
    Resistance October 25, 2004 The chants we do in the evening, before the meditation, are meant to put you in the right frame of mind to do the meditation, pointing out skillful ways of thinking. Whether we’re contemplating the body; issues of aging, illness, death, and karma; thoughts of goodwill; reflection on the nature of the world: All of these thoughts are designed … 
  20. In Training
     … Your skillful actions based on skillful intentions will lead to good consequences. Unskillful actions based on unskillful intentions will lead to bad consequences. It’s a simple-sounding principle, but it gets pretty complex in the working-out, especially given that there are times when an unskillful action will give pleasant results in the immediate present. Even though acting on greed, aversion, and delusion … 
  21. Dependable Friends
     … This is one of the primary skills you want to develop as you focus on the breath: how to get the breath comfortable. Focus on the breath and then explore it, learning how to get on good terms with it. This is called directed thought and evaluation, two of the factors of right concentration. When you’ve got them going well, then the other … 
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