Search results for: "Skillfulness"

  1. Page 84
  2. The Karma of Self & Not-Self
     … Altogether, the Buddha has you nurture three kinds of skillful selves. First there’s the self that feels competent to follow this path and actually makes the effort to develop the skills that are needed. Then there’s the self that’s going to enjoy the results. You want that self to be a real connoisseur of what happiness is, so that you don … 
  3. A Doctor’s Strategies
     … He knew that curing a patient required not only medical skills, but also psychological skills. And it’s the same with the meditation. You need to psych yourself out, learn how to read your mind and think strategically. We focus on the breath not because breath is awakening, but because it’s a means to get us there. We use our desire for comfort … 
  4. All Fabrications Are Stressful
     … So, reflecting on the fact that your life is marked by these things, you want to become more skillful, more heedful. But then, when you reflect that it’s everywhere—everybody is subject to these things, even the devas and Brahmās—that’s when you get on the path, realizing that you’ve got to get out. So we look directly at the processes … 
  5. Remembering Ajaan Suwat
     … In other words, you abandon unskillful actions, and you take delight in it, you’re happy to do it; you’re happy to develop skillful qualities. You take pride in your work. Look at this as a skill that you’re working on. Take joy in being able to master it. Because the pleasure that comes from working on the skill is much greater … 
  6. How to Change
     … This is how you can talk to yourself in new ways, more skillful ways. You may say, “That’s not the way I usually talk to myself.” But again, do you want to keep on talking to yourself in your old ways, or do you want to try something better? Think of the ajaans in Thailand. They liked to focus on the tendency for … 
  7. Karma in the Present
     … When we meditate, we try to get quiet so that we can see these intentions and bring more knowledge to them, because if you fabricate these things out of ignorance you’re going to suffer; if you bring skill and awareness to the process of fabricating these things, that turns them into a path, the path to the end of suffering. So fabrication: What … 
  8. Beyond Natural Suffering
     … Learn how to cling to skillful assumptions, skillful fabrications, as part of the path. Learn how to let go of the unskillful ones. Whenever you find yourself suffering for one reason or another, turn around and look at what it is that you’re feeding on. The simple fact it’s making you suffer means that it’s not an innocent process. So always … 
  9. Vows
     … But this has to be done with skill. That’s why the Buddha said that a good determination involves four qualities: discernment, truth, relinquishment, and peace. Discernment here means two things. To begin with, it means setting wise goals: learning how to recognize a useful vow, one that aims at something really worthwhile, one in which you’re pushing yourself not too little, not … 
  10. The Kathina
     … This is the time when the monks can pass on their sewing skills. The older monks can teach the younger monks how to cut the cloth, how to sew, how to dye the robes, all of which are very important skills, given that the robe is one of the basic requisites, the one that’s most likely get torn, the one that’s most … 
  11. Concentration Nurtured with Virtue
     … Are your good intentions really skillful intentions? There’s a difference, you know. Good intentions can have delusion, whereas skillful intentions don’t. That’s the distinction. So we use the precepts for training purposes. It’s not that we simply just hold on to them, hoping that by following the precepts we’ll be good little boys and good little girls and will … 
  12. How & Why We Meditate
     … So, to develop right effort as a beginning step, you use whatever cruder skills you have at your disposal: conviction, patience, your stick-to-it-iveness. Now, that can get very old very quickly if you don’t have something of interest. That’s why we emphasize working with the breath. When the breath gets comfortable, the next step is to think of that … 
  13. Your Inner Teacher
     … One of the most important skills in the meditation is training yourself to be your own teacher, your own observer, your own advisor. The role of the external teacher is to eventually fade into the background, as your internal teacher gets more and more skilled, more and more reliable. But this requires that you be really observant—observant of your intentions, observant of the … 
  14. Do Jhana
     … With that knowledge, you can get more and more skillful at disbanding it. That’s what I mean by zapping it. As the energies get tangled in that spot, you can comb out the tangle, vaporize the tangle like a spider on a web. The spider sits in one corner and senses something vibrating in the web. It goes to that spot, takes care … 
  15. Dhamma in Vinaya
     … Here you are, trying to get the mind to settle down, and it’s an important skill you’re trying to develop. If the mind wants to sneak out and catch a few flicks, have a few snacks, ask: for what purpose? That’s the intention. Then you look at the perception: the different ways you perceive the breath. If the mind is unwilling … 
  16. Getting Familiar with Concentration
     … There has to be the desire to get rid of unskillful qualities and to foster skillful ones. That much you can desire, but you can’t desire that it’s going to happen within an hour or a day or two weeks or whatever. You just work on whatever comes up. Sometimes you find that the mind throws a lot of issues back at … 
  17. Fear & Conviction
     … So being very conscious of skillful fears helps you to deal with unrealistic fears. It gives you a place where you can focus your efforts and your desire for what you need to do: You need to train the mind. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but you do know that, whatever happens, you’re going to need … 
  18. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … This quality of watchfulness is probably one of the most important skills you’re going to have to develop as you meditate, realizing that just because you’ve made up your mind you’re going to do something good doesn’t mean that all the mind is going along with the decision. It’s as if you’ve got to committee in there—or … 
  19. Right Livelihood
     … There’s right resolve, the resolve to renounce sensuality, to find a pleasure that’s not involved with sensual passion; right mindfulness, which is the theme of right concentration; and right livelihood, looking after your needs in a skillful way. Right livelihood is the poor stepsister of the eightfold path. It’s the factor that the Buddha hardly defines at all. He simply says … 
  20. Guardian Meditations, Right & Wrong
     … We want to make sure that our motivation in dealing with other people is always right in line with what’s skillful. If you have ill will for anyone, it’s going to be hard to act skillfully toward that person. So we spread thoughts of goodwill, not so that we’ll stay around forever with everybody, but so that we’ll be motivated … 
  21. Delighting the Mind
     … Once he was able to step back from his thoughts and see them, not so much in terms of their content but in terms of the state of mind behind them and where they would lead—the skillful thoughts leading to good actions, the unskillful thoughts leading to unskillful actions—then he knew what to do: Abandon the unskillful thoughts and develop the skillful … 
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