Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- The Complexity of Pain… Even though the line between physical pain and mental pain is not all that clear—because after all, your experience of physical pain will be related to some extent to your mental perceptions and the way you talk about it—there are some cases where you can talk about it in the most skillful way and your perceptions can be the most skillful perceptions …
- The Taste vs. the Reality… Your skill in talking yourself into doing what would lead to long-term happiness and into avoiding things that would lead to long-term pain: That’s one of the most important skills you can develop, not only in meditation, but in life as a whole. So remember the difference between the taste and the actual emotion. The taste of the emotion is always …
- Training Your Cynical Voices… As for skillful mind-states, they’re good things to develop. The mind gets clearer, sharper. This is a path where you’re asked to do nothing but good things. Try to be aware of your body. Again, you’re not being asked to be aware of something that’s far out there in the abstract. It’s something right here, right now. And …
- Developing Absorption… And also remembering to recognize when something comes up in the mind, how you can tell whether it’s going to be skillful or not. You’ve seen your greed and distress before, and hopefully you’ve gotten some insight into them. You’ve also seen the thoughts that help you stay with the breath. They keep reminding you that this is a good …
- Circumspection… Looking around like this, you begin to see that some things that may not seem all that skillful to begin with can be put to a skillful purpose. There’s a case where the Buddha talks about getting rid of anger basically through spite. As he says, you think about your enemy and you can’t tell yourself that the person is not an …
- The Trick to Staying in Place… As you get more and more skilled at breathing in a comfortable way, that enables you to stay with the breath for long periods of time, because it’s both interesting and enjoyable. If you notice you have any stress, feelings of dis-ease, or any sort of habitual patterns of tension or tightness in the body, you can learn how to breathe in …
- Look at Yourself… There’s the intention, then there’s the result of the intention, and then there’s your reaction to it, and the reaction can either be skillful or unskillful. There can be a defilement there, and if there’s a defilement, then that colors your next action, your next intention. If the defilement is really strong, you can start going in a really downward …
- The Flowing Mind… One of the main skills you want to learn as a meditator is that even though there may be currents in the mind that want to go out, you don’t have to go out with them. In the beginning this means that when there’s a very strong push from inside, you say, “No.” The best thing to do is get out of …
- Strong Against Anger & Fear… What are you going to do?” “What else can I do but focus on the practice of the Dhamma?” This is our refuge—it’s called the strength of conviction—realizing that the most important thing you can focus on is being skillful in your thoughts, skillful in your words, skillful in your deeds. You maintain that conviction, and you see that it’s …
- Not Siding with the Hindrances… Think of any skill you’ve developed that has required that ability to watch consistently. Like a potter who has to be totally concentrated on the clay and the movement of the hands up the clay, who can’t let herself think of anything else at the time. Or the photographer who has to be totally involved in the shot. That’s the kind …
- Ask the Right Questions… The question is, “Is this a skillful action or is this not a skillful action?” Sometimes, especially in some Buddhist circles, we hear that “Well, you don’t have a self, but you are the five aggregates.” But then again, that’s defining what you are; and again, it’s placing a limitation on you. If you’re just the five aggregates, the five …
- A Good Path to Be On… He says you can develop the skills of virtue, concentration, and discernment so that they can lead to total freedom. Think about that. Whenever you’re getting discouraged, remind yourself that there is this opening. There’s a possibility for you to become more and more skillful. And it doesn’t have to depend on anybody else. You don’t have to go around …
- Determined to be Happy… If you don’t see any harm, take joy in the fact that your practice is advancing, and continue to practice in skillful qualities day and night. That was his instruction to his son. That’s how we find purity. In other words, we don’t simply go on good intentions—we try to go on skillful intentions, and that means we have to …
- Equanimity on the Path… What role does equanimity play on the path? The first thing to notice is that sometimes it’s regarded as skillful and sometimes it’s not. When it makes you lazy, it’s not part of the path. But when it’s skillful, it actually has several functions on the path. One is to apply it to anything that’s not directly related to …
- A Memorial to Your Life… You have a clear sense of what’s skillful, what’s not skillful, and then you motivate yourself to do what’s skillful. Then you reflect. The reflection is basically the intentness and the circumspection with which you do this. Those are the other two bases for success. ** You really give this your full attention: That’s intentness. Other things will come along and …
- Question Your Defilements… So gradually he was able to hone his doubts down to questions that were really helpful, i.e., “What’s skillful? What’s not skillful? How do I look at my thinking, not in terms of what I believe or don’t believe, but in terms of what actually happens as a result of following a particular thought, following a particular idea?” That question …
- Endurance with a Purpose… There’s an input that comes in from the senses, but we also have our intentions and our skills in how to put things together. Meditation is basically learning a lot of good skills for putting the present moment together in a skillful way. There are basically three components to any mood that stays in the mind. The Buddha calls them fabrication, and there …
- Help Others, Help Yourself… Is it something skillful? Is it something not? Is it going to help the concentration or get in the way? You’ve had some experience with meditation, so you should be able to remember you’ve learned and then apply those lessons here. That’s what mindfulness is all about: remembering, recognizing things. But it’s an active memory, not just sitting here thinking …
- Intelligent about Change… Its actual duty is to actively give rise to things that are skillful and to help unskillful things pass away more quickly. This is what you’ve got to remember. Right mindfulness deals with the things you need to keep in mind as you try to develop skillful qualities and abandon unskillful ones. If something skillful comes up in the mind, you don’t …
- Bases for Success… But everything else, good or bad, skillful or unskillful, has to start with desire. Then out of that desire grows your persistence, the effort you put into the practice, to keep at it. Again, the effort doesn’t have to be the kind where you’re sitting there straining and sweating and wearing yourself out. It means simply learning how to stick with each …
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