Search results for: "Discernment"

  1. Discernment
    When the Buddha defined the faculty of discernment, he defined it as “knowledge of arising and passing away—noble, penetrative, leading to the right ending of stress.” Some people, hearing that, focus on the “arising and passing away” and draw the conclusion that discernment is all about seeing the principle of inconstancy: Things come and they go; nothing’s permanent. But the adjectives that … 
  2. Don’t Practice in a Row
     … In the same way, he says, your virtue washes your discernment; your discernment washes your virtue. In the passage where he says that, he includes concentration under discernment. So you have your concentration and discernment on one side, your virtue on the other, and they’re washing each other. That’s how they both get clean. It’s important that you realize that we … 
  3. Discernment All Along
     … Even the first step that’s often listed as one of the first steps in the practice—finding an admirable friend—requires a lot of discernment. Generosity, if you want to do it well requires discernment; virtue requires discernment; concentration requires discernment. As you apply your discernment to these things, it develops. It gets more and more sensitive, and it gets more and more … 
  4. Bojjhanga: Discernment Fosters Concentration
     … This is one of the ways in which discernment leads to concentration. You see this in the different sets of the wings to awakening. In some of them, concentration comes before discernment. But in others, like the seven factors for awakening, you’ve got discernment first and then concentration. The discernment there is analysis of qualities. Now the analysis here doesn’t have to … 
  5. The Wall of Discernment
    When the Buddha compares the practice to a fortress, the wall of the fortress is discernment. And it’s said to be a wall that’s well-plastered. In other words, the defilements can’t get a handhold, can’t get a foothold, which makes it hard for them to get inside. But what is there inside that the wall is protecting? Well, there … 
  6. Discerning Your Discernment
  7. Developing Discernment
     … These are some of the ways in which you develop discernment through developing the four other strengths: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, and concentration. All of them get easier when different facets of discernment arise, because all of them require a certain amount of discernment just to get going. As discernment gets stronger, as the Buddha said, it strengthens these qualities, too. So they help one … 
  8. The Path of Questions
     … But before we get to that level of discernment we have to train the discernment we have in every level of the practice. This morning we read a passage by Ajaan Lee in which he talks about how generosity, virtue, and meditation both depend upon discernment and give rise to discernment. In other words, you have to use your discernment in each of these … 
  9. Discernment: Commit & Reflect
     … things like virtue, celibacy, discernment, and the Dhamma itself. Two of the most interesting explanations he has, as to the obstacles to these things, are the ones for discernment and for the Dhamma. For discernment, he says the obstacles are an unwillingness to listen and a lack of questioning. Now, this can apply to discernment in its sense of the discernment that comes from … 
  10. The Triple Training
     … All of these are classified as discernment contemplations, but you do them first to get the mind in the right mood to settle down where it can watch the breath properly. That’s a case of discernment fostering concentration. There’s another passage where the Buddha talks about how virtue helps discernment and discernment helps virtue, in the same way that your right hand … 
  11. Mindfulness, Discernment, & Peace of Mind
     … Why are you thinking in ways that are destroying yourself? Who’s doing the thinking? Who’s in charge? You want mindfulness to be in charge, you want discernment to be in charge, because they really do have your best interests in mind. Particularly the discernment. Mindfulness without discernment just remembers things. The discernment is what reminds you, “Okay, this is what we’ve … 
  12. Four Determinations
     … You need that kind of discernment in order to truly stick truthfully with your determination to relinquish what you have to give up. Discernment also helps with calm; calm helps with discernment. When we discern what’s going on in our minds, we begin to see clearly what’s disturbing the mind. And the disturbance doesn’t come from outside. We all have a … 
  13. Discernment in Concentration
     … And we have to attack not right at the suffering, but at the cause—and we need to develop the discernment that can find the cause there in the mind. We gain practice in that discernment as we meditate, because the concentration has its discernment factor, which is called vicara, evaluation. As you use your powers of evaluation in getting the mind to settle … 
  14. Interdependence
     … That’s what it means to have discernment. The texts define discernment as discernment into arising and passing away, but it’s not simply a matter of watching things coming and going. It means being able to make comparisons, seeing how, when some things come, good things come along with them; when other things come, bad things come along with them. You begin to … 
  15. Grasping the Snake
     … Sometimes you start with discernment, and you use that to develop concentration. Sometimes the concentration comes first, and then the discernment comes later. It’s the same with mindfulness. Sometimes mindfulness comes after discernment and sometimes before, which means in the practice that the causal influence can go either way. With each of these two pairs—mindfulness and discernment or concentration and discernment—each … 
  16. Analysis of Qualities
     … Now, analysis of qualities is the discernment factor in those factors for awakening. This means that you replace doubt not with belief but with discernment. In both cases—dealing with the doubt and developing the discernment—appropriate attention is how you do it. Appropriate attention is basically learning how to ask the right questions, focused on the issue of what you’re doing and … 
  17. Evaluation
     … It was solid, it was very still, but not the kind of concentration that was going to lead to discernment. You have to have the ability to step back a little bit and watch. That’s where the discernment comes from. So from the very beginning, you’re learning how to use your discernment and how to get the mind willing to stay here … 
  18. Head, Heart, & Gut
     … One is not to neglect discernment. Another is to guard the truth. A third is to be devoted to relinquishment. And the fourth is to train only for calm. It’s good to think about all four of those as we practice. First, not neglecting discernment: How do you not neglect discernment? Discernment has two sides, just as our mind has two sides. In … 
  19. Discernment
     … This is the work of discernment. It discerns distinctions, it see things clearly. This is why it’s called discernment. You could translate the term pañña as wisdom, but that has an entirely different connotation. I remember the first year when I was practicing with Ajaan Fuang. He kept saying, “Use your pañña,” which is both the Pali word and the Thai word. At … 
  20. Judging Just Right
     … But it’s time well spent because your discernment does grow. When they talk about developing discernment in the practice, it’s not simply a matter of verifying what the Buddha said or borrowing his discernment. You borrow it to begin with. But you try to develop your own discernment because your own discernment is what will actually see. So as you try to … 
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