Search results for: "Discernment"
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- A Light in the Darkness… We have to watch so that we can give rise to discernment. The discernment here is precisely that: the awareness that comes when you really watch things carefully, when you observe what’s going on in the mind. So you have to set up the right circumstances. Again, it’s not a matter of thinking things through. The proper preparation for the meditation, the …
- The Strength of Heedfulness… This is how concentration leads to discernment, if you do it heedfully. You learn how to see individual events in the mind, just as that: events that influence one another as causes and conditions. The question is, not so much to see the oneness of all things or to rejoice in our inter-connectedness, but to see where you can ferret out exactly where …
- To Comprehend Pain… Which ways of acting on those desires actually get results, and which ways don’t? When you explore in line with these questions, that’s how discernment arises. Remember, discernment has to be penetrative, which means that it sees which causes are good, which causes are not, which causes lead to the end of suffering, which ones don’t. You’re going to see …
- Calm… That requires some discernment right from the beginning. The Buddha is basically showing you, in these factors for awakening, how you move from mindfulness into concentration. There has to be some insight along the way. There has to be some appropriate attention asking the right questions. When you figure out what your mind is doing that’s skillful and what’s not, then you …
- In Heedfulness We Trust… So you want to develop your powers of mindfulness and alertness, you want to develop your discernment so you can see what’s a good course of action and you can remember to stick with it. You might say Buddhism is a religion of heedfulness. You’re not hoping to place your trust on some outside power to come and do everything for you …
- The Opportunity to Be Quiet… So this is a good place to be not only for the sense of well-being it gives while you’re right here, but also as a foundation for more mindfulness, more alertness, more discernment, the kind of discernment that really can make you free—even from the need to do concentration, ultimately. But in the meantime, see your concentration, this opportunity to sit …
- Not-self in Context… In other words, your discernment becomes quick and on target. You can pierce right through your ignorance. You want to get that good at your concentration. And to do that—it is, after all, a habit and practice that you develop—you have to have certain views about why it’s worthwhile. Otherwise you can’t do it. So you do hold on to …
- Refuge… That’s what the discernment does. It helps you ferret out where the cause of suffering is in the mind, and realize that the mind doesn’t have to operate in that way. You can abandon the cause. In other words, you stop acting in certain ways that cause suffering, and then even though there may be the stress and the pain of aging …
- Unfabricated Happiness… You discern long breathing, you discern short breathing, you try to breathe in and out aware of the entire body. Then, in the fourth step, he introduced a technical term: fabrication, or sankhara. You try to breathe in and out calming bodily fabrication. That’s another word for the in-and-out breath. The question is, why did he use the technical term? You …
- Acceptance Without Suffering… That’s an aspect of wisdom and discernment. As we train our minds, we need both the stillness that comes from concentration and the insight that comes from discernment. The stillness allows us to see subtle things we wouldn’t have seen if we just tried to analyze things. The analysis allows us to understand connections that we might not have seen if we …
- Stop Shooting Yourself… As the mind gets more still, as its concentration and discernment gets stronger, you really begin to see that the physical pain doesn’t have to invade the mind. We pull it in—to use another image—or we use the perception of the pain to shoot ourselves. Part of the problem is that we’re used to feeding on these things. So to …
- Feeding on Feeding… He just teaches you a new way to eat—the difference here being that as you feed on the path and develop the qualities of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, these become strengths. Ultimately, they get so strong that they bring the mind to the point where it doesn’t need to feed anymore. This is the part of the practice that really …
- The Buddha’s Map… For instance, the Buddha teaches us how to put virtue, concentration, and discernment together. These are all things that we have to put together. Our intention to observe the precepts is something we put together. The precepts themselves are sketches. But they’re very useful sketches. If they were too complex, too detailed, they’d be hard to hold to, because they’d be …
- Timeless Practice… Or, in the case of Thailand early in the 20th century, it was excuse for the government to get monks to get involved in starting an educational system, to do things besides their basic practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment, leading to release. But those excuses have no force if you don’t want them to have any force. It’s up to you …
- Living Honorably… to gauge if something you’re focusing on is really worth taking as a goal, if it’s really an answer to the question of discernment. The first test is that if it’s not constant, it’s not going to be trustworthy. It’s not going to be long-term. Is it stressful? If it’s stressful, it’s not going to be …
- Control… So a lot of insight and a lot of discernment lies in knowing exactly what you can control and what you still need to control for the sake of the path, holding on to that and letting go of everything else that gets in the way—and particularly, letting go of any idea of trying to bring things that are beyond your control back …
- Survival Dhamma… Again, it is possible to have wisdom or discernment without strong concentration, but that sort of wisdom is very, very shallow. It doesn’t really dig down deep into the mind. It can be very easily erased—and very easily grow skewed if you don’t have the honesty that comes with virtue, and the steadiness of gaze that comes with concentration, the depth …
- In Search of What is Skillful… Concentration is for the sake of discernment. Discernment is for the sake of release. But none of these things are obvious, which is why you have to be very careful about what you’re looking for, and how you’re looking. If you follow the Buddha’s example, you’re headed in the right direction.
- Get Out of the Way… You also have to use your discernment.” One way of doing that is to see that the pain is inconstant. Even though there’s a steady stream of little pain packets, each little pain packet does go away, go away before it’s replaced by another one. Another way to use your discernment is just to get out of the way. Don’t have …
- What Right Mindfulness Remembers… You want to be discerning. Those are some of the things that we’re trying to develop as we practice here: the qualities of alertness and discernment. Notice that as soon as you focus on the breath, you’re changing it. When you focus on any part of the body, you’re going to change that part of the body. So are you focusing …
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