Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Karma-ism
     … As the Buddha once said, there’d be no point in his trying to teach people to be skillful if they couldn’t actually become more skillful. But we can become more skillful. By being observant, by watching, by being mindful and alert, by making an effort, we can develop more and more skill in the way we act, and in particular, in the … 
  3. For the Good of the World
     … So be skillful at all times. No matter what the situation, no matter how minor or major it may seem, we’ve got the opportunity to do good, to act on skillful intentions — not just good intentions, but intentions that are skillful as well. That requires work. It requires training. This is what we’re doing right here. It’s important always to keep … 
  4. What to Keep in Mind
     … This is an important skill. So always keep in mind the fact that we’re working on a skill here. The skill is trying to nurture skillful qualities and to undercut unskillful qualities in a skillful way. While you’re focused on the breath, those are the thoughts you want to allow. You don’t want to snuff out thought entirely. After all, directed … 
  5. After the Fire
     … mindfulness, keeping these issues of the skillfulness in mind—What’s the most skillful approach? What is needed right now? Keep those questions in mind. And from there the factors for awakening fork out into two sides. There’s the more active side, starting with the analysis of qualities in mind, when you look at to see what is most skillful, what is unskillful … 
  6. Don’t Get Discouraged
    Modern educational systems are good at training us how to be skilled at what we’re already talented at. They figure out where your propensities lie, where your skills lie, where your talent lies, and they’ll channel you in that direction. They’re not very good at teaching us how to develop skills in areas where we’re not talented. Yet there are … 
  7. Shame & Acceptance
     … And learn to develop a skillful sense of shame, self-esteem, judgment, acceptance, and non-acceptance: learning with practice which things are skillful to accept, which things are not skillful to accept, so that you can develop mastery in what you’re doing.
  8. The Good We Already Have
     … We all come with good potentials, we all have some forms of skillful mental states. The problem is that they’re not usually given that much a chance to develop because we move back and forth: sometimes the mind thinks in skillful ways, sometimes it gets overcome by greed, anger, and delusion, and goes off in unskillful ways. Back and forth like this, and … 
  9. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … Try to learn how to be skillful with your breathing. It’s an unusual idea that breathing is a skill. I mean, everybody can breathe. But the question is, do you do it skillfully? There’s a skillful way to breathe in, a skillful way to breathe out. There’s a skillful way to relate to the breath as you breathe in, breathe out … 
  10. Mindfulness
     … There are times when equanimity is skillful, and times when it’s not. You want to keep in mind the Buddha’s teachings, you want to keep in mind the Buddha’s example, you want to keep in mind whatever other teachings you’ve heard that are skillful, along with your own discoveries concerning your own mind about what’s skillful and what’s … 
  11. How to Be Alone
     … There are also the skills of steadying the mind when the new mood you’re trying to create is still unstable. What can you do to make it more and more solid? And then there are the skills of releasing the mind, knowing how to free the mind from a relatively skillful mood to reach an even more skillful one. Even when you’ve … 
  12. A New Framework
    A New Framework December 13, 2004 The Buddha once said that it’s possible to abandon unskillful behavior and to develop skillful behavior. He also said that if this weren’t possible, he wouldn’t teach people to abandon unskillful behavior or to develop skillful behavior. It wouldn’t make any sense. But because it is possible, that’s why he taught these things … 
  13. Your Actions Are Yours
    When you look at the similes that the Buddha gives for the practice, you’re struck by how many of them have to do with people developing skills: the wise, experienced cook; the carpenter; the archer. He’s making the point that as you’re working on the meditation—and in fact with the whole practice—you’re trying to become more skillful in … 
  14. The Adventure in the Present
     … And the best way to look into it is to try to gain some control over your intentions by making them more and more skillful. Whatever the situation you’re faced with, ask yourself: “What is the most skillful thing to do right here? What is the most skillful thing to say? What is the most skillful thing to think?” It’s not a … 
  15. Skillful Thinking
     … Just look at what opportunities you have right here, right now for thinking, acting and speaking in skillful ways. That kind of question—“What’s the most skillful thing to do right now?”—is a useful question. This is what the Buddha was getting at when he said to put thoughts of “me,” “myself,” “what I have been,” “what I will be” aside and … 
  16. The Basic Medicine
     … our lack of skill in managing our thoughts, our lack of skill in relating to feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, and consciousness. And so what we’re doing is learning new skills to relate to what’s going on in the mind, along with a new sensitivity that comes with these skills. The skill is not just staying with the breath but also finding ways … 
  17. How to Think about Death
     … What’s the best thing I can do with this breath? What would be a skillful action? What would be a skillful thought? What would be a skillful word?” This kind of thinking keeps you focused. If you see any unskillful thoughts coming up in the mind, remind yourself that you can choose not to follow them. You can see that if they’re … 
  18. Interdependence
     … We simply make use of them, we make skillful use of them. As I said the other day, the proper response to interdependence is not celebration. It’s heedfulness, circumspection: realizing that we have to be skillful, and that we have to be skillful all around. Because, after all, the means by which we get to the other side are, at some point, things … 
  19. The Path of Questions
     … You have to train your whole approach to life. “What’s the most skillful thing to do right now? What’s the most skillful thing to say? What’s the most skillful thing to think?” Learn how to keep asking these questions, looking for the answers, learning from your mistakes time and again, so that you gradually do become more skillful on the outer … 
  20. Doubt vs. Discernment
     … Once you understand what’s skillful and what’s not skillful, then you resolve to do what’s skillful. If you’re not sure, you resolve to find out. There’s a passage where the Buddha discusses the ways in which you feed and starve the hindrances and feed and starve the factors for awakening. And it’s interesting that the way you starve … 
  21. A Load of Straw
     … Your unfinished business is to see how skillful you can be in the way you direct your mind, for if you want true happiness this is what you’ve got to do. You’re not going to find true happiness by straightening out the world, but you can find true happiness by straightening out the mind. Doing skillful things, saying skillful things, thinking skillful … 
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