Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Thinking Seriously about Happiness
     … How can you get that person to become skillful? Whatever you can do in that direction, that’s an expression of goodwill. Of course, you look around you and there are a lot of people in the world who are not going to be acting in skillful ways. For them, you have to have equanimity—not because you don’t feel for them or … 
  3. Always Willing to Learn
     … He teaches that skillful qualities should be developed and unskillful qualities should be abandoned.” Later, the layperson went to see the Buddha to make sure that his answer was right, and the Buddha said, “Yes, that’s right.” It’s a good, very simple and very basic way of expressing his teachings. As the Buddha said, if developing skillful qualities and abandoning unskillful qualities … 
  4. Achieving Balance
     … The skill lies in learning how to balance things out, so that you’re tipping less and less and less. First off, you have to realize which direction you’re tipping in. This is why it’s good to take stock as you sit down and meditate: How is your mind right now? What does it need? Does it need encouragement? Does it need … 
  5. Choices in the Present
     … We’re developing important skills: the ability to create a sense of well-being in the present moment in any situation. All you have to do is breathe and learn to be sensitive to the breath. You find that it not only sends a sense of ease through the body, but it also soothes the mind. It helps to heal any wounds in the … 
  6. Remarkable Qualities
     … So here’s an opportunity to develop those skills. When you can catch yourself in the midst of giving into greed, aversion, or delusion, and can stop yourself, you see what a valuable skill that is. Think about the fact that aging, illness, and death are bound to come, and as the chant just said, the world offers no shelter. There may be doctors … 
  7. A Total Training
     … For the most part, the mind is very skilled at making itself miserable. It gets all upset about issues that are totally irrelevant. And can think about them for years and years and get all messed up inside. This is why, when the Buddha taught, there were a lot of topics he just wouldn’t get involved in. And you might say, “Well, where … 
  8. Choices
     … That’s how this comes together as a skill. So remember, the mind is constantly making choices. You want to make skillful choices. And you learn about skill partly from hearing what the Buddha had to say, and partly from observing your own actions—in fact, primarily from observing your own actions. That’s when it really hits home… because you can listen, listen … 
  9. Lighter & Stronger
     … What that means is a mind that has lots of skills. And the skill of peeling things away like this is one of the primary ones. You strengthen the mind by holding in mind perceptions that help you to separate yourself out from the things you felt you had to rely on, or that you actually thought were you. Like this body: It’s … 
  10. Distraction & Drowsiness
     … After all, the act of forbidding itself is a kind of thought and not necessarily the most skillful one. It’s more skillful to work with the topic of your concentration and see what it can do, so that when you’re with the breath, it’s not just in, out, in-and-out; but it’s in-long and out-short, or in … 
  11. Look after Yourself with Ease
     … You have to recognize them: “Okay, these things aren’t skillful; I can’t let the mind indulge in them at all.” As for thoughts that are imbued with renunciation, non-ill will—which can be anything from goodwill to equanimity—or imbued with harmlessness, they don’t really harm anybody. So you can let yourself think them when they’re useful. As long … 
  12. Endurance Training
     … They may not be acting skillfully now, and their skillful behavior may come too late for you. But may they someday become skillful in their thoughts, words, and deeds. The Buddha compares this to having a mind as expansive as the earth, as expansive and as unaffected by anything as space. Again, it’s an image of the enlarged mind that’s not constantly … 
  13. The Evening News
     … If there are skillful ones, you try to understand how to give rise to them and then to keep them going and developing. Finally, you develop dispassion for them so that there can be cessation and relinquishment. That’s the ultimate in calm. In all of these cases, it’s important that you learn how to see the present moment as a kind of … 
  14. Self Esteem
     … Fear in and of itself can often be skillful. After all, a lot of the Buddha’s teachings are based on the very rational fear of the suffering that comes with aging, illness and death. There’s the word, “ottappa,” which means the fear of the consequences of unskillful actions. That’s something the Buddha encouraged. He says it’s a treasure. There’s … 
  15. Unlimited Mind, Limited Resources
     … So there are skillful ways of thinking that you want to be able to apply at the right time and the right place. We do the brahmaviharas for the same reason. They’re skillful ways of thinking and they’re in your service when you need them—when you’re driving, when you’re dealing with difficult people. Because that’s what they’re … 
  16. Visakha Puja
     … While you’re acting, you have to watch the results that are coming, because sometimes what seems like a good intention may not be a skillful intention. And there’s no way you can know unless you watch what actually comes about as a result of the action. You can’t simply trust that “Because I have good intentions, that takes care of everything … 
  17. The Wisdom of Equanimity
     … So let’s make sure that I’ve got my hands on the right levers and I’m pushing them in the right direction.” Because of the main principle of cause and effect—that skillful actions lead to pleasant results; unskillful actions lead to unpleasant results: If this didn’t work out, we’d be totally up the creek. There’d be no skills … 
  18. Dangers Outside & In
    The Buddha said that all skillful qualities are rooted in heedfulness. Heedfulness is a measured sense of danger: There are things you have to watch out for, but there’s something that can be done about them. If there were nothing that could be done about them, heedfulness wouldn’t mean anything, wouldn’t accomplish anything. When your heedfulness makes a difference, that’s … 
  19. Reflections
     … What we’re trying to do here is something different, we’re trying to train the mind, develop some new skills inside. As for the skill of thinking, I learned how to think a long time ago. But the skill of getting the mind to settle down, that’s something different. That’s a good skill to master.” You keep reminding yourself: You’re … 
  20. Doing, Maintaining, Using
     … And you want to come back in a skillful way. If you come back in anger or frustration, the mind is not going to stay. So try to find a calmer way of bringing the mind back. But quickly. When you’re with the breath, try to figure out ways of relating to the breath that are skillful. This is where ardency comes in … 
  21. Listening to the Practice
     … You need lots of skills and you need a lot of sensitivity to know when to apply each particular skill. That’s one of the most basic lessons in the meditation. And it’s a lesson you learn by being very alert, by being self-aware, noticing what you’re doing, noticing what the results are, starting with simple things like the process of … 
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