Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. A Complete Training
     … Finally, though, you learn how to disidentify with the path itself, even with the discernment that leads you there. This is why when the Buddha teaches that all fabrications are inconstant, all fabrications are stressful, he doesn’t end up by saying, well, all fabrications are not-self. He says, all dhammas are not-self. Even the dhamma of seeing this, the dhamma that … 
  3. Analyzing Anger
     … It can be ended only through discernment, and discernment sees things in terms of these fabrications. But the Buddha also describes five steps by which you can get beyond any unskillful state, and they apply to these three fabrications, too. The first, he says, is to see the origination of that state. What sparked the anger? And here he’s not talking about events … 
  4. Happily on the Path
     … That’s what discernment is all about. We all want happiness. Everything we do is for the sake of happiness, and yet, so often, our actions lead to the opposite. There’s something we’re missing; there’s something we’re not seeing. The whole purpose of discernment is to see clearly where we’re making our mistake so that we can correct that … 
  5. Taking the Buddha at his Word
     … The list starts with conviction, and then goes through persistence, mindfulness, and concentration to discernment. If you’re convinced that there are reasons for these practices, you’ve taken the first step. Then you stick with them. And it’s through sticking with them that, in the activity itself, you begin to see the good results. You start connecting cause and effect. That’s … 
  6. Strength of Mind
     … When the mind gets steady like that, solid like that, that’s when the ultimate strength comes, which is the strength of your discernment, your ability to see cause and effect as they happen in the mind. You can see it starting with the effect of the breath on the mind itself. When something disturbing comes in, you begin to see, “Okay, this has … 
  7. Directing & Not Directing the Mind
     … The people in the first type are those who don’t have to use a lot of discernment in getting the mind to settle down. Just focus on the breath, focus on buddho or whatever your topic is going to be, and the mind immediately takes to it. Other people are not like that. They have to figure things out first. They have to … 
  8. The Wisdom of Ardency
     … Then, as you’re ardent in developing skillful qualities, your wisdom grows, your discernment grows, as you learn new lessons that you don’t learn simply from reading the texts or thinking about them. For instance, you learn the point of “just right.” We talked about this the other day. The Buddha’s path is the middle way, but that doesn’t mean you … 
  9. There’s Work to Be Done
     … But then if you just let go, let go, without developing the discernment to see what creates that peaceful state of mind, there’s an awful lot you’re going to miss. There is the activity of discernment: It starts with the directed thought and evaluation, and it continues as you get the mind into deeper and deeper states of concentration. It’s going … 
  10. True Happiness Starts with Giving
     … But it’s a happiness that requires a fair amount of discernment to find it, to take on the duties of the four noble truths and, to see that, yes, the problem with the suffering that we’ve created for ourselves really is the big problem in life and that’s what we’ve got to tackle. A lot of people ask, “Can’t … 
  11. A New Framework
     … things like conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. You have to be very alive to the difference that your choices make. This is where we push ourselves out of the bell curve: by being very careful about what we do. Ardent: This is usually translated in terms of right effort. You recognize what’s skillful, you recognize what’s unskillful, and you do what you … 
  12. Good Traditions
     … Try to get sensitive to how the breathing feels inside, because it strengthens your mindfulness even more, it strengthens your alertness even more, and helps you develop qualities like concentration and discernment, all of which are necessary for training the mind so that you can see the potential for happiness that lies inside. Even just with concentration, when the mind begins to settle down … 
  13. Defeatism? - Anything But
     … This is where the element of discernment really has to enter into the path. The Buddha talks about the middle way, this unexcelled victory in battle, as being a middle way between two extremes. If we could find our way to true happiness simply by being extremely accepting or extremely effortful, again it would be very easy. It wouldn’t take much discernment. But … 
  14. Treasures Beyond Death
     … One is learning the Dhamma; the next is generosity; and the last is discernment. Learning the Dhamma’s a treasure in that it puts signposts in your mind. You have guidance in your mind that will hold you in good stead when things get rough. When you face a difficult situation, you can remember, say, what the Buddha said or what one of the … 
  15. Perfections as Priorities
     … You use your discernment to decide what you want to accomplish, to see how it best might be accomplished, and then you stick with it. To stick with it requires truthfulness, which doesn’t mean just telling the truth; it means that once you’ve made up your mind, you really stick with what you’ve decided to do. You’re true to yourself … 
  16. Finding Extra Energy
     … And the Buddha said, “In the same way, you tune your effort to what you’re capable of, and then you tune the rest of the faculties – conviction, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment – to the amount of effort that’s just right for you.” So that’s one way of figuring out how much effort is the right amount: what you’re capable of. The … 
  17. Holding on Strategically
     … At that point, you realize that the tools you’ve been using to do this are the things you’ve been identifying with—the discernment, the concentration. When can you see those as something separate, that’s when you can let go. And things get even more interesting. Notice that in each case, it’s a matter of drawing a line, seeing something that … 
  18. Together but Separate
     … Another animal comes tomorrow—which means that the work of discernment is going to require a fair amount of patience and ingenuity as you try to figure out, “Well, what’s the assumption, what’s the attachment today? How am I defining myself with regard to the pain? Or what aggregate am I identifying with that the pain seems to be attacking?” You learn … 
  19. Take the Buddha Seriously
     … When you step back from the voice, that’s the beginning of discernment. As the Buddha said, discernment is a matter of seeing things as separate. We hear so much about the wisdom of Oneness, but we don’t hear it from the Buddha. He says you have to learn to see individual events in the mind as individual events, for the purpose of … 
  20. The Karma of Narratives
     … One is simply the skill of learning to turn off a thought when it’s bad, and the other is the ability to develop your discernment as to which thoughts really are worth thinking and which ones are not. For the time being, put everything aside, every thought except the thought for what you’re going to be doing here as you meditate: sticking … 
  21. A Trained Observer
     … He said, “You can hear about other people’s strategies for developing discernment or insight, but you can’t assume they’ll work for you the way they worked for the other people.” It’s good to read about them to get some ideas of what kinds of things have helped other people, but you’re going to have to look at your own … 
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