Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- The Joy of the Battle… As the Buddha said, every skillful intention that comes into the mind, every intention to abandon something unskillful, or to develop something skillful: That initial intention right there is good karma. And to whatever extent you’re able to carry through with it, that’s more good karma. So even at times when it seems like you can’t get a handle on something …
- To Be Sure… Think of the Buddha’s determination that he wouldn’t let himself rest content with skillful qualities until they had delivered him someplace that really was certain. The other secret to his awakening—which he doesn’t mention that much but is implicit in the story—was his ability to self-correct, to observe himself. He’d be perfectly honest with himself about what …
- Discernment… things that are skillful, things that are unskillful, what kind of results they lead to. So your discernment, when it’s penetrative, sees more than just arising and passing away. You see what kind of arisings are skillful and which ones are not, which things lead to well-being and which ones don’t. That has to do with the “noble” part because, remember …
- Seven Facets of Discernment… Is it a skillful quality that you can simply allow to grow on its own or is it something you have to encourage? The same with unskillful qualities. Some of them will go away when you look at them. It’s like turning the light of the sun on a little bit of water and it evaporates. In other cases, the water is so …
- How to Be an Admirable Friend… Then your actions, of course, to be really skillful have to go into two directions. One is to actively do things that are positively skillful, and the other is to avoid things that are not. The positive skills, of course, have to do with generosity – the way you give to others. It can be a matter of material things. It can be giving your …
- Reflecting on Karma… If you just said that all feelings coming from actions are going to be stressful, why bother trying to be skillful? It’s because some actions lead to more pain than others, more stress, more harm than others that you want to be very careful about what you do. So that’s another attitude that this reflection is suppose to give rise to: one …
- The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough… You’ve got to consciously probe to see what’s going to be skillful right now in your given state of mind. That’s the second of the factors for awakening: It goes almost seamlessly from mindfulness into analysis of qualities, trying to figure out what’s skillful and what’s not. That, in turn, moves into persistence when you actually try to abandon …
- The Buddha Defines Wisdom… someone who was learned, was mindful, who could understand what was being said to him, and was skilled in the affairs of the world. In other words, the minister was describing himself, and was giving a very worldly definition of wisdom. He asked the Buddha, “Do you want to praise my definition, or do you want to criticize it?” The Buddha said, “Neither.” But …
- An Apprenticeship in Integrity… In the past, this aspect of direct personal example was highly valued, not just in the area of the Dhamma but in terms of other skills as well. There are a lot of old skills that used to be practiced in Thailand that have died out because the teachers didn’t see anyone worthy of passing them on to. And the question of worthiness …
- The Wisdom of Wising Up… That way your intentions become more skillful. Sometimes it’s good to do preventive strikes on wrong resolves before you settle down. If you know that the mind has been obsessing about a particular thought during the day, you’ve got to do some antidote thinking to pry the mind loose. Other times, you may realize the problems only after you’ve started settling …
- Factors for Awakening… What’s the point of balance? What coming into the mind is skillful, and what’s unskillful?” If you see that something is skillful, as when there are a few moments of concentration, those are to be developed. In other words, you keep doing them. If you’re distracted, you recognize that as an unskillful state and then drop it. Come back to the …
- For the Survival of True Happiness… So you want to make sure you use the body and your mind to act in ways that’re going to be skillful, that will lead to happiness. This is where happiness lies: in the training of the mind. So this is what you want to make sure survives. The Buddha talks about five kinds of loss. There’s loss of health, loss of …
- Noble Conversation… This is one of the skills of being a meditator: knowing what to talk about, when and where to talk about it, and who to talk about it to. The Buddha discusses ten topics that are valid for discussing. Some of them have to do with meditation—the practice of concentration, discernment, release, and knowledge and vision of release—and people like to talk …
- Solo Practice… basically analyzing the qualities of the mind, seeing what’s skillful right now, what’s not skillful right now. And when you get a sense of what’s skillful, then you work at augmenting it, bringing it into being and strengthening it until you get a sense of fullness. That, too, is energizing. When the breath comes in, it doesn’t squeeze any parts …
- Treasures from the East… But some people will tell you, well, you should also be content with whatever comes up in your mind, skillful or unskillful, and just let it be. Yet Buddha never taught that. He said being discontent, even with his skillful qualities, was the secret to his awakening. So, if you know that he taught that, it’s good to hold in mind. That way …
- Perceiving the Breath… As in developing any skill, you find that you perceive the things that you’re working on in lots of different ways, because you’re encountering more issues and learning how to deal with them. So the way you perceive the breath is an important part of gaining the skill over the breath and using that skill to train the mind in skillful qualities …
- Beyond Inter-eating… These require the food of appropriate attention, which means looking at things in line with such questions as, “What’s skillful? What’s unskillful? What, when I do it will lead to long-term harm? What, when I do it will lead to long-term happiness?” You look at your actions, you look at your words, you look at your thoughts in this light …
- How to Use the Three Perceptions… That’s when they’re beneficial, all within the context of the four noble truths and the question of what’s skillful, what’s not skillful. Those are the teachings that are always true, always applicable, always beneficial, always timely. If you start dealing with thoughts and perceptions that are not beneficial even though they may be true, you can get the mind all …
- Exploring Fabrication… And, in this context, all kinds of things that you might have rejected as not belonging to the path are actually admitted back in—but, on the condition that they be skillful. Venerable Ananda talks about using craving and conceit on the path. It has to be a skillful craving; it has to be a skillful conceit, but these processes, which eventually we’re …
- Joy in Effort… What makes the effort right is that it’s skillful, appropriate for right here, right now—and you’re up for the challenge. In the Buddha’s description of right effort, you’re told to generate desire. And one of the best ways of generating desire is to learn how to enjoy the effort—in other words, to take joy in abandoning unskillful qualities …
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