Search results for: virtue

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  2. A Sense of Direction
     … It starts out with virtue: the decision not to indulge in any actions or words that harm yourself or harm other people. You realize that if your happiness depends on other people being harmed, it’s not going to last because they’re not going to stand for it. So you start with virtue. You move on to concentration. Again, concentration causes no harm … 
  3. What You’re Choosing to Do Right Now
     … In terms of developing generosity, virtue, and meditation, these are all exercises in learning about your freedom of choice. Generosity is probably one of the first ways, as children, that we realize our freedom of choice. We can choose to give something or not give something. The Buddha’s teachings on generosity deal not with gifts that we give because we have to, but … 
  4. Consistently on the Path
     … You can have the pride and self-esteem that can come with virtue. When people try to tempt you—with their money or their rewards, their recognition, or their whatever—to do something against the precepts, and you can say no, that means you’ve got a precept that’s worth more than whatever amount of money they were offering, more than any amount … 
  5. Dethinking Thinking
     … Why is it that in some of the lists you have discernment coming first, and then virtue, then concentration, and in others you start out with virtue, then concentration, then discernment—or mindfulness, discernment, then leading to concentration? What’s going on there? And what patterns are consistent? You’ll find that one pattern is always consistent: that mindfulness comes before concentration. In some … 
  6. One Thing Clear Through
     … The same with virtue: You realize there are some things you would want to do that would cause harm but you realize, okay, you’re better off not doing them, so you give them up. When you sit here and meditate, there are other things you could be thinking about. But, no, you’re going to stay here with the breath. Any other thoughts … 
  7. Getting the Most Out of the Present
     … In particular, whatever goodness you may want to develop in terms of generosity, virtue, all the qualities that are called perfections: Those are things you develop. That’s the duty there, and in that way your life away from formal practice is not wasted. We have only so much time, but we also have duties that are imposed on us, either from outside or … 
  8. Appreciating Goodness
     … He lists three types of goodness in particular—generosity, virtue, and the development of goodwill—because these are ways of finding happiness that don’t cause any harm to anybody. The Buddha never said that the search for happiness is a bad thing. He never said that you should try to deny your happiness for the sake of others. He said you should work … 
  9. Dedicating Goodness, Spreading Goodwill
     … One is generosity and the other is virtue. Generosity, of course, means giving. And as the Buddha said, you give where you feel inspired. But if you want your giving to be skillful, you want to be careful about your motivation for giving, the actual items you give, and the people you give to. You can turn generosity into a skill. Your motivation may … 
  10. Prerequisites for the Practice
     … The second quality is virtue. You want to look for someone who sticks to the precepts and encourages other people to stick to the precepts. That means following the precepts in all situations, without exceptions. As the Buddha once said, when you hold to the precepts in all situations, you’re giving universal safety to all beings and you have a share in that … 
  11. Strong Against Anger & Fear
     … The virtue you maintain, the discernment you develop—these are all treasures. They’re not the kind of treasure that the kings can take away from you, dictators can take away from you, fire can burn, or water can wash away. The only way you can lose them is if you throw them away yourself. So you have to be heedful. That’s the … 
  12. Right Action & Right Livelihood
     … Remember, as the Buddha said, “Concentration fostered by virtue has great fruit.” Now, it is possible to get the mind into concentration without virtue, but the fruit is going to be spoiled. As you’re practicing right concentration, remember: You want a good crop of fruit—something you can feed on to maintain the livelihood of the mind. So make sure that these factors … 
  13. A Day of Gratitude
     … As Ajaan Lee said, the teachings on how to practice virtue, concentration, and discernment are like a recipe for a medicine. If you’ve never taken the medicine, you don’t know how good it is, so the recipe just sits there. If nobody pays any attention to it, after a while people say, “Well, this is just old trash, old pieces of paper … 
  14. A Good Path to Be On
     … He says you can develop the skills of virtue, concentration, and discernment so that they can lead to total freedom. Think about that. Whenever you’re getting discouraged, remind yourself that there is this opening. There’s a possibility for you to become more and more skillful. And it doesn’t have to depend on anybody else. You don’t have to go around … 
  15. Warm Your Heart
     … After all, acts of merit—generosity, virtue, developing universal goodwill—are the first answer to the question that the Buddha says lies at the beginning of discernment, wisdom: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Think about the wisdom there: One, you see that happiness is going to depend on your actions. Two, long-term is possible … 
  16. Determined to be Happy
     … All the forms of goodness—generosity, virtue, meditation—are totally harmless and they’re based on goodwill. With generosity and virtue, that’s easy to see: When you give to others, they’re happy. When you abstain from harming them, they’re happy. But especially meditation—getting the mind under control so that your greed, aversion, and delusion don’t take over: That’s … 
  17. A Sense of Yourself
     … generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill and equanimity. You can take that list and ask yourself, “Where are you lacking?” If you don’t know about what it means to “lack” in these qualities, you can think about the practices of the people you’ve admired in the past. How do you stack up against them in terms of these qualities … 
  18. A Memorial to Your Life
    There’s a phrase that Ajaan Fuang would use when he tried to teach people to put forth extra effort in the practice—whether in the practice of generosity, virtue, or meditation. And that was to “create a memorial to your life.” It took me a while to understand what he was talking about. Basically, suppose that in some future lifetime you gain the … 
  19. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … We take the qualities of the path—which boil down to virtue, concentration, and discernment—and try to make them complete. These are qualities that all of us have to some extent. The Buddha made this point over and over again: The fact that he gained awakening wasn’t because he was some sort of special being who could do things and develop things … 
  20. What’s Worth Doing?
     … At stream entry, your virtue is perfected, and so you don’t need any sense of yourself around your virtues. You don’t exalt yourself over others. You don’t create a sense of who you are around the precepts. They’re just there. But there are still other parts of the path that you have to work on, which is why there is … 
  21. Fear of Death
     … Of those four fears, one of them can be alleviated by the practice of generosity and virtue. That’s the fear that you’ll be punished for cruel behavior. People who’ve come back from near-death experiences often say that the things they regret most—when they look back on their lives, thinking that they’re about to die—are the opportunities where … 
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