Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Songkran Blessing… And then the discernment to see which ways you’re causing unnecessary suffering and how you can stop. These five strengths are the things that will carry you through. They’ll make sure that whatever other blessings you gain in life do stay as blessings and don’t become curses. So think about taking the blessing of wanting mindfulness and discernment so you can …
- Learning by Doing… This is a principle that applies to all the different ways of analyzing your experience that the Buddha talks about with reference to developing discernment. With the aggregates, it’s the same sort of thing: How do you get to know the aggregates? Through making a state of concentration out of them. How do you get to know the elements—the four physical elements …
- The Power of Intention… All the Buddha’s teachings on causality, all the discernment teachings, have to do with intentions. He taught causality not in general. He wasn’t concerned about the causality that operates, say, making the orbit of the moon so erratic, or it determining the motions of Jupiter’s moons. He was concerned with causality as it relates to your intentions, starting with ignorance of …
- Brahmaviharas on the Path… There’s wisdom here, too, in the sense of the set of questions that the Buddha says lie at the beginning of discernment: “What is skillful? What is blameless? What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” The discernment here lies in recognizing that our actions are the big factors that lead to happiness, and that long-term …
- Go Out of Your Way… One of the teachings in the commentaries is that cleaning the monastery is rewarded by discernment. The tradition goes that Ven. Sariputta, the Buddha’s foremost disciple in discernment, was also very clean. Ajaan Lee tells the story of Sariputta putting on his robe. While he’s putting on his robe, he’s also using his foot to brush away some leaves on the …
- The Tricks of Denial… Sometimes we read about how discernment is simply knowledge of the arising and passing away of phenomena. That’s part of it, but it doesn’t stop there. That’s looking at wisdom and forgetting the four noble truths. Because when issues arise, you want to see what’s the cause, what’s behind them. That’s seeing the connection between cause and effect …
- Slings and Arrows of Ordinary Fortunes… So the teachings are all here—the skills of concentration, the skills of mindfulness, the skills of discernment—for helping us master this skill of knowing how not to suffer, how not to shoot ourselves with those extra arrows. It’s something we can do. We can catch ourselves in the midst of doing it and ask ourselves why. That ability to ask yourself …
- The Right Touch… It’s in this way that your discernment develops. It doesn’t develop from lots of words; it develops from your sensitivity—your sensitivity to cause and effect. And that’s developed by trying to make the causes as good as you can, so that the effects really are satisfactory. That’s the kind of discernment we want.
- Exploring Contentment… That doesn’t mean you throw away your concentration and work simply on discernment. If you realize that your concentration needs development, you work at that, and you allow it to mature. You allow it to settle in and become a good foundation. So lack of contentment here doesn’t mean that you try to rush through things; it simply means that you realize …
- The Interactive Present… It’s not only the case that discernment requires concentration. Concentration also requires discernment — learning how to bypass whatever issues you can bypass and how to deal directly with the ones you have to deal with before you can get the mind to settle down. If there’s rampant lust or anger in the mind, you’ve got to deal with it. You can …
- The Heightened Mind… His image for discernment: You’re in a tower up high, looking down on people below. It’s this enlarged mind that gives you a sense that there’s more to life than just getting things done—you’re developing perfections. This is called renunciation because you’re renouncing sensuality, but actually it’s a trade up. We think of renunciation as a deprivation …
- Totally Secure… One of the definitions of discernment or wisdom is all-around knowing of this process of fabrication. As you start by looking at what you do, and what you say, you see that this is why we have those precepts. What are you doing with your body? What are you creating? What are you creating with your words? It’s interesting to reflect that …
- Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing… As the Buddha said, discernment begins when you ask the question of someone who seems reliable: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Now you can interpret that on an external level, but you can also interpret it on an internal level. The external level is the practice of merit. Generosity leads to long-term welfare and …
- Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength… The more you meditate, the more you have to depend on your own powers—of judgment, persistence, discernment. And this is what the meditation is for, to teach you how to depend on yourself—how to become your own refuge. We talk about how we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha—both on the internal and external levels. On the …
- An Admirable Friend — In Memory of Luang Loong… developing mindfulness, concentration, discernment, persistence. Underlying all this is the conviction that this is really useful, this is really a worthwhile project: training the mind, realizing that the mind is the major factor in life, shaping your happiness and sorrow, your pleasure and pain. It needs to be trained so that its actions yield the happiness you want, a happiness that doesn’t harm …
- Moving Between Thought Worlds… Mindfulness, concentration, and discernment form the way out. And those aren’t just vague abstractions. Mindfulness is the ability to remember what you’re doing as you move from one state of mind to another. Alertness is the ability to see, “I’m doing something that’s causing suffering.” And discernment is what sees that it doesn’t have to be that way. There …
- Ideals… He practiced with conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment as best he could. But after having given his all, he realized that the paths these teachers were teaching were deficient. So he tried the path of austerities. He put his life on the line and almost died. After six years he finally realized that this was not going to be the path, either. But …
- Not Crushed by the World… It develops your discernment. Forces you to think strategically. All this practice in consistency is going to be really helpful for your meditation practice. It develops the three qualities you bring to mindfulness practice: mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. The consistency helps you turn your mindfulness into concentration. And your ability to think strategically is going to help you deal wisely with the strategies of …
- The Dhamma Eye… You can learn how to live your life in accordance with these principles, and then the mind can settle down in a way that really does lead to discernment. Now, it is possible to get the mind concentrated without virtue, but it’s not an honest concentration. If the concentration is not honest, the discernment is not going to be honest, and if it …
- A Post-goodness World?… Think of the questions that the Buddha’s says lie at the beginning of wisdom and discernment: What is skillful, what is unskillful? What is blameworthy, what is blameless? 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? And first-level answer to those questions …
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