Search results for: "Persistence"
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- Conviction & Truth… Do you have the quality of truthfulness within you to be the sort of person who can really gauge the path? Thinking like this helps to nourish your effort, because in the five strengths, conviction leads to persistence, but conviction doesn’t act on its own. There has to be the desire to really know, to take it beyond mere conviction if you’re …
- Fabrication Theory… Another quality that’s required to make this a skill is persistence. You stick with it again and again and again, because it’s the continuity of your effort that’s going to make the difference. You could focus on the breath for a few seconds and then wander off to something else and focus on it for a few more seconds and then …
- The Buddha’s Revolution… And then there’s aroused persistence, which is basically right effort: learning to give rise to skillful qualities and abandon unskillful qualities, and putting an effort in to do that well. These are the areas where the Buddha says you look for freedom. In terms of shedding and contentment, think of that story of the former king, Bhaddiya, who was one of the Buddha …
- To Strengthen the Path… That’s what persistence is all about. Mindfulness is keeping this in mind. It’s not simply being aware of things without judging them. You actually are judging things, figuring out what’s useful to stay with, and then remembering that, trying not to forget. The Buddha talks about having four frames of reference. And they’re relevant to what we’re doing, as …
- Strong-hearted… The next strength is persistence. You stick with this. In other words, whenever anything unskillful comes up in the mind, you get rid of it. And you try to make sure that unskillful things don’t take over. As for skillful qualities, if they’re not there yet, you try to give rise to them, and when they are there, you try to maintain …
- Success with Breathing… There’s persistence: You put in effort. You do your best. There’s intentness, where you really give it your whole heart. You pay full attention, try your best. Then finally, there’s vimansa, which is a word that’s hard to translate. It means “discriminating,” not in a bad sense, but in a good sense: making distinctions, using your powers of ingenuity, using …
- Multi-Dimensional Dhamma… It also includes two principles concerning inner attitudes that help you reach the goal—persistence and contentment—as well as four principles governing the way you interact with other people: being modest, shedding your pride, finding seclusion, and being unburdensome. When you gauge any teaching, action, or quality that arises in the mind, you have to look at it from all three of these …
- Counter-cultural Values… It’s in learning to be content with things outside you, because you have to be persistent in another way. The persistence here is persistence in developing the mind, working on the qualities of the mind. Domestic society goes along with that to some extent, but when we start talking about abandoning sensuality, abandoning our possessiveness, abandoning our idea of self, that goes against …
- Help Others, Help Your Mind… There it’s paired with persistence so that your equanimity doesn’t become lazy. The seven factors start with being mindful. Based on your practice of mindfulness, you begin to analyze the mind, to see what’s skillful and what’s unskillful. That’s the function of analysis of qualities. It’s also the discernment faculty in the list. I read a translator one …
- Bojjhanga: Discernment Fosters Concentration… That’s what right effort is, or the quality of persistence that builds on analysis of qualities. It’s the persistence that gets the mind to begin to settle down. That’s how you get to the qualities of rapture, calm, concentration, and equanimity. In other words, you get the mind to be willing to put its thoughts aside. And then you can be …
- Rightly Directed… Imbue it with persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, all the qualities that are developed in those sixteen steps, and then just keep the breath in mind. That will be your connection to all these other good qualities, beginning with virtue and discernment. Virtue is what keeps you honest. Discernment is what reminds you of the importance of your actions. So what you’ve got are …
- Conviction in Charge… There’s the strength of persistence, where you can stir up the energy to keep with it, because conviction that doesn’t result in action is empty conviction. That is, it never gets a chance to be proven. So we’ll say, “Let’s act on it.” And because the Buddha does promise that it will lead to an ultimate happiness, you can take …
- Refreshment… In the factors of awakening, it follows on persistence. So you have to ask yourself, “What kind of persistence would give rise to a feeling of refreshment?” Having that in mind gives you an idea of where your efforts should go as you’re focused on the breath. What kind of breath would be refreshing right now? What way of conceiving the breath would …
- Start by Relaxing Your Hands… The next quality is persistence. This means sticking with it, all way through the in-breath, all way through the out, and the next breath, and the next breath. Just keep with each breath as it comes, and a momentum will build up. As the mind gets more and more used to being here, you relax more into the breath, relax more into the …
- Refuge & Strength… Like the strength of the persistence. In other words, when you put an effort in, you realize that your habits are unskillful, and it’s going to take an effort to overcome them, to change them, but you realize it’s worth it. So you make the effort. Strength of mindfulness, realizing that you have to keep this principle in mind: that your actions …
- Meditation as a Skill… That’s the next base of success, which is persistence. You stick with it. Then come the two factors that make this a skill, the first of which is intentness, in which you pay full attention to what you’re doing. You’re not just going through the motions. You try to be with each breath, as sensitive as you can to how this …
- Patience Is a Skill… So learn how to be patient when you need to be patient, and the patience here goes together with persistence. We know the Buddha said to be heedful, to act* as if your head were on fire. Learn to translate that into a consistent persistence. Don’t bash your head trying to put the fire out. *
- Strength in Humor… This is why from conviction comes persistence: the arousing of desire to abandon unskillful qualities and to develop skillful ones—or, once you’ve got something skillful going, the desire to maintain it, realizing that this is the important thing to do and the important thing to focus on—and finding the energy and the ability to stick with it. That requires reminding yourself …
- Four Bases of Success… The next basis for success is persistence. You really stick with it, and not just while you’re sitting here with your eyes closed. You also want to learn how to be familiar with how the breath energy feels as you walk around, as you stand, as you lie down. When you talk with other people, can you stay in touch with how the …
- 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 …
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