Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Wisdom Through Training
     … He starts seeing footprints in the elephant wood but if he’s a skilled elephant hunter, he doesn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that he’s found the big bull elephant he’s looking for. Even though the footprints may be big, he said, there are dwarf elephants with big feet. Those might be their prints. But he goes on. The big prints … 
  3. Many Desires, Many Selves
     … So, take that as a challenge, as part of the skill. And take heart from the fact that these various tricks of the defilements are not infinite. They may seem to be a lot, but as you get to know them better, you get better and better at detecting them quickly and dealing with them quickly as well. You do develop skill as you … 
  4. Choiceful Awareness
     … With only one exception, they’re all pairs of skillful and unskillful. The one exception has to do with two extremes: the extremes of too much energy or too little energy. But here again, the whole point is to learn how to develop skillful qualities and to abandon unskillful ones because we can do it. And it gives good results. As for mental qualities … 
  5. Harmony, Right & Wrong
     … So there’s a very strong emphasis on learning how to get along with one another, learning the various skills that help life in the monastery so that we can share our strengths. One of the ways of providing a refuge for yourself is to learn the skills that are helpful for other members in the community. That way, of course, when something happens … 
  6. Delight in Conviction
     … You act on skillful intentions, the result is happiness. You act on unskillful intentions, the result is suffering, pain. Of course, you look at your life, and it’s not the case that you do nothing but good actions, nothing but bad actions. There’s a mixture. But what’s important is that, as you go through life and you realize you’ve made … 
  7. A Larger Perspective
     … Depending on how skillful those narratives are, they can really get us tangled up. Or they can be useful. So we want to make them more skillful. One way of making them more skillful is to learn how to see them as pretty small so that they don’t loom so large. This is why we spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings, compassion … 
  8. Tuning-in to the Breath
     … But as you get more skillful with your volume control, you get a sense of what’s just right so that you can adjust the level and the pressure of your focus for maximum enjoyment. As you get tuned-in more and more precisely, you discover there are other subtleties as well. Again, like the radio, when you really get tuned very precisely onto … 
  9. A Meditator’s Environment
     … the skill with which you can extract yourself from the entanglements of the world. This relates to another quality—seclusion. Try to find some time just to be by yourself, so that you’re not taking on the concerns of other people. You look at what are the concerns of your own mind: what are its issues when you pull it out from society … 
  10. Relationships
     … They basically come down to the question of what’s skillful and what’s not skillful in this particular cluster of emotions you have. And that, as you carry it through, relates to the four noble truths, because the unskillful part is whatever is causing suffering. The skillful part is whatever leads you away from suffering. So, say, when you have difficulties in a … 
  11. Shelter Through Restraint
     … When it comes back, it’s not pretty.” That way, you create a better environment for yourself outside, and you develop talents and skills that you’re going to need as you work on the mind inside. So don’t see restraint as an imposition. It’s a skill, a skill that offers shelter when there’s no other shelter being offered outside.
  12. Finding Balance
     … You’re simply observing in your mind what’s working and what’s not, what’s skillful and what’s not. For instance, if you’re feeling drowsy or beginning to wander off, what can you do to focus your attention more squarely on the breath? Sometimes it happens that as the mind begins to stay with the breath, it just lets go of … 
  13. Refuge & Strength
     … The best way to counteract doubt, the Buddha said, is to investigate what in your mind is skillful right now, what in your mind is unskillful. See what happens when you follow the skillful impulses, see what happens when you drop the unskillful ones. You see for yourself. But just looking at the qualities of the mind, if you find that the mind seems … 
  14. Confident, Steadfast, Resolute
     … Reason with yourself and keep reminding yourself that the meditation—as we develop mindfulness, concentration, and discernment with the breath—is the most skillful way of dealing with past problems, future problems, and your uncertainty about the world in general. Have some confidence in the breath. As Ajaan Fuang once said, “If you doubt your breath, then you’re going to doubt everything.” Right … 
  15. The Treasure of Virtue
     … Right view starts, of course, with the principle that if you act on skillful intentions, the results will be good for the long term. If you act on unskillful intentions, the results are going to be bad for the long term. You have to hold to that view all the time. It’s not something you think about only when you’re in a … 
  16. Exercising the Mind
     … So you want to make sure that what you do is skillful all the time. That means you have to remember what’s skillful, how to recognize it, and also how to recognize what’s unskillful. And you have to remember what to do when something unskillful comes in the mind so that you don’t fall victim to it, you don’t go … 
  17. The Missing Fabrication
     … One of the main lessons we have to learn as we meditate is to look at our filtering process and at the skill or lack of skill with which we shape things. This is especially important if insights suddenly appear in the course of your meditation. You have to ask yourself, “How am I filtering this?” If you know the filters well, then you … 
  18. The Energy to Be Generous
     … Your opportunity is always to do the skillful thing. You’ve got the energy now to do the skillful thing. That’s how you break through these limitations. So let your compassion be unlimited. And look at ways in which you’re placing limitations on your own generosity. Because even though your generosity can’t be totally unlimited, you can expand its range. And … 
  19. Metta Can Hurt
     … When is it skillful and when is it not skillful to hold to mettā? When is it more skillful to hold to upekkhā, equanimity? And how do you make sure that your actions are based on mettā* *for others? When thoughts of greed come into the mind, when thoughts of lust come into the mind, and you think, “Well, that’s okay. It’s … 
  20. Taking Responsibility
     … They’ve got a mixture of skillful and unskillful impulses. So when you’re looking for friends, looking for people whose advice you can trust, the same issues come up. How to distinguish the people you can trust from those you can’t? If you come to the Buddha, his advice is the most encouraging. He says he’s going to teach you how … 
  21. Guarding Against Trouble
    Heedfulness, as the Buddha said, is the basis for all skillful qualities. There are only two passages I’ve been able to find, though, where he defines heedfulness. One is not resting content with what you’ve got in terms of your skillful qualities, and the other is guarding your mind against what he calls the effluents and things associated with the effluents. Of … 
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