Search results for: virtue

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  2. Page search result icon Nobility is the Best Policy
     … The point here is that you know you’re going to lose these things someday, but you make sure that you don’t lose your virtue or your right view in trying to hang on to them. Because even as you hang on, they get taken away, and then you’ve lost everything. Virtue, right view: These are things you don’t have to … 
  3. How to Read Yourself
     … If you’re down on yourself, think about your own virtue, your own generosity. All of us here have practice in virtue, practice in generosity. We’re all people of wealth: inner wealth, inner worth. There’s no need to get down on yourself. Just remind yourself that meditation does have its fallow periods. They usually come from a lack of heedfulness. You start … 
  4. Book search result icon Refuge Preface
     … After beginning with the joys of generosity, he would describe the joys of a virtuous life, followed by the rewards of generosity and virtue to be experienced here and, after death, in heaven; the drawbacks of sensual pleasures, even heavenly ones; and the rewards of renunciation. Then, when he sensed that his listeners were inclined to look favorably on renunciation as a way to … 
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  5. The Benefits of Refuge
     … What it means is that you use it well, use it for the purpose of generosity, for the purpose of virtue, for the purpose of training your mind, knowing that there will come a time when you have to let it go. That’s getting good use out of it. But if you latch on to it, then because you’re latched on to … 
  6. The Buddha’s Buffet
     … The thread running through all of his instructions for how to hang around is virtue. Make sure you don’t break the five precepts. He says, “When a husband and wife living together both observe the precepts, it’s as if they both are living with a deva.” As I mentioned this afternoon, there was a case of a couple who came to the … 
  7. Respecting the Dhamma Together
     … we look for happiness in terms of generosity, we look for happiness in terms of virtue and in terms of developing good qualities of the mind. If we’re looking for happiness someplace else, we’re looking for trouble. This is one of the reasons why the world doesn’t have any peace. Very few people are looking for happiness inside, they’re looking … 
  8. Maybe the Buddha Knew Something
     … developing virtue pleasing to the noble ones. It’s a very delicate balancing act. On the one hand, it means you observe the precepts in a way that’s unbroken—in other words, you really hold to the precepts without exception. Whatever they tell you to do, you follow them, even if it demands changing your habits. One of the precepts I’ve noticed … 
  9. Entering the Rains
     … Are you protected against them? Protection comes in the form of the practice, by developing virtue, developing concentration, developing discernment. You can look at your life. Where are you lacking in these things? Even before you get to virtue, you have to have generosity. Are there ways that you can be more generous? Are there ways you can be more virtuous? Are there ways … 
  10. Inner Wealth
     … The second treasure is virtue: When you think about the power of your actions, it stands to reason that you’d want to act in ways that are skillful, in ways that don’t cause any harm. That’s what the precepts are all about: You abstain from actions that are harmful, both to yourself and to other people. Some of us tend to … 
  11. Wealth Management
     … Then there’s virtue: ghe ability to step back from anything that you know would be harmful to yourself or to other people and just say No. You don’t want to do that. But it’s not just a matter of saying No, though. There are lots of things you want to say Yes to. This is where the remaining qualities come in … 
  12. Noble Treasures
     … So these four qualities of conviction, virtue, shame, and compunction all go together and they should strengthen one another. These are real treasures because they keep you from doing things that you’ll later regret. I remember hearing over the radio one time, a Vietnam vet, fifty-some years after the war, remembering a young Vietnamese girl that he killed during the war. As … 
  13. The Buddha’s Letter
     … You have to be very careful about trying to protect what the Buddha identifies as virtue and as right view. If they can change your views to the point where you think that doing unskillful things is going to be fine or actually praiseworthy, then they’re really doing you a lot of damage. And what do they use to get you to do … 
  14. Can Do
    There’s a passage in the Canon that says, “Concentration nurtured by virtue leads to discernment. Discernment nurtured by concentration leads to release.” When we hear that, we should keep it in mind, because when we come to the practice, we’re coming out of ignorance. We’re going to be doing things that, in many cases, we’ve never done before. And yet … 
  15. Treasure Island
     … Based on your shame and compunction, there’s the treasure of virtue. You decide to abstain from anything that’s harmful. You remember that the virtues of the precepts are also positive. In addition to not killing, you’re gentle and kind with living beings. In addition to not stealing, you help people protect their possessions. The same with not engaging in illicit sex … 
  16. Firm in Your Intent
     … The really serious loss, though, he says, is when you lose your virtue or you lose your right view. Right view, of course, starts with conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, and then goes on to discernment: seeing things in terms of the four noble truths and carrying through with the duties appropriate to them. Notice that the discernment is not just seeing things … 
  17. Obsessive Thinking
     … what he called training in heightened virtue; training in heightened mind, which means concentration; and training in heightened discernment. When you hear that list, it sounds as if you have to perfect your virtue first before you go to concentration; then you perfect your concentration before you can develop discernment. But in practice, that’s not how it happens. All three have to help … 
  18. Near to the Buddha
     … The serious losses are when you lose your right views and when you lose your virtue. With things outside the mind, when you lose them, you can get them back. But if you lose your virtue, you lose your right views, you can do a lot of damage before you get them back. What does it mean to lose right view? You decide that … 
  19. Restraint
     … He also taught virtue and he taught sense restraint. Virtue is basically the precepts we took just now: No killing. No stealing. No illicit sex. No lying. No taking intoxicants. You know these activities are going to cause trouble, both for yourself and for other people around you, so why engage in them? Think about the long-term harm that can be done when … 
  20. Respect for the Triple Training
     … There’s virtue, concentration, and discernment, and we should realize that these things are above us. These are the kinds of things we submit to. I know that in Buddhist circles people don’t like the word “submit.” We’re free to choose, right? Well, we are free to choose, but we’re free to make a mess of our lives and we’re … 
  21. Kind & Happy
     … The same with virtue, another one of the basic teachings: You realize that there are certain things that, when you do them, will harm other people. When you begin to have a sense of well-being, why would you want to harm anybody else? Killing, stealing, lying, illicit sex, taking intoxicants: These actions are harmful. People engage in them usually because they have no … 
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