Search results for: "Discernment"
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- The Purity of Your Intentions… Some of the reasons come from your discernment, such as thinking in the long term, that this will be good for you in the long term. Others are more immediate. If you can learn how to breathe in a way that meets the needs of the body, the needs of the mind, it’s going to be a lot easier to stay, to hold …
- Swept Downstream… Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? That’s the challenge of discernment. But at the very least, get to that island. That should be your main concern every day as you wake up. It’s only then that you can begin to rely on yourself and keep your nostrils above the water flowing past.
- Rewriting the Mind’s Song… And that’s an important part of discernment right there.
- Breathaholic… The ultimate goal of the practice is to use the breath as a means for settling down so that it can discern its defilements and gain release. But to get the mind settled down, you focus your attention completely on the breath to begin with. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, “You have to be crazy about meditation if you want to do it …
- Truth in Action… We’re true to our knowledge; we’re true to our discernment. It’s when you make up your mind to do something good and skillful, and you stick with it, maintain that determination. Being true to that determination: That’s the quality of truth. So truth here is not just a quality of statements, it’s a quality of a person, a quality …
- Endurance… The same with discernment: You have to see which forms of stress are things that you simply have to put up with in life, and which ones you can change. If you can’t put up with the effects of inconstancy, stress, and not self, you’ll never get to focus on what the real problems are—which is not the fact that those …
- Preparing for Death… what the Buddha calls training in heightened virtue, heightened awareness, heightened discernment. That’s because they really do take the mind to another level. They’re probably the most basic teaching in the Buddha’s arsenal, and the reason they’re basic is because they’re so useful in so many ways, especially when dealing with the big issues of life and death: learning …
- Why Limit Yourself?… There was also discernment, his ingenuity, figuring out new ways of approaching the problem when the old ways hadn’t worked. He finally came to realize that looking at the desire in and of itself, looking at the intention in and of itself, was going to be a large part of the solution. So he started paying attention to his intentions. He was able …
- Chewed Up by Your Food… conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. This way, the mind, more and more, can stand on its own two feet. And unlike the body, the mind—when it feeds off mental food, off the food of the path—eventually reaches the point where it doesn’t need to feed anymore. With the body, you always need to keep it well fed. The mind, though …
- 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 …
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