Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. The Search for Happiness
     … As the Buddha said, to do it right, you have to develop wisdom and discernment, along with compassion and purity. After all, wisdom begins with the question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” There are two value judgments right there. One is that the search for happiness is a good thing. The other is that long … 
  3. Don’t Limit Yourself
     … That’s how you train your discernment. It may start out with trial and error, trial and error. But after a while, by being willing to learn from your errors, it turns into trial and success. As you get more and more sensitive to what you’re doing, to what your intentions are, and as you work on trying to be as skillful as … 
  4. The Power of the Will
     … Your weapon is your discernment. Concentration and mindfulness: These are your stores of food. The question is: Who is the soldier? The soldier is the determination not to come back and be the laughingstock of the defilements ever again. That’s a very strong statement of the will. But things don’t stop simply with the will. The Buddha gives directions, because we’ve … 
  5. To Be an Adult
     … We have to use our opportunity to meditate, to practice the Dhamma in all ways—in terms of generosity, virtue, concentration, and discernment—as protection, both from dangers within ourselves and from dangers outside. As the Buddha says, the real dangers outside are not so much what people can do to us, they’re what other people can get us to do. They can … 
  6. Unchanged by Loss
     … When things that we’ve been dependent on, things that we’re attached to, suddenly stop, when conditions change, how much are we going to change? Do we have the stability inside that even when things start falling apart—outside or in—our virtue doesn’t fall apart, our concentration, discernment—the things that are really important—stay solid? In the beginning, we have … 
  7. Meaning in a Meaningless Universe
     … There’s generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. These are the qualities that the tradition has said lead to awakening. It’s not a list you’ll find in anything attributed to the Buddha directly. It comes from the Jataka tales, which were later compilations. But they’re all qualities that the Buddha himself, at one point or another … 
  8. Two Hands Washing
     … Has the stress actually gotten less? Has your concentration gotten stronger? Has your mindfulness gotten stronger? Is your discernment sharper? If so, you’re headed in the right direction. You’re getting more and more skillful in your thinking. That’s something a lot of people don’t like to hear. We like to think, “I’m pretty good at thinking things through, all … 
  9. Slowing Down to Look
     … This is one of the problems of translating pañña, the word for discernment, as “wisdom.” We tend to think of wisdom as being wise sayings, and you can memorize lots and lots of wise sayings, but then the wise question is: When are they relevant? Discernment is a matter of seeing things as they actually arise, seeing what’s skillful and what’s unskillful … 
  10. Make a Difference
     … Wisdom, discernment, for him, is a matter of passing judgment: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” It comes down to judging what actions are worth doing, which actions are not. So we’re passing judgment as we try to make a difference, based on our understanding … 
  11. Admitting Mistakes
     … Because that’s the aspect of the mind that turns into discernment. If the practice were simply a matter of following a recipe, following a mechanical process, the Buddha would have described all the steps in the process. But it can’t be done that way. Each meditator has to develop his or her own powers of judgment and powers of observation—because those … 
  12. A Heart Bigger Than the World
     … Goodwill is not a Pollyanna kind of wish, thinking that “Everybody’s going to be good, therefore I’ll be good to them.” It’s because people are often not going to be good that you’ve got to be good to them, good in a discerning way, thinking about what would be in their best interest, the best interest of their true well … 
  13. Everyday Feeding Habits
     … That’s what’s going to give your discernment the opportunity to look into your feeding habits and do something skillful about them.
  14. Evaluation: The Voice of Heedfulness
     … At the same time, you’re developing your own powers of judgment, your own discernment. You’re developing the voice in the mind that tells you what to try and then comments on what you’ve done. You’re trying to train this voice to be healthy. All too many of us have very unhealthy voices in the mind that pass judgment, but this … 
  15. Skillful Fear
     … The only drawback you might have was that you might get attached to it, not wanting to go on to the higher levels of discernment and insight. But compared with sensuality, it’s much less damaging. Nobody kills, steals, cheats over jhana. And even though they have jhana wars, they’re just wars where ink is spilled. No blood is spilled. So nurture that … 
  16. When You Hit a Plateau
     … How can I question those assumptions?” That’s a lot of the work of discernment right there: It’s not so much finding the answers, but knowing the right questions to ask. It was a while after reading Ajaan MahaBoowa that I came across the Buddha’s instructions on breath meditation. I discovered that the Buddha gives, in a very cursory form, precisely the … 
  17. Bowing & Chanting
     … The Dhamma teaches virtue, concentration, discernment, release. The Sangha represents your willingness to practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma—in other words, not just in accordance with your preferences, but in accordance with what the Dhamma really demands. It’s aimed at disenchantment, dispassion, and the freedom that comes from dispassion. These are all qualities that are good to develop within yourself … 
  18. Mountains Moving In
     … But if you look at the qualities that the Buddha asks you to develop as you practice the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment, or wisdom, purity, and compassion: These are all qualities you can be proud of. Ajaan Suwat used to make the point that sometimes you hear it said in Thailand that the essence of the Buddha’s teachings is that you shouldn … 
  19. Tranquility & Insight
     … This last method is the method of last resort, because it requires a lot of willpower and not much discernment. You can keep it up only for so long, but it can sometimes clear the air. You could make a comparison with a toolbox. It’s like having a sledgehammer in your toolbox for the times when the more refined tools don’t work … 
  20. Taking a Stance
     … mindfulness, alertness, your discernment in telling what’s comfortable and what’s not, your ingenuity in figuring out ways to make things more comfortable. And the qualities of goodwill, compassion, appreciation, and equanimity — they play a role here as well. When you learn to relate to the breath with these qualities of mind, then every time you get in touch with the breath, the … 
  21. The Size of Your Eyes
     … Try to develop your discernment to do the looking. The same holds true for you listening and your engagement with all the other senses. It’s not like we’re just sitting here perfectly normal with nothing happening and then, all of a sudden, something comes in and strikes us and either appeals to us or it doesn’t appeal to us. We’re … 
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