Search results for: "Discernment"
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- All Three Functions of Mindfulness… When you’re focusing on the breath, you start out by just discerning when it’s long, when it’s short. Then you consciously try to be aware of the whole body as you breathe in, breathe out. From there, you calm bodily fabrication which, the Canon tells us in another place, means getting the mind into the fourth jhana. That doesn’t happen …
- Desires Have Their Reasons… That’s also an important part of the discernment. Actions have their consequences. And you have your choice as to what to do. The four noble truths give even more guidance. They point out the kind of desires that are not worth following: desires for sensuality, desires for becoming; desires for non-becoming. For instance, with becoming: You want to become a certain person …
- The Lessons of Good Kamma… A mind developed in virtue and discernment. These qualities expand your mind, so that what comes in from the past doesn’t have to make you suffer. What the Buddha does emphasize when he introduces the topic of kamma is the need to be responsible and to focus your attention on your present kamma, and not to worry about the past. Your focus on …
- To Begin the Day… People sometimes ask, “How is it that when you do concentration you develop your discernment?” Well, you see the mind more clearly as you’re trying to make it centered and whole like this. When you have a sense of a good place to stay inside, you’ll notice more clearly when you leave that good place. Otherwise, the mind is like a boat …
- Mind Reading… Just ask yourself, at which point are they useful? At which points are they not? This way, the issue of reading the mind, which starts out simply as a question of “How do I get the mind to settle down?” turns into the activity of discernment. At first, you’re peeling away blatant defilements. Then, as you’re reading the mind, you’re beginning …
- The Particulars of Your Suffering… Or the teaching that everything is random, there’s no pattern to why you suffer, so no matter how hard you try to figure it out, there’s no pattern to be discerned: That leaves you bewildered and unprotected as well, for it leaves you with no way of making a decision as to what you should and shouldn’t do to deal with …
- In Line with the Truth… So we sit here focusing on the breath to train the mind in mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, persistence, compassion for ourselves and others. All sorts of good qualities get gathered together here if we focus properly on the breath. Try to focus with a sense of ease, as a way of showing compassion to yourself. We all want happiness, and this is a good …
- Seeing Through Your Defilements… Wherever the breath is discernable, focus your attention there. And if you’re going to talk to yourself, talk to yourself about the breath, and about the mind fitting together with the breath. This is a part of concentration called directed thought and evaluation. You direct your thoughts to the breath and then you evaluate it. Is it good, is it not good? Is …
- You Can’t Relax Your Way to Awakening… If you could just go into jhana and wipe out all pain and never have to deal with it again, the Buddha wouldn’t have taught discernment the way he did: Use right concentration to comprehend pain, comprehend suffering, realizing where the real pain is. It’s not in the physical pain, it’s not even in the anguish. It’s in the clinging …
- Inner Wealth… The two remaining forms of wealth are learning, learning of the Dhamma—in other words, figuring out, learning what the Buddha had to say, the teachings that help us look for the causes of suffering inside and also look for the cessation of suffering inside through qualities we can develop inside—and then discernment, learning how to apply those teachings so that we get …
- What You’re Bringing… As long as you don’t see your stupidity, there’s no way that you’re going to gain discernment. This is not to say that you are a stupid person. It’s just that that particular connection in your mind was a stupid connection. If you tell yourself, “I am a fool,” that’s one thing. If you tell yourself, “I’ve been …
- Cooking Food for the Mind… Conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, persistence in the practice, mindfulness, concentration, discernment: These are all strengths of the mind and they require good food, the food of the meditation when you know how to fix it well. So remind yourself each time you meditate: You’re the cook and you’re also the person eating the food. On the one hand, you can …
- Choosing Freedom… That’s how the discernment gets developed. Ultimately, you get to the point where the path gets fully developed, and then you taste the end of suffering. Just realize that. That’s really there. What the Buddha taught is true: There is a dimension that’s free of space, free of time, totally unlimited. He was right. You know that that dimension also doesn …
- A Well-Thatched Roof… How can you use you gains to train your mind? What’s the best way to be generous with them? What’s the most discerning way to help other people with them? What other good qualities can you derive from using those gains wisely? When loss comes, what can you learn from that? There are good lessons to be learned from loss, you know …
- Staying Still… It’s interesting that in that verse we chanted just now, there’s a phrase, “respect for the training,” and the training, of course, covers virtue, concentration, and discernment. Then it comes back and emphasizes “respect for concentration.” The Buddha wants you to realize that this stillness of mind, this ability for the mind to just settle down and be still, requires extra respect …
- Indecision… virtue, concentration, discernment. These three activities are key to lessening our own suffering and lessening the burdens we place on others. So we focus here. It’s not much: three parts of the training. But it really helps to have things boiled down like this. To follow this path requires some trial and error. Even though we do have people to show us the …
- Acceptance… All the good qualities in the mind that the Buddha talks about developing—mindfulness, alertness, ardency, conviction, persistence, concentration, discernment: These are all things we have to some extent already. If we didn’t have them at all, we wouldn’t be human beings. It’s simply a matter of taking stock of what we’ve got and having the conviction that if we …
- Cutting the Fetters… As for habits and practices, you realize that you followed good habits to get here, but it was an act of discernment that allowed you to break through. And your attitude toward the practices you’ve been doing changes at that point. As the Buddha says, you’re virtuous, but you’re not made of virtue. In other words, you stick with the precepts …
- Directly & Indirectly to the Breath… In addition to generosity and virtue, these qualities include a sense of conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, learning about the Dhamma, developing your discernment, developing the attitudes of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. These are the things that raise your level while you’re here as a human being. And again where do they come from? From the qualities you develop …
- Self-Correct… How is the mind relating to the object? What’s going on? This is the beginning of discernment. It’s not just looking, it’s also passing judgment making adjustments. You’re learning how to self-correct. Here again, think of the monks in the Forest Tradition, out in the wilderness, miles and miles away from their teacher, dealing with the issues that are …
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