Search results for: "Discernment"
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- Home Schooling Your Inner Children… As the Buddha said, a real test of your discernment is seeing the things that you like to do that are going to give trouble in the long run, and learning how to talk yourself out of them. The same with the things that you don’t like to do, but are going to be good for you in the long run: like meditating …
- The Pleasure Principle Made Noble… You actually become more discerning in how you’re going to look for pleasure. So much of what we do in our lives is driven by the desire for pleasure, and yet we very rarely sit down and think it through: what really is pleasant for us, what really does give satisfaction. You have to learn how to see the desire for pleasure as …
- Opening Your World… It starts with that question that the Buddha says lies at the beginning of discernment, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? Or what, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” You realize that your actions are the problem, and maybe you can change your actions. If you couldn’t change …
- The Right to Repair Your Mind… And as for the potentials for all the good things in the path, those require subtle discernment as well. Sometimes concentration starts out very, very small, and it doesn’t seem like much, and so you snuff it out. You want something better to come along. It’s as if every time a little seed begins to sprout, even though it is a seed …
- Guilt & Shame… Whereas if you don’t have an expansive mindset, haven’t developed the mind in virtue and discernment, and you haven’t learned how not to be overcome by pleasure or pain, then your mind is like a small cup of water. You throw that large crystal of salt in, and you can’t drink the water. It’s too salty. So regardless of …
- Streams of Anger… So, these are things you keep in mind to restrain yourself, but the actual solution is not in the mindfulness, it’s going to be in the discernment. One of the reasons we practice concentration is to get to know how the mind fabricates its experiences. We all know what the three fabrications are: The in-and-out breath is *bodily fabrication; *directed thought …
- Alone & Together… The details, the tiny workings out, may be different, which is why different people have different problems as they try to settle down into concentration, and why different issues will come up as you try to develop discernment. You read about other people’s approaches to getting past their defilements, and some of them may work for you and some of them may not …
- Off to a Good Start… So we focus on the breath as a way of training mindfulness, training alertness to give rise to concentration, discernment—and a lot of other good qualities as well. But it’s the mindfulness and the alertness that really get trained as our foundation. So you keep the breath in mind: all the way in, all the way out. You can focus on any …
- Cooking the Mind… That’s how your discernment grows. There was a Zen master, Dogen, who had an interesting point. He said that the development of the path is no different from the realization of cessation. That doesn’t mean that the path and the goal are the same thing. What it means is that the activity of developing the path, if you pay careful attention to …
- Learning Through Healing… So look at this as an opportunity both to heal the mind and to understand it; to soothe the mind and gain insight into it; to calm the mind and gain discernment. All at the same time.
- The Dhamma Bucket List… Generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity: Which of these qualities is lacking in your mind? See if you can squeeze some of that out of your activities. And how would you go about developing those qualities? You can develop them in daily life. You can develop them by making up your mind you’re going to make a special donation …
- Thinking Your Way to Stillness… The questions are what change simple awareness into discernment: figuring out what’s a cause, what’s an effect; which causes are skillful, leading to good results and which causes are unskillful, leading to bad results. That set of questions should always be in the back of your mind. They’re the ones that will eventually lead you to see things in terms of …
- The Middle Way… qualities of what you do, what you say, how you think—or to look at it in another way, virtue, concentration, and discernment. What we’re working on right now is the concentration. How are you going to make your concentration part of the middle way? For one thing, you have to look at the other ways that your mind is tempted to deal …
- The Power of Perception… Your concentration practice begins to contain within it a lot of the lessons you’re going to need for discernment. So try to be very conscious of the process of perception. What perceptions are you holding in mind right now? And what are they doing, in terms of the breath, in terms of feelings? Do you like what they’re doing, or are you …
- Genuine Happiness… It’s one thing to read about concentration and about wisdom and discernment, to decide that they’re nice things. But to actually know them in the mind: That requires that you train the mind, in the same way that you train an animal so that it can live in your house. Sometimes you have to be gentle with it, sometimes you have to …
- Your Inner Teacher… This is called concentration fostered by your powers of discernment, your willingness to explore and learn new things. The breathing isn’t mechanical, and the mind doesn’t feel strapped down. You’re not trying to put yourself into a trance, so don’t force the breath too much. You want the breath to be easy and flowing, and you’re just here taking …
- Looking in Three Directions… This is why the Buddha said there is no insight, no discernment without jhana. In other words, you don’t make the mind still only for a brief moment and then switch over to insight practice in order to gain something to write home about or something you could put in your journal. You try to get the mind still, and you try to …
- A Friend to the World, A Friend to Yourself… The discernment is what cuts through your defilements. That, too, is a strength. In between, you’ve got persistence and mindfulness. Persistence is based on your conviction. It’s always a matter of seeing whatever’s going to be skillful and trying to give rise to it if it’s not there. Once it’s there, you try to maintain it. Anything unskillful, you …
- Refuge… Develop your discernment. Try to do good in the world, but realize that the real goodness is what comes from the mind. Ajaan Lee’s analogy is that when you do good in the world, it’s like squeezing juice out of fruit. You take the juice and you leave the remains behind. Even though the remains of the fruit are nourishing, still the …
- Metta… We’re developing good qualities like mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, as an expression of goodwill for ourselves, hoping that we will be able to look after ourselves with ease. So metta surrounds the practice, gives us our motivation. And it also gives us our protection. That’s another way in which it surrounds the practice. When you feel tempted by ill will to do …
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