Search results for: "Discernment"
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- The Power of Truth… Jhana is one thing, discernment something totally separate.” That’s the way it is in the books, and that’s how scribes like their knowledge: all neat and crisp and clearly defined. But as a warrior, you’ve got to use whatever’s available for whatever the situation that’s arising. That’s when you want to have all your tools available, that’s …
- Asalha Puja… So you need the discernment to figure out which is which. The same with different mind states: If your mind is scattered all over the place, that’s something you want to abandon; if it’s sluggish and sleepy, you want to abandon that, too. There’s a *duty *with regard to them, and you do that duty with ardency. Ardency here is the …
- On Deserving to Be Happy… That’s how you develop any skill, and particularly how you develop the skills of virtue, concentration, and discernment. By bringing these four bases of success to bear, you desire to do things well. You keep at it. And you do your best to learn how to maintain when you’ve got something good. You stick with it as best you can. Remember, we …
- Judging Your Meditation… You get indifferent toward the things you can’t have an effect on, and you focus your energy on the things that you can—an important lesson in discernment. Also, because we’re judging actions here, you have to remember that the Buddha’s teachings on karma are very complex, which means that when things are going well, you can’t expect that the …
- Purifying Gold… Of these three qualities in the Buddha’s list, this is the one that contains the germs of discernment, realizing that this is something you’ve got to do. A while back when I was in Malaysia, I was giving a talk on right concentration, and one of the questions afterwards was, “You make the meditation sound like something you do, but we’ve …
- Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, Space… It’s good for concentration, good for discernment. In terms of concentration, there’s that nice passage where the Buddha gives instructions to Rahula, even before Rahula starts doing breath meditation, saying, “Make your mind like earth,” he says. Earth doesn’t get disturbed by nice things or unpleasant things. You can throw garbage on earth, and earth doesn’t react. This is a …
- Beyond Nature… If your discernment is sharp, you drop all intention at that point. That’s when the mind opens up to this other dimension, which is totally separate. So it’s not the case that we’re returning to a place we’ve come from. After all, as the Buddha points out, even little babies have their greed, anger, and delusion. It’s just that …
- Many Desires, Many Selves… First it has to have discernment. In other words, you have to see clearly which desires are in line with your overarching determination, which ones are not, and what’s a good determination to begin with. Second, you have to be true to it. You have to be honest with yourself about which of your desires are actually in compliance, and which ones are …
- The Prison Break… The sense of self that wants to experience the bliss and ease and gain the discernment that can come from concentration, you want to cultivate that, too. The sense of you who’s watching over this and can perfect this skill: All these are part of the path. You let them go when the path has done its work, but you hold onto them …
- The Skill of Restraint… You’ve already been developing the wisdom and discernment that protect the mind, keeping it here. You don’t have to cook them up fresh every time you sit down and meditate. So think of everything you do throughout the day as a skill, including the way you exercise restraint. Sometimes that means not looking at or listening to the things you don’t …
- Views & Vision… mindfulness, alertness, ardency, concentration, and discernment. This is the recollection that you can make your home. Then finally there’s recollection of peace: the peace of nirvana. Remind yourself that this is really the direction you want to go, that there is an attainment of true happiness. Keep reminding yourself of the direction where true happiness lies so that you don’t get distracted …
- Inner Negotiating Skills… True happiness is found through training yourself in virtue, concentration, and discernment. It’s something you can do. This is probably one of the most important parts of the Buddha’s teachings—his emphasis on what human beings can do for themselves. You look at the other teachings of his time. So many of them said, “Well, there’s only so much you can …
- Metta Metacognition… As the Buddha said, this is the question that lies at the beginning of discernment or wisdom: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Thinking about the long term is what makes you wise. We hear so much about how the Buddha taught …
- What You Don’t Like About Yourself… This is why, when the Buddha taught meditation to Rahula, he gave him some preliminary discernment practices: contemplation of inconstancy, contemplation of not-self. He mentioned these to Rahula even before he taught him breath meditation so that Rahula could have a few weapons to use as he was trying to get the mind to settle down with the breath. As for the breath …
- Inconstant, Stressful, Not-self… One is from the perspective of the question that the Buddha says is the foundation of discernment: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” There are three important concepts in that question: “my,” “long-term,” and “happiness.” The three perceptions line up with those concepts. They’re perceptions you apply to any possible happiness to see if …
- Not-self as a Raft… Even your concentration and your discernment: You’ve got to let those go at that point. But it’s not the case that you let them go and they’re gone. It’s simply that you’re no longer clinging to them. Even your first perception of the deathless, the Buddha said, you have to label as not-self. Otherwise, you cling to it …
- Off the Continuum… doesn’t have much insight, you go to someone who’s mastered the insight and you ask him, “How are fabrications to be viewed? How are they to be penetrated with discernment?” Notice the issues around fabrication. It’s important to see how things get put together in the mind, to see how things get put together in the body, how there is a …
- Do, Maintain, Use… This is why we have to maintain our concentration as we’re working on discernment, because only when the mind is really still can you can see these subtleties. Then you can have an accurate and useful comparison between the allure and the drawbacks—keeping in mind that whatever the allure of something may be, however satisfying it may be, when you compare it …
- Samsara… It doesn’t get in the way of discernment. So use this sense of form as a path rather than as a bonfire to burn yourself. The same with feelings: You try to focus on where there’s a sense of ease in the body and you maximize that. Try to make it steady and then let it flow around through the body in …
- Four Bases of Success… This is where you have to start exercising your discernment right at the beginning to get a sense of what the body really needs, what the mind really needs. It’s the same with choosing where exactly in the body you’re going to focus. If you focus on the head, sometimes it may give you a headache, so you focus further down. Some …
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