Search results for: virtue
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- Samvegic Ironies… The only people whose virtue is firm are, at the very least, stream-enterers, those who have had their first glimpse of the deathless. And they’re going to be around for only seven more lifetimes at most. Otherwise, everybody is unreliable. They can be very good, but all too often their goodness depends on unstable conditions. They listen to the wise ones, they …
- Dedicating Merit… But if we look for happiness in virtue, generosity, and meditation, that creates a greater sense of unity. People see you’re doing something good. Even if they don’t immediately benefit from it, they see that it’s a good thing that the world has good people in it. They benefit. You benefit. The people who are recipients of your generosity, the people …
- Your News… They practiced virtue, they practiced generosity, training their minds again and again and again. So instead of looking for goodness through having to take things out of the world, you look for goodness in giving to the world. That way, you yourself achieve a greater deal of happiness and you set a good example for others. You become good news for them, good examples …
- Born for Perfections… generosity, virtue, endurance, wisdom, a long list of good qualities. It was because of those good qualities that he was able to find success in his endeavors, to find happiness. So if you want to find true happiness, you want to devote your life to developing the paramis, developing your perfections: being generous, being virtuous, learning powers of endurance. We like a birthday blessing …
- Evaluation… It could be recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, recollection of your own generosity, your own virtue, even recollection of the devas. **With the recollection of the devas, it’s not simply thinking about the fact that there **are devas, but thinking more about the qualities that make them devas. You realize you’ve got those qualities in yourself: conviction, virtue, generosity …
- The Bowl of Oil… It includes generosity and virtue along with the meditation, and so be happy in other people’s generosity. Now is a good time for us to practice our generosity, too. Especially for those of us who live here long-term, there’s a common tendency to start getting possessive about the place. And this is a good reminder: We’re not in this alone …
- Quick to Change… But to lose your virtue, to lose your right view: That’s a really serious loss. So once you know you’re going in a good direction, stay with the good direction. Maintain these things as your treasures: your goodwill; your right view; your precepts—maintaining mindfulness to remember these things so the mind doesn’t change directions on you, taking you down to …
- Taking the Long View… When the Buddha talks about the treasures that we can develop in the mind— things like conviction, virtue, shame, compunction, learning, generosity, and discernment—we can also develop their opposites. So the question is, which side do you want to take with you—the skillful side or the unskillful side? Because these are the things that you can take with you. The things of …
- Human Values… generosity, virtue, meditation. When they talk about meditation, they start with meditation on goodwill, realizing that we live together, and if we have ill will for somebody else, we’re going to do unskillful things, and those unskillful things then become our karma. So we’re harming ourselves as we harm others. So we do our best to provide protection, at least from our …
- Inner Wealth… They go together with virtue: the promises you make to yourself not to harm others. The Buddha lists five virtues: not killing, not stealing, not having illicit sex, not lying, not taking intoxicants. Of those five, he gives the most importance to not lying, because a lie can do a lot more damage for a much longer time even than killing. You kill somebody …
- In an Imperfect World… So we work on the perfections, starting with generosity, virtue, renunciation, all the way up through goodwill and equanimity. But we have to do it in an imperfect world. Just accept that fact. Then do your best with what you can inside the mind, inside the qualities that you develop, while you’re meditating, while you’re engaged with other people. All your activities …
- Good Judgment… But then you find people who really are good, who have the qualities of an admirable friend—conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment—then you try to spend more time with them. As you get skillful at judging things outside, then you start getting more skillful at judging your own mind. The factors of right concentration include evaluation, as when you evaluate how well your mind …
- Still… heightened virtue, heightened mind, i.e., concentration, and heightened discernment—and then he adds respect for concentration. Because this is already included in the training, why does he have to add concentration again? It’s because people tend to overlook it, not to value it. After all, we’ve read so much about how you don’t want to get stuck on concentration, that …
- Opportunities in the Present… What are you doing right now? What are you saying, what are you thinking? Are you making the most of the opportunity to do something good, in the form of generosity in the form of virtue, all the other good qualities of mind? The potential is always right here. So look right here. Stay right here as consistently as you can. You’ll get …
- Mountains Moving In… But if you look at the qualities that the Buddha asks you to develop as you practice the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment, or wisdom, purity, and compassion: These are all qualities you can be proud of. Ajaan Suwat used to make the point that sometimes you hear it said in Thailand that the essence of the Buddha’s teachings is that you shouldn …
It's Like This
It's Like This: 108 Dhamma Similes
… The same with virtue, concentration, and discernment: Virtue, in simple terms, is abandoning evil. A person without virtue is hot. If he abandons evil, he cools down, for he has no guilt. That lack of guilt is the reward of virtue. It makes the mind peaceful. The mind gets concentrated. When the mind is concentrated, it’s clear and clean. You can see lots …- You Are Not Powerless… Getting your passport is like practicing the precepts, developing virtue. And then learning the language of where you’re going means learning how to meditate. But you don’t practice just to shape a future lifetime. The Buddha also teaches us how we can shape a better lifetime for ourselves right here, right now. For instance, he describes the four things that lead to …
- Make the Causes Complete… Some people like to do meditation but are not interested in generosity or virtue. Other people are interested in generosity but not interested in meditation. The happiness that comes from that kind of attitude is very partial. It’s not complete. So when we want the results to be complete, we have to make sure the causes are complete. That way, our happiness is …
- Abandoning Effluents (1)… The way the Buddha would prepare you is through a life of generosity, a life of virtue. As for your reflections on your generosity and virtue, you ask yourself: What kind of actions lead to long-term well-being? And how do you relate to long-term well-being? After all, ordinary actions that are relatively skillful can lead to good results. But the …
Names for Nibbāna
… Following the road involves fostering, among other things, generosity, virtue, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. Through these qualities, we develop the wisdom and compassion to see that nirvana really is the wisest and most compassionate goal we can set for ourselves: wise in that, unlike other goals, it’s more than worth the effort and will never disappoint; compassionate in that we not only remove …- Load next page...
