Search results for: "Discernment"
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- The Big Picture… We hear so much about the wisdom of just being in the present, but the Buddha didn’t define wisdom or discernment that way. He said that wisdom or discernment starts with the question: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” The wisdom …
- Equanimity & Karma… one, the ability to develop unlimited goodwill and equanimity; two, working on your virtue so that you don’t have to criticize yourself over the unvirtuous things you’ve done or said; three, working on your discernment so that you can see these distinctions in karma; and then four, training your mind so that it’s not overcome by pleasure or overcome by pain …
- Antidotes for Clinging… You’ve got to develop your discernment from many angles, develop discernment with many facets. Essentially every approach involves seeing things in terms of being inconstant, stressful, and not-self, but those principles get applied in different ways for each type of clinging. So try to keep this list of medicines in mind and apply them as appropriate. That way you put yourself in …
- Abandoning & Developing… But you do know that whatever happens, you’re going to need more mindfulness, more alertness, more discernment. So the best way of preparing for future dangers is actually to get the mind into concentration. Develop your mindfulness and alertness and discernment. If it so happens that things get really bad, you’ll have the resources you need inside, because if you try to …
- As They’ve Come to Be… A lot of the discernment comes from fending off the distractions, so don’t be too irritated by them. Learn to understand the process of how you step out of them, because that will teach you how to step out of other things as well. Even with the path: There are passages where the Buddha talks about applying the same five-step program to …
- The Shape of a Circle… You have to want discernment in order to gain it. You have to want to go all the way to the end of the path in order to reach it. You are dealing with a kind of desire here, so you could say that the contemplation flows out of the desire. Or in Ajaan Chah’s image, it’s like a branch that comes …
- Not Getting What You Want… There are sixteen steps in all, and only the first two are simply discerning differences in the breath. Once you discern them, you train yourself to breathe in a way that feels good throughout the body. You’re aware of the whole body, you calm the breath, you give rise to a sense of pleasure, a sense of refreshment—let it fill the body …
- For Your Benefit Here & Now… Your concentration leads to discernment and your discernment leads to more concentration. They work together. Just be careful, though, when you’re going for the pleasure, that you don’t abandon the breath. This is something that’s all too easy, especially when there are people out there telling you that that’s what you’ve got to do. I was talking to someone …
- Noble Happiness… It may not seem like much right now, but as you develop your skills in mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment, you find that they lead to a really special kind of happiness. This is why we bow down to the Buddha, because he teaches us of this potential. He teaches us to respect within ourselves things that are really are worthy of respect. And …
- The Duties of Happiness… things like wisdom, compassion, purity, discernment, and integrity. These are all good things. As we stay with the breath and we get it comfortable like this, we’re providing a safe space right here in the present moment where are all the parts of the mind can come together. And particularly, the parts that we tend to identify with, the head and the heart …
- Questioning & Conviction… That’s how you develop your wisdom, how you develop your discernment, motivating yourself to realize that this really is a worthwhile project to pursue. Even though lots of people might say, “What could you possibly learn by just focusing on the breath?” you realize that staying focused here exercises your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment, all the qualities you’re going to need …
- Working at Home… So the maintaining is an important part of the concentration and an important step in developing discernment. But to gain that discernment you can’t simply use the meditation as a place to hide out at the beginning or end of the day. You have to carry your concentration with you throughout the day so that you can use it as a way of …
- Your Hair Is on Fire… So there’s an element of discernment that goes into concentration practice. You may remember, when the Buddha taught Rahula meditation, that he didn’t start right out with the sixteen steps for breath meditation. He first taught him some ways of approaching distractions with a mature state of mind. In other words, bring some wisdom to the way you deal with the distractions …
- Look at Yourself… So you try to be alert, discerning, focused, so that you can be really clear about what intentions are there in the mind and how you’re following them or not following them, and what the results are—because sometimes you can see the results right away. You notice this especially when you work with the breath. Simply focusing on the breath in a …
- Fear of Death… the effort to give rise to skillful qualities, like mindfulness, alertness, discernment. These are the things that are really going to help you. Even if you don’t make it all the way to nibbana, these qualities will stand by you as the body ages, as it grows ill, as it dies. One of the discoveries the Buddha made on the night of his …
- The Third Frame of Reference… Then as you get into concentration, how do you release it from the grosser levels of concentration to bring it to more refined ones? This is where you begin to gain skill in using your discernment in the meditation, to sense, “Where is there any unnecessary stress in the state of mind I’ve got here? What can I do to drop what’s …
- Selves with Skills… Yet if you have any sense, any discernment, at all, you’ll talk yourself into wanting to do them. The same with the things that you would like to do but give bad results: You learn to talk yourself into not wanting to do them. The Buddha’s discernment is strategic. We’re not here just to accept things and be okay. We’re …
- Homage Through the Practice… So we train it in virtue, concentration, and discernment. Virtue means normalcy. You bring the mind to a state of normalcy where it’s not wanting to harm itself, not wanting to harm anybody else. The desire to harm is abnormal. The desire to wish for your own happiness, to wish for the happiness of others: That’s normal. So keep your mind in …
- Learning from What You Do… finding people who are exemplars, people whose virtue you admire, whose generosity you admire, whose conviction and discernment you admire. Try to learn from them, talking over these issues, emulating them in areas where they’re worthy of emulation. Because we do have our blind spots: That’s what ignorance is all about. It’s not an abstract thing. It’s being ignorant of …
- No Resistance… This will be an especially important skill to develop as you’re moving from concentration into discernment. Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about analyzing pain and realizing that pain may occupy the same space as the body does, but they’re two separate things. If you can think of two separate things occupying the same space but not impinging on each other, that helps you …
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