Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- Karma & the Sublime Attitudes… As you stay with the breath, you can see your intentions a lot more clearly and you’re in a better position to act on skillful ones. The problem is that, as you go through daily life, it’s harder to stay focused like this. You have to keep reminding yourself of your values so that when you catch yourself choosing something unskillful, you …
- Worldly Effort… So we can’t think that we’ll just perfect our skills and hope that the skills will stay the same forever. You’ve got to look for that opening where it opens to the deathless. That’s the only thing that you’re guaranteed. This is why we have those chants we recited just now, reflecting on the body, the one that everybody …
- Bless Yourself… And as he said, his quest was his quest for what was skillful, what kind of actions would be skillful in that direction. Then when he gained his awakening, he confirmed the fact that, yes, it is possible through our efforts to find something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die, where there’s no separation at all. Some people …
- Noble Standards… That way you begin to see areas in which you thought you were skillful and your actions were good enough, and you see that they’re not really. The Buddha once said that one of the secrets to his awakening was that he didn’t let himself rest content with his skillful attainments. He always pursued the question: Is there a better way to …
- Time Well Spent… You want to do *everything *skillfully.” That distinction between skillful and unskillful is one of the most basic in the Buddha’s teachings—it’s one of the two teachings that he said are categorical. And it wasn’t just the distinction between the two, it was also that skillful actions should be developed and unskillful ones should be abandoned. In other words, the …
- Survival Dhamma… What kind of survival skills will we need when ecological disaster happens, economic disaster happens, political disaster happens? It really depends on the nature of the disaster. But the survival skills that apply across the board—your alertness, your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment, your virtue— those are things you’ll need regardless of the particulars of the disaster. So those are the things …
- Varieties of Mindfulness… But you also need to learn how to balance it with interactions with other people in a peaceful way, so you can get skilled at consciously changing your frame of reference as appropriate. This is why we live in a community. Our ability to live together is an important skill in the meditation, for it’s in the changing of our frame of reference …
- The Return of Chickens from Hell… Another way is simply enjoying your skills. When you’re a good cook, the cooking in and of itself is fun. Also, there’s the anticipation of what you’re going to get, and the actual final taste. If the ingredients were all good, and our skills and our cooking were all good, and the final product was all good, there wouldn’t be …
- The Dhamma Wheel… So you focus on what you’re doing, and then you ask yourself, “Is it skillful?” If it’s not skillful, you do your best to make it more skillful. There are the three qualities the Buddha has you bring to right mindfulness. First is mindfulness itself, which is the ability to keep something in mind. Like right now: you keep in mind the …
- Circumspection… The first thing is to try to develop a particular meditative skill, with whatever the technique you’ve chosen. If you’re going to stay with the breath, be really skillful about staying with the breath. Try to be as sensitive as possible to the breathing: how it feels when you breathe in; how it feels when you breathe out; what ways of breathing …
- The Armored Car… What does the Dhamma have to say about what’s skillful, what’s not skillful? Those teachings are never out of date. After all, the Buddha said they’re *akāliko, *timeless. Then you remember the Sangha. Sometimes the Buddha seems far away, 2,600 years ago, on the other side of the world. But we do have the noble Sangha still alive, still practicing …
- Self View & Conceit… We have to figure out for ourselves where we’re lacking skill. That’s one of the definitions of avijja: The cause of suffering is a lack of skill. We’re being unskillful, so what are we going to do to get past it? We have to depend on ourselves. Nobody can give us a skill. We have to learn it ourselves. So as …
- Light Merit… So instead of putting blinders on yourself, you’re simply settling in, in the area where the real work has to be done in understanding what is your mind is doing, how it’s shaping its experience, in what ways it’s shaping things in a skillful way, in what ways it’s doing it in an unskillful way. You can tackle that right …
- Inner Strength, Inner Wealth… You keep it up as a regular part of your day because you see that this is an important skill to develop. You’re willing to give it that regularity: every day, every day, every day. That’s how it develops momentum. And keep in mind all the other issues that come around developing a skill: that there are going to be good times …
- Stay with the Knowing… Whereas if you just leave it at the contact, then you have time to stop and think of an appropriate response—a skillful response that doesn’t involve bad karma. So give the mind some space. This is why the ajaans talk about being with the knowing. In other words, you stop things right at the contact. Notice, that’s being* with. *They don …
- Refuge for All Beings… That’s what we’re learning as we meditate—the skills that can enable us to deal with painful sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas without suffering from them. That’s the skill that the Buddha wanted to make available to all. And he’s willing to be a refuge for all who decide that they want to take on his training …
- Bursting Bubbles… You’ve got the potentials for unskillful qualities, but you’ve also got the potential for skillful ones. And you can emphasize the skillful ones. They are there. So no matter how all-encompassing your worries and irritations are, remember they’re not totally all around you. Think of them as being like a holograph. There’s always one spot in the holograph that …
- The Current News… You want to be as skillful as possible in what you do, able to rely on yourself as much as you can. Because all those reports that come from the world outside may be interesting right now, but as you get older, as death approaches, they won’t be able to do much for you at all. The skills you’ve learned in watching …
- Settling In… We live with stress and suffering but something deep down inside tells us that it’s necessary: “This is the way things have to be.” Well, it’s simply the mind’s lack of skill. If it were really skillful, it wouldn’t be creating any suffering. It doesn’t have to. When you can see that, that’s how your skill develops. And …
- Tranquility & Insight… And to undercut it, you have to do it in a skillful way. Again, you shouldn’t deny that it’s happening, where you say, “I couldn’t possibly think a thought like that.” That’s not going to help. The thought’s there, but you simply have to learn how to say No to it in a skillful way. The Buddha lists five …
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