Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Strength of Mindfulness
     … There’s one passage where the Buddha says that if you see something unskillful coming up in the mind, you’re mindful to get rid of it, and you’re mindful to give rise to skillful things and to maintain them. In other words, you don’t simply watch things coming and going. You try to make good things come and you try to … 
  3. A Cure for the Sluggish Mind
     … And whichever part of the mind belittles your skillful intentions in the present moment, remember that the Buddha would not think in those ways. He said that even just the intention to do something skillful, in and of itself, is a skillful thing. So keep giving rise to that intention, and it’s in this way you can give yourself more energy to get … 
  4. Staying, Moving, & Neither
     … As Ajaan Fuang used to say again and again, this is the key to our skill here. An crucial part of that skill lies in learning to distinguish the breath energy from the other properties of the body—and from the feelings it creates—and to work primarily with the breath. Now, the breath is subtle. Sometimes we feel that we suck it into … 
  5. A Passion for the Path
     … As the Buddha once said, the secret to his awakening was, one, that he would not let up on his effort and, two, that he would never let himself rest content with skillful qualities. In other words, no matter how good his skills got, if they could be better, he was going to try to develop that higher level of skill. So set high … 
  6. Goodwill as Right View
     … You wish that that person would act in a skillful way, and you try to think, if you need to get involved with that person, what would be the skillful thing to do and say so that that person would also think about being skillful?” Sometimes that’s a tall order, and a little bit too much of a stretch. That’s where you … 
  7. The Forerunner of All Things
     … So as we meditate, we’re getting to know the mind so we can train it, so we can know what’s going on, to see where it’s doing something unskillful, where it’s doing something skillful, to abandon the unskillful habits, to develop the skillful ones. This is why we’re focused on the breath, because the breath is right near the … 
  8. To Be Your Own Teacher
     … And the best way to see that intentional input is to start asking questions about when it’s skillful and when it’s not. As you get more and more sensitive to what’s skillful, more and more sensitive to what’s unskillful, your powers of observation become more and more refined. You become sensitive even to the slightest intentions. And it’s in … 
  9. The Need for Evaluation
     … In other words, you’re using the active faculty of the mind and learning how to develop skill with it. At the same time, you’re getting a sense of how the physical elements in the body work together. What exactly is the breath of the body? What’s the fire element? What’s the earth element? What’s the water element? How can … 
  10. Respect for Concentration
     … You’ve got mindfulness, and then there’s what’s called analysis of qualities, seeing what’s skillful and unskillful. You can see that right now in how you relate to the breathing. When you see that, it gives rise to a sense of rapture that’s based on developing skillful breaths and skillful attitudes, and letting go of unskillful ones. From there you … 
  11. Test Everything
     … So he’s willing to give us advice based on his experience, based on the skills he developed. So conviction means accepting the fact that the Buddha seems to be an expert and you would do well to try to develop his skills to see if they lead to the happiness that he promises. So it’s not a matter of changing the Dhamma … 
  12. Feed the Hungry Mind
     … The first word, karaṇīya, means this “should be done” by someone who is skilled in aims. In other words, you know what you’re going for. Someone raised his hand: “I thought Buddhism had no ‘shoulds.’” It took the poor teacher a whole morning to explain how there could be “shoulds” in Buddhism. But it’s full of “shoulds.” Kicca, “duty”—that’s what … 
  13. The Forerunner of All Things
     … Not control-freak control, skillful control. That way, this force that’s shaping our lives—mano-pubbangama dhamma, the mind is the forerunner of all phenomena—becomes less and less of a scary thought. You’re right here at the source and you’re learning the skills to direct it in the right direction. As for whether other people are doing this, the best … 
  14. Time to Heal
     … So here’s your chance to strengthen the mind and to give it a skill that’s useful not only while you’re here but also when you go back home. Because this is the whole point of coming out here: Physical seclusion helps you get in touch with mental seclusion – it gives you a chance to get in touch with the skills of … 
  15. Guardian Meditations
     … Dhamma-vicaya—analysis of qualities, analysis of what’s skillful and unskillful—is a factor for awakening. So try to make use of all the tools that are at your disposal. Figure out which one is appropriate for you right now and learn how to master that tool. That way, the meditation as a whole will become more and more of a skill, not … 
  16. Heart & Mind
     … Well, this is a much more skillful way of getting them out: You breathe through them. You know where the tension is, know where you can relax it, and you notice how you can breathe to restore a sense of well-being in the body. The more you fully inhabit the body, the more quickly you can pick up the germs of an emotion … 
  17. Choices
     … If you examine the fact that you are making choices right now and you learn how to expand the range of your choices, you’re going to be a lot more skillful. There’s the passage where the Buddha said the reason we go for sensual pleasure is because we think it’s the only alternative to pain. We keep on getting disappointed by … 
  18. Investing Your Happiness
     … Of course there’s always the danger of complacency when you figure you can tap into the breath at any time, but if you can overcome that complacency, you begin to realize that this is an extremely useful state of mind — a very skillful way of approaching happiness, and a very skillful way of providing a foundation for yourself so that you can find … 
  19. Admirable Friendship
     … That’s how we can develop appropriate attention, which means looking for where our actions are skillful, looking for where they’re not, encouraging the skillful ones, and trying to abandon the unskillful ones. Then we take that principle deeper into the four noble truths. Try to comprehend suffering. Abandon its cause. Realize cessation by developing the path. To look at our experience in … 
  20. Overcoming Delusion
    Meditation is part of a larger practice, which is to be skillful in everything we do and say and think. As we sit here meditating, there’s no question about what we’re doing or saying, it’s mostly about what we’re thinking, trying to train the mind to develop good qualities, so that its thoughts are skillful, i.e. appropriate: thinking when … 
  21. New Feeding Habits for the Mind
     … You begin to see that as you maintain these intentions with skill, they really do make a difference in the mind because they give it a new foundation for its well-being. You don’t have to depend on the body; you don’t have to depend on people outside you. You’ve got a skill within the mind that’s purely mental, using … 
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