Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Training Heart & Mind… Concentration, the discernment, mindfulness, a sense of well-being: All of these things should come together. But fortunately, you don’t have to think about all of them all the time. You just think about the breath and pose those questions in the mind: “What kind of breathing would feel good right now? When it does feel good, how can I maintain that sense …
- Issues of Control… So when the question comes up about what to identify with, ask yourself, “What, when I identify it, with, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?”—basically, the same question that underlines all aspects of discernment. You’re simply taking what you do and replacing it with what you identify with. You’re still dealing in actions, as long as you can …
- The Mind's Immune System… Ultimately, when discernment finally breaks through to the ultimate level, you can go wherever you want. No germs can touch you because your immune system is totally in control. But until that point, you have to be careful, working both on the outer and on the inner level. When you work on the two of them together, that’s when you get the best …
- Helping Yourself by Helping Others… This way, the meditation becomes an activity that you really look forward to, and you do develop the kind of sensitivity that’s going to be an important part of your discernment into suffering and its causes. So the outside helps the in; the inside helps the out. Sometimes Theravada is criticized for being focused solely on getting your mind in shape and not …
- Identifying Weeds… We’re trying to develop good qualities in the mind—like mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment—yet there are qualities that stand in the way. You’ve probably heard of what they’re called: the hindrances. These are the things that stand in the way of our concentration. You can compare them to weeds of different sorts. Sensual desire is like a vine. There’s …
- Free for the Time Being… The things you’re going to need for the future for sure are mindfulness, alertness, and discernment. The future is extremely uncertain. You don’t know how much longer you’ve got in this lifetime, or where you’re going to go after this one, or what things are going to happen in the meantime. But you do know that if anything difficult comes …
- Overcoming Obstacles… So there is that possibility, but to get there requires training—heightening your virtue, heightening your concentration, heightening your discernment. So try to be very clear on who your internal friends are, who you want to be spending time with inside. Because it really does make a difference. Just because a feeling comes into the mind doesn’t mean that it has to be …
- Cleanliness is Next to Mindfulness… the desire to do it skillfully; the persistence that sticks with it till you’ve mastered it; intentness, paying a lot of attention to what you’re doing; and analysis, using your powers of discernment to see what’s not yet right, trying to figure out how to get around problems, how to solve them. This fourth factor also involves ingenuity — all the active …
- The Lightness of the Concentrated Mind… This is why the Buddha says discernment deals with penetrative insight into arising and passing away: seeing things as they come just as events, seeing them go away as events, and realizing that some events will be useful for the practice. So for the time being, let those events have some meaning. But as for everything else, allow it to be meaningless. As you …
- Using the Committee of the Mind… That’s when you gain the discernment that allows you to be free. Otherwise, you’re just coasting along, plugging in, and getting a buzz, and that’s it—no understanding, because you’re not making any of the choices. The voices in the mind can continue chattering along as they did in the past. It’s when you learn how to argue with …
- True Honesty… Rather than simply sitting where we are, we see how much better we can get in terms of developing mindfulness, developing concentration, developing discernment, how we can skillfully work at that process of understanding what it means to act. Reflect back on whatever skills you’ve learned in the past and what attitudes you needed in order to be really good at the skill …
- Equanimity Isn’t Apathy… You’ve got to go through the process because mastering the process is what develops your discernment. The mind can find all kinds of ways of avoiding the effort in the practice. You might decide, “Well, I’m just not up to this. I’m not good enough for this. I’m not cut out for this.” Learn to recognize that kind of thinking …
- The Skill of Stillness… And there is an element of discernment that you develop in settling the mind this way. You begin to see different mental events, different mental actions, that you didn’t see before. But for the time being, you don’t focus on them—you focus on the stillness because you’re going to need that on the path. Think of Ajaan Mun teaching Ajaan …
- A Thread into Awareness… This can be done only through the kind of discernment that comes with strong concentration. In Ajaan Lee’s image, it’s like heating a rock. When the rock is hot enough, whatever tin is in there is going to melt, come out on its own. You don’t have to go through and separate the tin atoms from the other atoms in the …
- Learning by Doing… One of the definitions of discernment or wisdom is penetrative knowledge of arising and passing away. A lot of people focus on “arising and passing away.” They say, “This means that you just watch things coming and going.” But there is that adjective, “penetrative.” It means understanding that there are good things arising and bad things arising. And when things arise, some of them …
- Heightened Skillfulness… When we think about skillfulness, we think about that question the Buddha has you ask to develop discernment: “What when I do it will be for my long-term welfare and happiness?” Now, the “long-term” could be long-term in samsāra, but here you go beyond that to a higher level of skill: long-term in the sense of not changing at all …
- Freedom Undefined… When you learn how to practice, developing concentration and discernment to see through those clingings, then the whole need to identify yourself, limit yourself, measure yourself. goes by the wayside. As you follow the path, the sufferings caused by the need to define yourself grow lighter and lighter. Even more so when all the clinging is gone: That’s it — no need to be …
- The Right Time at the Right Place… It provides a good basis for our discernment, not only because it’s quiet, with a sense of well-being, but also because, to get the mind to settle down like this, you’re going to have to get to know the mind. Right here in the state of concentration, you’ve got the form of the body, you’ve got feelings of pleasure …
- Technique & Attitudes… This is why the Buddha said that concentration requires discernment. You need some insight into the workings of the mind before the mind will really settle down. At the same time, insight requires concentration. The more still the mind becomes, the better you’re able to judge how your tactics are working. This is the test for everything as you meditate: How is it …
- Dhamma Books & the Actuality… As the Buddha says, there are three ways of gaining discernment. One is through listening, another is through thinking things through, and the third is through developing. And it’s only the third that’s really liberating. The first two simply get you oriented properly so that you realize that you really do have to train the mind. If you’re going to look …
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