Search results for: virtue
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- Radiating Goodness… Generosity, virtue, and meditation are all forms of merit. Even stream entry is a form of merit, so you can’t look down on it. What that means is that you look at the world as an opportunity to gain the happiness that comes from doing good. So if unexpected things happen, look at them as an opportunity to make some merit. A lot …
- Wisdom Through Training… with very simple things like generosity and virtue. The act of being generous develops good qualities in the mind. The determination to realize what principles of action you want to follow because they’re harmless and the things you want to avoid because they’re harmful and then sticking with that: That virtue develops good qualities in the mind as well. You need to …
- Teaching Old Selves New Tricks… As for virtue, you try to behave in ways that are harmless, following the precepts and also looking at other ways of being skillful not covered by the precepts. We mentioned this the other day. There are a lot of areas in life for which no one can formulate a precept, because the lines between skillful and unskillful are a little blurry, but when …
- The Path to Stream Entry… He did that intentionally, because virtue has an organic relationship with right concentration; right concentration has an organic relationship with discernment. They all come together in this process of being very attentive to what your mind is doing—what its intentional actions are; what the results are—and how you keep refining, refining, refining what you’re doing. It’ll get so refined that …
- Songkran Blessing… As for beauty of the mind, that, the Buddha says, is the quality of your virtue. This is one of the reasons why, whenever we have a ceremony like this, we always take the five precepts to remind you that this is where genuine beauty lies. As you get older and you start dressing up, putting on makeup, trying to look like you did …
- The Power of Consistency… And as for ardency? Sometimes we try to do good, and sometimes we say, “Well, I just want to go for the pleasure of whatever seems pleasant right now.” So here you’re trying to develop the virtue of consistency. Learn how to appreciate that it’s going to be an important power. This is going to teach you a lot of valuable lessons …
- Cooperation… As you develop these qualities as you go through the day, they come back and become part of your own virtue. Your mind becomes more patient, enduring, kind, well-meaning mind. It’s a good mind to be in. So don’t say, “Well, today’s a busy day; I can’t meditate.” You can meditate, because what does meditation mean? It means to …
- Life’s First Question… This is why discernment is based on virtue, by way of concentration: in other words, learning how to look at your actions and being able to admit that “This as a mistake. This is not working. This is causing suffering and stress either for me or for somebody else. How can I do it differently? How can I talk myself out of doing it …
- Noble Wealth… the treasures of conviction, a healthy sense of shame, compunction, virtue, knowledge of the Dhamma, generosity, and discernment. He talked about them as a wise investment. This is very much unlike what we’ve heard in modern days about how bad it is to have an attitude of spiritual materialism, the idea that you’re going to get something out of the practice or …
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