Search results for: "Discernment"
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- A Position of Strength… conviction in the importance of maintaining a skillful state of mind, persistence in keeping it going, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. When these things are strong, when they’re in charge of your mind, then you can trust it. It becomes your refuge. You realize that your happiness doesn’t have to depend on things outside. It can depend on these qualities inside, and nothing outside …
- Survival Tactics… Observing the precepts, practicing concentration, developing discernment: those are the tactics. The meditation we’re doing right now: that’s a survival tactic for the mind. Both on the everyday level and at the moment of death, the tactics you learn, the techniques you learn while you’re meditating, are going to stand you in good stead. The steps we have here – focusing on …
- Stay… Once you’re here, you’ve got to protect it, maintain it, because the mind that has been nurtured with concentration gives rise to discernment that’s more and more reliable. It’s not the case that you can trust everything that comes up in your concentration, but still, it’s a lot more likely to be reliable, and you’re also in a …
- Your One Responsibility… The number one question should always be “What’s the skillful thing to do right now? What’s the skillful thing to say? What’s the skillful thing to think?” As for the various voices in the mind that are giving you different kinds of advice—and they all tend to sound like you—you’ll start discerning which ones really are in your …
- Distinctions That Make a Difference… This is one of the reasons why concentration is necessary for discernment, because when you’re concentrated, you’ve got all the aggregates right here. You’re doing them as part of the concentration. Say you’re focused on the breath: The breath is body, or form. It’s part of the wind element in the body. Together with the breath there will either …
- Peace on Earth… You’re here to conquer yourself, to overcome any lack of mindfulness, lack of alertness, lack of discernment or concentration that can have a bad effect on your well-being. There’s a passage in the Canon saying that it’s hard for person without merit to do meritorious things. To translate that into more colloquial English, it’s hard for person without a …
- The Buddha’s Qualities… As your discernment gets stronger, it really can cut away all the dangers in the mind. That’s the other side of heedfulness, not only appreciating the good things you’ve got, but being aware that there are dangers out there and dangers in here. You’ve got to protect the state of your mind. This is your most important possession. Ajaan Lee gives …
- An Island in the Flood… the nutrition of conviction that what you do is going to come back at you, so you want to do things well; the nourishment of persistence, sticking with something again, and again, and again, making good things habitual; the nourishment of mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. There are all these good things here on this island in the middle of the flood. So do your …
- The Real World Isn’t for Real… The Buddha has you feed on mindfulness, concentration, discernment—finding joy in all these things. When you can find joy in this path, you can look at the pleasures that the world has to offer, and you can see that they’re dangerous, either because they make you complacent or because they sometimes require that you do underhanded things to gain them. So either …
- Dwelling in Emptiness… In this way, you’re getting into concentration at the same time you’re exercising your discernment. You’ve got calm and tranquility on the one hand, and you’ve got insight developing on the other. They work together like this. The important thing is, if you want to see subtle levels of disturbance, subtle levels where the first and second noble truths are …
- Beyond Duality… It’s in this way that the practice of concentration leads to the practice of insight and discernment. There’s a passage in Luang Puu Dune where he says, once the mind settles down and is still, to start contemplating things in pairs. This is precisely the Buddha’s advice: Look at things in pairs, but not just as any old pair. Pairs of …
- Practice at Home… Figuring that one out when you’re dealing with the back and forth of lay life is a really good test of your discernment. Two further states of mind get developed that way. One is a mind of goodwill, and the other is a mind of sympathy. They’re not quite the same. Goodwill is a basic wish for happiness for all beings—for …
- The Role of the Observer… As the Buddha said, it’s only through discernment that we cut through these things. Mindfulness is like a dam. It holds things in check for a while. The ability to watch something, hold yourself back, not engage in it: That holds things in check, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The solution to the problem comes from insight. And insight is often …
- Single-minded… You can’t say, “The higher levels are going to be superfluous, so why bother with them? I’ll just hang out here.” It requires a lot of discernment in order to get an awakening from the first jhana. Sometimes you need a lot more quiet in the mind in order to gain the kind of insight that would be radical. In some of …
- Don’t Believe Everything You Feel… The phrase we chanted just now—chandam janeti, generating desire to abandon what’s unskillful and to develop what’s skillful—is a sign of wisdom and discernment. When there are things you feel like doing that you know are going to be harmful, you’re able to talk yourself out of doing them. As for things you know are good for you, but …
- Issues… Which means that you have to look at the question of controversies and show some discernment: Which ones do you get involved with to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong? Which ones do you try to cut through with the up-and-down axis? This applies not only to controversies outside, but also—and especially—to controversies inside your own mind …
- Centered on Concentration… And it’s interesting that of a three main aspects of the training—training in virtue, training in concentration, training in discernment—the one that the Buddha singled out to the stress in those verses we chanted just now is respect for concentration, the ability get the mind centered in the body, with a sense of ease, even with a sense of fullness, refreshment …
- Being a Buddhist… When you practice concentration to develop your discernment, you realize that the concentration—even though it’s a better pleasure, a more stable pleasure than you can gain from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, or thinking about things—is still fabricated. And remember how good fabricated things can be: They can fall apart. You want something that’s not fabricated, something that’s …
- Conceit… And learn to develop your discernment. Watch out for those fangs of ignorance: the “I am this” or “I am that” or “I’m not used to this,” “I can’t stand this,” “This is hard for me.” Drop the “I,” the “me,” and things get a lot easier. So even though it may be hard, you can do it. The things that are …
- Arising & Passing Away… The questions you bring to someone who’s good at clear seeing are: “How are fabrications to be viewed? How are they to be seen with clear insight?” This is where the Buddha’s definition of discernment comes in. He says that discernment means seeing things arising and passing away in a way that’s penetrating and leads to the right ending of suffering …
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