Search results for: virtue
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- Strength in Cooperation… There’s a lot that the Buddha says about the virtues of harmony, working together. It starts with the mind and the body. You’re sitting here meditating: If the mind is one place, the body someplace else, they don’t help each other very much. When they’re together, then they can help each other. The mind can look out after the body …
- Always Timely & True… So when you hear teachings about virtue, generosity, and meditation, don’t think “over and over again.” There’s nothing really tedious about these teachings. They’re showing you the way out. The question is, when are you going to get tired of the other things that come over and over again?—greed, aversion, and delusion. The methods the Buddha discovered for curing these …
- Magha Puja… This comes down to is virtue, concentration and insight. With virtue, you avoid whatever is harmful to yourself or to other people. And the most skillful thing you can resolve on, that you can aim for, is bringing the mind to concentration, like we’re doing right now. It’s based on the resolve to bring the mind above sensual passion. This is why …
- A Sense of Well-being… This is why the Buddha teaches us to practice generosity, to observe the precepts, because the intentions that go into generosity and virtue are skillful in and of themselves and also allow us to see more and more of what’s going on, to gain an appreciation of how much our intentions do shape everything. When we’ve made a practice of generosity and …
Contents
… the Bhikkhu Saṅgha Lodgings Kaṭhina Cloth Rains Bathing Cloth Rains-residence Candle Homage Visākha Pūjā Āsāḷha Pūjā Māgha Pūjā Veneration The Buddha’s Last Words After the Pāṭimokkha Sīluddesa-pāṭha | The Virtue Summary Tāyana-gāthā | The Verse to Tāyana Anumodanā Yathā vārivahā pūrā II. Aggato ve pasannānaṁ III. Āyudo balado dhīro IV. Āyuṁ vaṇṇaṁ yasaṁ kittiṁ V. Bhuttā bhogā bhaṭā bhaccā VI. Dānañ-ca …- Honest & Observant… The same with virtue: You follow the precepts and reflect on what it means to follow the precepts. This quality of being reflective: That’s where you’re going to learn. When you’re being generous, watch the mind to see what its motivation is, to see the parts of the mind that would argue against being generous, that would want to hold on …
- Long-term Consequences… We find that when we do that, it involves generosity, virtue, and meditation. These are the things that provide a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody in any way at all. That’s the kind of happiness that can last. We learn this from others and then we carry it on so that we can be a good example to still more other people …
- Bow Down to Your Desire for Happiness… Remember that meditation is one of the ways of doing it, along with virtue and generosity. These practices are how we find happiness within. It doesn’t come from getting, it comes from giving. And then the what you get that comes from what you give has a lot more solid value than things that just come floating your way. So bow down to …
- A Sense of Yourself… One is conviction; the others are virtue, learning, generosity, discernment, and quick-wittedness. These are all skills you can develop. You want to have a sense of where you are, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are in these areas, so that you can use your strengths to make up for your weaknesses. So: How’s your conviction? Are you really convinced that …
- A Friend When You’re on Your Own… The teachings on generosity, teachings on virtue, teachings on goodwill and basic merit making are really important for what you’re doing as you meditate. They teach you how the life you live is shaped by your actions, how an attitude of giving is what gets you started on good things, and how the desire for happiness is something you really want to respect …
- The Precepts… You reflect on your own virtue, your own generosity, your own good qualities. These are reflections on the past that you bring into the present to put the mind in good shape. You take your ability to think, your ability to form thoughts, and you put it to good use. It’s not that you’re just supposed to snuff out thoughts of past …
- Mission Possible… The Buddha recommends that you either reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, the examples they give, or on your own generosity, your own virtue, remembering that you do have some good to you. Or you can reflect on the fact that you’re here, you’ve got this opportunity, which means you’ve got the merit someplace that allows you to …
- The Power of the Mind… heightened virtue, heightened mind, heightened discernment. Okay, which part of that training is not yet heightened in you? Does your virtue need to be heightened? Does your concentration? Your discernment? What’s lacking? You’ve got three months to settle down, living in a community of other people who are also practicing. What do you want to make out of this time? Choose wisely …
- Attention to Your Potentials… In terms of mindfulness, the sustaining qualities are what he calls purified virtue and views made straight. In other words, you straighten out your views in terms of what’s skillful, what’s not, and then you make sure that your virtue is pure. If there are blemishes in your virtue—in other words, where you’ve harmed somebody or harmed yourself, and you …
- Medicine for the Mind… But if you gain in generosity, gain in virtue, gain in the sense of well-being that comes as you train the mind, nobody loses at all. Everybody gains. So this a kind of search for happiness that leads to unity, leads to harmony, unlike the happiness that leads to divisions, as we see so much around us right now. So you have to …
- Right Fear… But you maintain your virtue. You stick with the training. You’re loyal to the vision of what the Buddha pointed out as a really honorable life, a really worthwhile life. This is why the precepts are such an important part of the practice. There are times when they force you to make choices, force you to divest yourself of certain attachments. When you …
- Cooking the Present Moment… How’s your virtue? How’s your discernment? Are you able to not be overcome by pleasure? Are you able not to be overcome by pain? Your attitudes to the world: Are they in line with the brahmaviharas? If you’ve got all that going, then when bad stuff comes in from the past and you’re a good cook, you know how to …
- How to Learn from Your Mistakes… This is why being truthful is the primary virtue. You do something, you own up to it, because then you can learn from it. If you hide your actions from other people, you start hiding them from yourself. That way you never get to learn. So the Buddha’s instructions on this point are really basic but they go all the way through the …
- Hold on to Right View… You can lose your relatives, you can lose wealth, you can lose your health, you can lose your virtue, you can lose your right view. Of those, three are not really serious—losing your wealth, losing your relatives, losing your health—because that kind of loss doesn’t necessarily take you to a bad place. When you lose those things, you can get them …
- Harmony Inside & Out… As the Buddha said, sila means not only virtue but it also normalcy. You want this to be your normal state of mind. When you’re not following this, it’s abnormal. Of course, we look at the world around us and it’s full of abnormalities of this sort. You wonder whose normal we’re talking about. Let’s talk about the Buddha …
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