Search results for: "Discernment"
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- 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 …
- Recollection of Hell… Even the development of discernment in right view is a kind of perception. You apply the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self to the aggregates. First, as you’re sitting here trying to create a sense of ease for the breath to get the mind concentrated, anything else would count as a distraction. Whatever’s a distraction, try to see it as stressful …
- Don’t Stop with Awareness Itself… As Ajaan Fuang said, when you really let go, there’s a transcendent awareness that comes, a transcendent discernment that comes, guaranteeing that, yes, you really have understood. And that’s something totally different. It comes from letting go not only of your present awareness, but also of the present moment entirely. It’s not here and now. It’s beyond here and now …
- Your Secret Foundation… You look in the Canon and you see that the most detailed meditation instructions are focused on the breath, the breath as a basis for establishing mindfulness, gaining concentration, discernment, release. Why is this all focused on the breath? For a lot of reasons. When you’re with the breath, you can see a lot of things in the body and the mind. It …
- Not Just a Witness… If there was a course of action he thought was worthwhile, if it seemed likely to bear fruit, he would follow it with all his conviction and persistence and mindfulness and concentration and discernment—in other words, putting all his strength into the practice. When he got results—when he was convinced that these were the best results you could get from that practice …
- Goodwill All Around… Try to develop its concentration in that way, to develop its discernment into what’s going on in the mind: what you choose to do, what you choose not to do. And you gain insight also into this whole question of what does it mean to intend, what is an intention, what is this karma we are doing all the time? Once you see …
- New Feeding Habits for the Mind… If you’re observing the precepts, practicing concentration, and developing discernment into what the mind needs to feed on, what it doesn’t need to feed on, what kind of feeding is good for it, what kind of feeding is bad for it, and then feed it in such a way that ultimately it gets so strong that it doesn’t have to feed …
- In Accordance with the Dhamma… And it’s in seeing this statement of fact that you get the clear vision you need for discernment. So as Ajaan Fuang used to say, goodwill has to have equanimity or else it burns out. It becomes a cause for suffering. So remember that equanimity is the alternative to goodwill. Not that it replaces it. It just puts things into perspective. It’s …
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