Search results for: virtue
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Purity of Heart
Getting the Message
… There’s no evil for those who don’t do it.—Dhp 124 This is why the Buddha listed virtue as one of a person’s greatest treasures. Kings and thieves can steal your material belongings and even take your life, but they can’t take your virtue. If it’s uncompromising, your virtue protects you from any true danger from now until you …Show 5 additional results in this book- Karma Storms… And remember that patience is a virtue, endurance is a virtue. Our society doesn’t encourage much of it. We want things to go well right now, but sometimes there are obstacles. And as in the case with any obstacle, there are those that are quickly resolved. You can see what the problem is, you can get around it. Others take a lot of …
- In the Mood to Meditate… As the Buddha said, you can reflect on your virtue, you can reflect on your generosity. You may say, “My virtue isn’t all that great.” Well, think about the times when you did do something virtuous when you didn’t have to, or the times you were generous and you didn’t have to be. Those thoughts can gladden the mind. Of course …
- Balanced Meditation… Recollection of relinquishment, recollection of virtue. The qualities that make people into devas—that’s a recollection. Recollection of death. Mindfulness immersed in the body. Mindfulness of breathing. And the recollection of the peace of nibbana. These are good topics to know for when you’ve got specific problems coming up. In other words, when you’re discouraged in the practice, it depends on …
- Continuous Attention… It’s in the course of making decisions in your life as you practice virtue, as you practice concentration that you want to see what sorts of things are skillful and what sorts of things are not. That kind of knowledge is penetrative. So we’re active in our engagement of the world and we have to learn how to be more skillful in …
- Integrity — In Memory of Luang Loong… In Luang Loong’s case, one of his outstanding virtues was his integrity. Years back, when he was a young monk—and he has always had this character of being very plainspoken—there were a couple of senior monks who took offense at that. One of them happened to be the meal assigner at Wat Makut, who decided to cut Luang Loong off from …
- Paying Off Your Debts… Then there’s virtue, when you avoid harmful actions. That, too, is a form of wealth. It’s interesting: The Buddha says that when you’re following the precepts, you’re looking after your own good, your own well-being. When you get other people to observe the precepts, that’s when you’re working for their well-being, because basically you’re inspiring …
- Preparing for Death… As we practice virtue, we avoid cruel behavior, the kind of thing that might deserve punishment someplace. We look back on our actions and can see that there’s nothing with which we can criticize ourselves. That sense of confidence is going to be important as we approach death. As you’re leaving the body and the human realm, the practice of concentration is …
- Four Mountains Moving In… So the Buddha asked him, “When Sariputta died, did he take virtue with him?” “No.” “Did he take concentration?” “No.” Discernment?” “No.” “Release?” “No.” All the good things in life are there. The good potentials in life are always here. So even where there’s loss and danger, there are still good things we can do. And it’s important that we stay focused …
- The Buddha’s Universal Solvent… having right view; having your virtue. There are times when people are tempted to go against their virtue, either for fear of losing their relatives or harming their health or harming their wealth, but he says that with health, wealth, and relatives, losing them is nothing important. And he’s the same person who said we have this immense debt of gratitude to our …
- Not Getting What You Want… The path comes down to training in heightened virtue, heightened concentration, heightened discernment. Which aspect are you missing? In which aspect are you weak? Virtue is there to make you honest and more sensitive to your mind as you go through the day. We talk about being mindful of mind states, as if it were happening as something in the abstract that you just …
- Learning from Goodwill… Now, in some cases, there are people who will not want to engage in generosity, virtue, thoughts of goodwill. This is why we also have to have equanimity as a backup. There are things that are beyond our control in this world, but we wish them well. When you have this attitude, then it’s a lot easier for the mind to settle down …
- Build Your Resistance… So we come to the practice to take our medicine—the medicine of generosity, the medicine of virtue, the medicine of meditation—to treat our illnesses. Our problem is that there are germs all over, things that would be very likely to incite greed, aversion, and delusion. But if you build up your resistance, then you can be immune to those germs. So the …
- Bojjhanga: Discernment Fosters Concentration… Ajaan Maha Boowa devoted a whole book to the theme of discernment fostering concentration because that goes against the usual textbook explanation, which is that first you do virtue, then you do concentration, and only then you think about discernment. But as Ajaan Mun pointed out—and Ajaan Lee copies this down in The Craft of the Heart—all three of these qualities have …
- Treasures No One Can Touch… They include a sense of shame and compunction, virtue, learning, generosity, discernment. All these things come out of your conviction that you need to do well, that you can do well, and that what you do becomes your own treasure. The things of the world that come your way from outside, the world can take away. But if good things come from within, they …
- Trading Up… The Buddha would get people ready to think in these terms first by giving a talk on generosity and a talk on virtue, and then on the rewards of generosity and virtue. Then he’d start talking about the drawbacks of sensuality—even the pleasures that come as a reward of being generous and being virtuous. if you just stay on the regular worldly …
- Shaping Past, Present, & Future… So try to bring some discernment to your virtue and some discernment to your concentration. In that way, you’re shaping not only the present moment, but also your past and your future. You could be acting on different impulses right now, but you’ve chosen good impulses to act on—which means you’re giving more importance to them. You’re not just …
- A Heart Wider than the World… As the Buddha said, if you realize that you would have to suffer in terms of your health, in terms of your relatives, in terms of your wealth, by holding to the precepts, you’re willing to suffer those losses, because they’re minor compared to a loss of virtue. And, of course, virtue comes from where? It comes from the mind. So you …
- Concentration… In Ajaan Lee’s image, the three main divisions of the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment—are like the posts for a bridge over a river. Virtue is the post on this side of the river, discernment is on the other side of the river, while the concentration post is right in the middle of the river, where the current is strongest, so it …
- When Things Seem Dark… These are two of the virtues that tend to be most lacking in our culture, because our culture, unlike most other cultures in the past, tends to foster impatience, even in little tiny kids—especially in little tiny kids, as if kids weren’t impatient enough as it was. They want us to want this and want that, to have negative feelings about this …
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