Search results for: "Conviction"
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- A Legacy of Strengths… One is conviction: conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, which translates into conviction in the power of action. Human beings can find true happiness, and it’s done through the power of their actions. No matter how unskillfully you’ve been behaving in the past, you can change your ways. The way the Buddha teaches karma is not deterministic. He talks about tendencies that …
- Beyond Inter-eating… the strengths of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are the qualities that strengthen the mind. In other words, they provide strength and they are strengths in themselves. Conviction is conviction in the principle that the Buddha really was awakened. And one of the major things he woke to was the principle of action, kamma: that our lives are shaped by our actions …
- Strength Training… You’re strengthening your mind so that it develops strengths of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and even discernment. Discernment is not a matter of coming up with clever insights, or taking concepts you’ve learned from the books and slapping them on your mind. I got a phone call the other night from someone who was talking about how he was trying to apply …
- Acceptance… The first step in regaining some of that power is to have the conviction that, yes, the Buddha did gain awakening through his own efforts and, yes, he did it through developing qualities of mind that we have in a potential form and that we can develop too. That conviction is meant to be a challenge: Are you going to live your life without …
- A Sense of Yourself… One is conviction; the others are virtue, learning, generosity, discernment, and quick-wittedness. These are all skills you can develop. You want to have a sense of where you are, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are in these areas, so that you can use your strengths to make up for your weaknesses. So: How’s your conviction? Are you really convinced that …
- Audacious & Undaunted… This is why when they say that you have conviction in the Buddha, it’s conviction in his awakening, because this is the event that’s most relevant to the problem we’re facing. As he said when he first went out into the wilderness, he saw that he was subject to aging, illness, and death. He wanted to find something that was not …
- Self-starting… One of the emotions that’s supposed to be inspired by that reflection is pasada, conviction: i.e., conviction that we’re not trapped forever in the cycle of aging, illness, and death, that actions really can get us out. This is why we train the mind. Actions come from the mind and, fortunately, the mind can be trained. It’s not stuck in …
- Strength for Your Goodness… The first is conviction. Traditionally this is said to be conviction in the Buddha’s awakening. But what does that mean for you right now? It means that it is possible to make a difference in life through your actions. Actions based on skillful mental states lead to happiness. If they’re based on unskillful mental states like greed, aversion, and delusion, they lead …
- Relating to Kamma… intellectually because it’s related to the issue of conviction, or saddha. We hear the word conviction—or even worse, saddha is often translated as faith—and we think that we’re being asked to commit to something that we’re not really sure about, that we don’t have any means of knowing. But that’s not what conviction means in the Buddha …
- A Position of Strength… So you start with the first strength, the strength of the conviction: that your actions really are important, they require care, and they require this kind of foundation. Then you need persistence or effort. This has to build on conviction, because you might find yourself getting more and more tired when the days are long or your body’s not feeling strong. On those …
- Maintained by Fabrication… We take this on conviction. But it’s a good faith. It’s a good conviction. And it’s a good thing to keep in mind as we practice, because as the Buddha warns us, a lot of the other “for the sakes of” that we could follow—the ones we take as a guide as we keep fabricating ourselves, fabricating our experience, and …
- Mindfulness of Death… There’s conviction—conviction in the Buddha’s awakening. Virtue—making sure that you follow the precepts. Generosity—you’re generous with your wealth, with your time. As the Buddha said in another reference to a burning house, when a house is about to burn down, you don’t leave valuables in the house. You get them out of the house—and the ones …
- The Buddha’s Buffet… The first one, of course, is conviction. Conviction here means conviction in the fact of the Buddha’s awakening, that he really did gain awakening through his own efforts, setting an example that this is what’s possible through human effort. Also, there was the content of the awakening, which includes the fact of rebirth and the power of karma and how complex karma …
- Inner Wealth… The first is conviction. And it’s not just a floating conviction, a general sense of confidence. It’s very particular: You have confidence in the principle of karma. What does that mean? It means that you believe you really are responsible for your own actions. You believe that your actions give results, and that the results are determined by the quality of your …
- Potentials for Energy… In the five strengths or the five faculties, persistence comes after conviction. This goes hand in hand with desire. You want to find an end to suffering. You want to at least alleviate a lot of your suffering. And if you believe that the Buddha was awakened, and that he proved that human beings can do this, that gives focus to your desire—and …
- Noble Treasures… First there’s conviction. Traditionally, this means conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, and that translates into the principle that he gained awakening through his own efforts. He really did find the deathless happiness, and the qualities he had to develop in the course of perfecting his skills and using his own efforts were qualities that we all have in potential form. He took …
- A Producer Mentality… In both cases, the list starts with conviction. The four bases of success start with desire. The noble eightfold path starts with right view and right resolve: right view about what’s going to cause suffering, what’s not going to cause suffering, what’s going to take you away from suffering, and then the resolve to do what needs to be done to …
- Strength for Stillness… How do you strengthen them? First through conviction, the conviction that this is a good thing to do, this practice we’re doing here. Something taught by people of no defilement: people who have found true happiness; people who have no ulterior motive in teaching this to anyone else. They’d found that this method worked. They’d tested it inside and passed it …
- Strong Through Admirable Friendship… One, they have conviction in the Buddha’s awakening. Two, they’re virtuous. Three, they’re generous. And four, they’re discerning. You want to look for people like that and associate with them. You try to emulate them. You ask them how they develop their conviction. What inspires them to be generous and virtuous? What kind of discernment have they developed? And how …
- Treasures Beyond Death… The first is conviction: conviction in the fact that the Buddha was awakened, along with the implications of that conviction, which come down to the fact that true happiness is possible and it can be attained through human efforts. It doesn’t require supernatural abilities, just taking the abilities you have now and developing them. That conviction is a treasure because it encourages you …
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