Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Insight in Concentration… People often think that you first do concentration, then, when you really get good at concentration, discernment comes. Well, a lot of discernment comes in the course of trying to keep the mind here in the present moment, because after a while different ideas will come up in the mind: You’re tired of the breath. You feel rested already. “That’s enough. Let …
- Admit Your Stupidity… The qualities are conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. Of course, the discernment there becomes the internal quality, what the Buddha calls appropriate attention. It’s a matter of asking the right questions, questions that help you understand where you’re creating unnecessary suffering and how you can put an end to that. That, for the Buddha, was the big issue in life, the big …
- Seriously Happy… The Buddha’s recommendation is that you find someone who really knows—those who really know, of course, are those who have attained awakening—and you go and you ask them, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” The question in and of itself, as the Buddha said, is the beginning of discernment. It shows some discernment …
- Taking Your Own Medicine… It needs discernment as well. And where do insight and discernment come from? From the powers of mindfulness and alertness you develop while you’re concentrating. Learn how to use them properly, applying them to things inside and out, so that the strength and the health you develop by sitting here don’t go to waste.
- Holding On to the Path… You need the wisdom, you need the discernment, to know which is which. This is one of the reasons why you have to hold on to concentration, because it’s only when the mind is really still that it can see things clearly enough to get a really good sense of what’s working and what’s not. You can’t just go by …
- If These Walls Could Talk… The Buddha talks about the fact that we’re training the mind in virtue, concentration, discernment, or what he calls heightened virtue, heightened mind, heightened discernment. Even though to some extent the Buddha is our trainer, he’s not here right now. You have to internalize his instructions, internalize his values. Which means that part of your mind is the trainer, and part of …
- Restraint… The Thai equivalent, khwaam rawb khawb, is Ajaan Lee’s definition of one of the bases for success, the one that has to do with using your powers of discernment. And that’s a lot of what discernment is. It’s not just a matter of seeing distinctions or seeing connections between things; it’s also seeing the ramifications of what you do. You …
- The Real Thing… So that’s the kind of discernment we’re talking about here. It’s not discernment that goes spinning off into great big constructions. It’s a matter of learning how to look at what’s right here. “This is suffering. This is the cessation of suffering. This is the cause of suffering.” You’re looking at things directly. Now, that requires that the …
- The Wisdom of Self-regulation… A lot of discernment has to go into that. It helps to have good examples of people who live by the teachings and not get all tied-up in knots, to show you somewhat how it’s done, but you also have to learn how to sort things out on your own. So for the time being as you’re sitting here meditating, any …
- Non-Reactive Judgment… When your precepts are sloppy, then your concentration gets sloppy and your discernment gets dishonest. So you have to start training the critic. The training in meditation begins with some very basic instructions: the passage where the Buddha tells Rahula, “Try to make your mind like earth. Bad things are dumped on the earth, but the earth doesn’t react.” You can extend that …
- Limitations… generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. That’s the traditional list of good qualities that you can develop as you go through life in the world. You aim at developing those qualities as much as you can. As for the effect you leave behind in the world, you do your best, realizing that there will be limitations. But the …
- The Politics of Arising & Passing Away… In particular, we do it to gain discernment which, in one of the passages, is defined as right discernment into arising and passing away. As the mind gets more and more centered, you begin to see things just coming up. If you don’t run with them, they dissolve. Then more come up and, again, if you don’t run with them, they dissolve …
- Wisdom Through Training… You need these qualities of mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment at all times, because the possibility for the mind to create suffering is there at all times as well. In the course of the day, someone may say something or do something that can set you off, and if you’re not careful, you can create a lot of harm, simply by giving in …
- Radiating Goodness… That’s why we work on developing a sense of well-being with the breath, along with the qualities of mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment that go with staying with the breath; the ease and well-being that come when you get a sense of being at home with the breath, understanding the way the breath energy flows in the body and using the breath …
- Tuning-in to the Breath… So even though this is just training in concentration, there’s also a lot of discernment involved. As the Buddha once said, both tranquillity and insight are required for getting good strong states of absorption. And he never talked about insight without framing it in terms of kamma, in terms of the skillfulness of what you’re doing. So this practice is what lays …
- The Best of a Bad Situation… This is why we practice concentration, why we practice discernment, so that we’ll have the tools we need at that point. We also want to practice the right attitude that no matter how bad things get, there’s still something we can do about it. If you haven’t developed the skills to deal with this particular problem facing you right now, well …
- The Dhamma Wheel… Remember the Buddha’s definition of the first question that leads to discernment or wisdom: “What will I do that will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” “Long-term”: He’s talking about time, he’s not talking about just being in the present moment. Someone sent me an article today from a British newspaper. It was about the Buddhist approach to …
- Ironies… So even though pain is there, as the chant we recited just now said, often we don’t discern it, we don’t really see it for what it is. We’re more interested in how to push it away or how to go for some pleasure in its place. The problem is that we take pain and pleasure as ends in themselves: pain …
- The Goldsmith… That requires a lot of discernment, along with a lot of commitment and reflection. So just as becoming a goldsmith is a skill that takes some time and strong powers of observation, becoming a good meditator requires the same qualities. We’re not just here to watch or to be aware. We’re here to be aware of what we’re doing that’s …
- Taking Responsibility… This is where the discernment comes in. Because it can happen that you’re working with the breath and things seem to be going fine; you say, “Well, enough of this, what next?” So you have to teach the mind: If anything good is going to happen, it’s going to come from allowing the good things you have right here to develop, so …
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