Search results for: virtue
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- Against the Stream… Conviction in the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, and also virtues that are pleasing to the noble ones. You don’t lie; you don’t steal; you don’t have illicit sex; you don’t kill; you don’t take intoxicants. You stick to these precepts to show that you really do have faith in the Buddha’s teachings about karma. As you stick …
- Mature Strategies… His teachings on generosity, virtue, and the development of goodwill — all the things that come under the category of merit — are skillful ways of employing your strategy of self. Basically, he has you take your sense of self, your sense of a continuing identity not only in this lifetime but also even into other lifetimes, and shows how to work with it intelligently so …Show 6 additional results in this book
- Gratitude… You have the virtue of generosity. Two, when you receive a gift, when you receive someone else’s kindness, then gratitude is an appropriate response. If we lived in a world where people didn’t have freedom of choice, everything would be like a machine. There’d be no need to have gratitude for a machine, because the machine wasn’t making any merit …
- Seeds of Gladness… So you develop skillful actions by being generous, by being virtuous—making the sacrifices that have to come with generosity and virtue and gaining a sense of self-worth that comes from that, a sense of your own honorableness. That can provide the sense of well-being. In other words, you look for well-being in the skillfulness of your own actions. You take …
- Into the Cave with the Tiger… Because if you look at the kind of conversation that’s going on in the mind before you try to settle down, and it’s a nice conversation—thoughts of generosity, thoughts of virtue—then it feels good to settle down, easy to settle down with a sense of well-being. This may be one of the reasons why when Ajaan Suwat was teaching …
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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- No One in Charge… And, of course, as they say, virtue is its own reward. The fact that you’re living a virtuous life is, in and of itself, a source of comfort, a source of well-being. So. Work on the qualities of your mind. Choose which ones you want to work on. Give yourself over to the training, and you’ll be happy you did.
- 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 …
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