Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. Step Back
     … This is how wisdom and discernment arise in the practice: through your ability to step back. And along with this, you want to develop the ability to laugh at yourself, because that’s what stepping back often leads to. You suddenly see how stupid it was to assume what you were holding on to so tightly. There’s that phrase in the Greek traditions … 
  3. Distraction & Drowsiness
     … So learn how to do your evaluation well, because it makes your concentration stronger—and provides a good basis for discernment to arise as well.
  4. A Load Off the Mind
     … So even though we have the path laid out to some extent—we know that virtue, concentration, and discernment are important and we know the breath is a good place to stay—still, there’s a lot that we’ve got to learn about how we breathe and how we approach the meditation. Sometimes you find that as soon as you sit down to … 
  5. Endurance Training
     … Through the well-being of your concentration and through your discernment in learning how to depersonalize things, chop up the stories into little bits. When those little bits start connecting, that’s when they turn into trouble. As you develop these skills, you’re developing mindfulness and alertness, the strengths you need so that you don’t have to keep feeding on the desire … 
  6. Fear & Insecurity
     … Of course, even discernment will involve the aggregates. You use your perceptions and thought-fabrications to probe and ask questions, to figure things out: Why is it that there in the mind you’re creating suffering when you don’t have to? So that’s where the teachings are aimed: at what you can do. You can create a path that leads to the … 
  7. Self Esteem
     … So it’s more a question of your discernment in seeing when it’s time to give up a sense of self esteem that’s based on a rickety foundation, one that constantly has to be shored up to the point where people suffer. Most people never learn. They suffer horribly just because they want to retain a little scrap of self respect here … 
  8. Appropriate Attention, Appropriate Intention
     … The intention turns into concentration, the attention is what develops your discernment. You need both. And they have to be appropriate. There’s no such thing as “bare” attention in the Buddha’s teachings. It’s all colored by your intention. So learn how to keep your intentions properly focused, to figure out why, after all the things the Buddha learned in his awakening … 
  9. Put the Other Person’s Heart in Yours
     … Virtue, concentration, discernment: These things are all kamma. The path is a kind of kamma. And you have to understand it that way. As for the rationale behind the precepts, as the Buddha said, “Do you want to be killed? Do you want to have people steal your things? Do you want to have people have illicit sex with people who are dear to … 
  10. Pay Careful Attention
     … Those who listen well gain discernment, because when you listen well, you’re actively engaging your mind. The Buddha himself said that when you listen, try to focus your attention so that your mind is one with the topic that’s being discussed. In other words, it’s gathered in oneness around it. And then, he said, apply appropriate attention. Think about, “How does … 
  11. Sensitivity Through Generosity
     … They develop sensitivity, and that’s what discernment is all about: sensing things that are not pointed out to you. The Buddha gives you lessons on where to look and tells you what to look for. But for you to see the actual movements of your own mind, you’ve got to be very sensitive, often in unexpected ways. And that quality of sensitivity … 
  12. Equanimity & More
     … But if you combine equanimity with discernment, you realize there are a lot of things you can’t control, but there are some things you can. Focus on those. You’ve got those three kinds of fabrication. You got the breath coming in and going out. You can change the breathing so that it’s comfortable. That’s bodily fabrication. As for verbal fabrication … 
  13. Unlimited Mind, Limited Resources
     … It requires some discernment to see when goodwill is appropriate, and when equanimity is called for. Now, these attitudes don’t come naturally. Some people say that goodwill and compassion are part of our innate nature, but you could also say that ill will is part of our innate nature, too. It’s just as easy to get angry as it is to love … 
  14. Dangers Outside & In
     … Then you develop the discernment that puts you in a position where ultimately you don’t need to feed at all. That’s when you’re totally safe: safe both in the sense that you’re beyond the reach of dangers outside, and you don’t present any inside dangers yourself. The dangers outside are things the Buddha says you’ve got to accept … 
  15. In the Driver’s Seat
     … He said the actions of the past give the same kind of result, which is something very, very different, because if you have a change of heart—which includes developing unlimited thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity; training the mind so it’s not easily overcome by pleasure, not easily overcome by pain; training it in virtue and discernment—then the results … 
  16. Respect Your Center
     … Your concentration practice is your food; discernment, your weapon; mindfulness and all the other aspects of the practice, the other things you need as a soldier. The question is: Who’s the soldier? It’s your determination not to come back as the laughingstock of the defilements to suffer ever again. You’ve got to have that determination that this is something really important … 
  17. A Happy Tradition
     … You develop your virtue; you develop your discernment. So, there are skills that can enable you not to suffer, no matter what your past karma is. He’s giving you power. For a lot of us, that takes a lot of getting used to. Either the culture of our families or the culture of the religion we were raised in told us to have … 
  18. Taking the Long View
     … When the Buddha talks about the treasures that we can develop in the mind— things like conviction, virtue, shame, compunction, learning, generosity, and discernment—we can also develop their opposites. So the question is, which side do you want to take with you—the skillful side or the unskillful side? Because these are the things that you can take with you. The things of … 
  19. Respect for Tranquility & Insight
     … Then tune all the rest of the strings in your lute to that—your conviction, your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment. With conviction, that means really being convinced that even tiny steps are worthwhile. You’re not going to stay with the tiny steps. As you make the tiny steps and you get really perceptive about what you’re doing, you’re going to … 
  20. A Refuge in Mindfulness
     … mindfulness—keeping in mind all the things you need to remember to do this properly; alertness—watching what you’re actually doing; and then ardency—which is the discernment factor there—which wants to do it well, realizing that, of all the skills you could develop, this is the most important one, so you want to give it as much time as you can … 
  21. The Buddha’s Program
     … So what are the Buddha’s feeding instructions? He has you feed on generosity; feed on virtue; feed on meditation; thoughts of goodwill; and then the meditation of getting the mind to settle down with the breath, to gain discernment. All these instructions are the assumptions that you use to feed well—and feed in a way that takes you to a point where … 
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