Search results for: "Discernment"

  1. Page 67
  2. The Buddha’s Wisdom
     … That training, of course, is the noble eightfold path, which can also be expressed in the triple training of heightened virtue; heightened mind, or concentration; and heightened discernment. These are the practices that help you become more sensitive to what’s going on in your mind, to help get rid of that ignorance so that you can see exactly where you’re causing yourself … 
  3. See Your Thoughts as Strange
     … As the Buddha said, discernment comes down to seeing things as other, as separate. Yet we live in our thought-worlds, we let them envelop us, and for us they’re normal. Your desires, your angers are very much yours. If we could take everybody’s thoughts and put them out in a lineup, you’d probably be able to pick out your thoughts … 
  4. How the Tree Leans
     … Whereas if you develop the treasures of the mind—virtue, conviction, a healthy sense of shame, a healthy sense of compunction, learning, generosity, discernment: These things lean the mind in the right direction. Even more so, there’s the noble eightfold path. Why do you want the mind to lean? Well, think of a tree. There are trees that are leaning over all the … 
  5. Restraint Leads to Freedom
     … them in place. The image the Buddha gives is that our emotions are like a stream, and the restraint provided by mindfulness is like a dam that holds them in check. Discernment is then what traces back, “Where does the stream come from?” and stops it at the source. You’re not going to find the source until you’ve first learned some restraint … 
  6. Doing, Maintaining, Using
     … So this is how the practice of concentration leads to discernment. It teaches you how to eat well, how to feed the mind well, to the point where ultimately it doesn’t have to feed anymore.
  7. Sensitive in Seven Ways
     … It’s by finding the middle way in observing all these dimensions that you develop your discernment. The Buddha doesn’t leave you totally adrift in learning these lessons. He points out areas where you have to pay attention and gives you appropriate questions to ask—questions that help you learn the middle way for yourself. That’s what the Dhamma is for. But … 
  8. Meditation as Play
     … And that’s how you develop the discernment that will allow you to get the mind concentrated and released. So be heedful, but find joy in the heedfulness. When you’re heedful, you’re appreciative of each breath. And the best way to appreciate each breath is to see what you can do with it. Like getting an egg—what can you do with … 
  9. Nurturing Your Inner Adult
     … the faculties of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. The word for faculty, indriya, is related to Indra, the king of the gods, the dominant deva. The implication is that you want these faculties to be dominant in your mind, you want them to have power. They’re your inner adults. So you use the breath to put them on top, to keep them … 
  10. Organizing Your Inner Committee
     … Try to equip that determination with its weapons of discernment and mindfulness, so that you can develop all the other qualities of the path you need to make that determination a reality.
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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.
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. Body as Sensuality, Body as Form
     … It gives us a good object for meditation so that we can develop the discernment to get us past these wrong attitudes. Having the pleasure of concentration allows you to get a bit more distance on your sensual pleasures. Without the pleasure of concentration, the Buddha said, no matter how much you see the drawbacks of sensuality, you’re going to go back to … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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