Search results for: virtue
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- Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources… We’re here because there are a whole range of virtues and good qualities we need to develop in the mind: both in the way we deal with other people and in the way we deal with the mind itself. And a large part of the skill we have to develop in the practice lies in learning how to balance these things out.
- Intent… The next two skills the Buddha says are necessary in the present moment are, virtue and discernment. Virtue is a matter of restraint. You know there are certain things you could do but they’re going to be harmful, and you can say No, you’re not going to do them. This element of restraint moves from external things into how you approach your …
- The Limits of Interconnectedness… This is what generosity is for; it’s what virtue is for Meditation helps in this way as well. The stronger we are inside, the less we have to lean on others. The more clarity we bring to our own actions, the less we’re likely to harm others. And the greater sense of strength we have inside, the less we’re likely to …
- More than Just Letting Go… generosity, virtue, meditation. Generosity here can cover all kinds of things—not just giving material gifts but also giving your time to a particular cause, or taking on a particular issue that you think is important. The Buddha doesn’t lay down any laws about what you can and cannot be generous about. He says to give where you feel inspired. But, he says …
- Getting Out of Karmic Debt… has to do for him or herself. However, we’re not totally self-centered. After all, generosity can’t be accused of being selfish, and that is part of the path. Virtue, harmlessness, is also part of the path. The good qualities you develop in your mind send a good influence out and they pay off all your debts. So the Buddha’s attitude …
Bases for Success
Intent
… The next two skills the Buddha says are necessary in the present moment are, virtue and discernment. Virtue is a matter of restraint. You know there are certain things you could do but they’re going to be harmful, and you can say No, you’re not going to do them. This element of restraint moves from external things into how you approach your …- Balanced Breathing… He said to become consummate through being heedful. “Consummate” here means consummate in your virtue, consummate in your views, bringing all the factors of the path to a state of consummation, completion. You do that by being careful, realizing that you can’t be sloppy. You can’t be careless. After all, some of the things you’re bringing to consummation are tranquility, serenity …
Clinging & the End of Clinging
… First he described the joys of giving, then the joys of being virtuous, and then the pleasurable rewards that come from both generosity and virtue in the sensual heavens—rewards that far outweigh the rewards in this life. Once his listeners were attracted to the idea that the best way to attain sensual bliss was through generosity and virtue, he turned the tables on …- Doubt vs. Discernment… You’re going to need virtue, concentration, and discernment, and he divides these things up into factors that are easy to remember. There’s a lot that’s not explained, but at least he heads you in the right direction. When we chant the analysis of the path, notice that the first five factors have very short definitions. The factors having to do with …
- Truths That Are Noble… Whatever the factors of virtue, right speech, right action, or right livelihood say that you’ve got to give up, you’re willing to give up. Whatever right resolve says to give up, you give up. Right mindfulness tells you to give up greed and distress with reference to the world. For a lot of us, that’s a huge part of our lives …
- Free Sources of Energy… So think of the conviction as a treasure, think of virtue as a treasure, something you can amass of value inside. When you have to give up other things for the sake of the practice, don’t see it as a sacrifice. See it as a trade. You’re trading up. And holding that perception in mind, holding that way of thinking in mind …
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The Karma of Questions
Freedom from Fear
… Better than a hundred years lived without virtue, uncentered, is one day lived by a virtuous person absorbed in jhāna. — Dhp 110 Third, conviction insists that the need for integrity is unconditional. Even though other people may throw away their most valuable possession—their integrity—it’s no excuse for us to throw away ours. The principle of karma isn’t a traffic ordinance …Show one additional result in this book
- The Beginnings of Wisdom… the pleasures of generosity, the pleasures of virtue, and the pleasures of meditation. Even though these may not be permanent—they have their ups and downs—still, they’re more long-term than your typical pleasures because they’re totally blameless. And as you look for happiness in these ways, you get a sense of self-esteem. You realize that you’re being responsible …
- Free Like a Wild Deer… No one’s laid claim to virtue. You’re free to develop your meditation. No one else has laid claim to your mind and your meditation. This is an area where the opportunities are wide open—so that maybe one day your mind, too, can be free like a wild deer.
- No Happiness Other than Peace… the same virtues that the Buddha developed himself. Wisdom in realizing that your actions do make a difference in terms of your happiness, and that long-term happiness is better than short. Compassion in realizing that if you want your happiness to last, it can’t cause suffering to anybody else. And purity in that you really do look at your actions and their …
- Staying Grounded… But over there, studying with Ajaan Fuang, having opinions about things where you didn’t really know was not regarded as a virtue at all. And I think that’s wise. You can avoid a lot of problems that way. It gives the mind more time to be by itself, to be with the body, and not get blown around. So try to keep …
- Family Ties… As he said, some parents have no virtue, no generosity, no conviction, and no discernment. And your way to repay them is not just to hang around and do everything they tell you. You try to find some way of inducing them to be generous if you can, more virtuous if you can. The “if you can” here is important. Sometimes you realize you …
- Harmony Inside & Outside… Generosity, virtue, meditation, or in other terms, virtue, concentration and discernment—all the things that develop good qualities in the mind: That was considered practice, whereas in the Anglo center, it was just sitting and walking mindfully. That was it. The author recounts how one night she was talking to one of the members of the Anglo center, and it suddenly hit that person …
- Neither Here nor There… He starts out with generosity and virtue. He talks about sensual heavens, where the rewards of generosity and virtue are at their highest. But then he talks about the drawbacks of sensuality—even the degradation, as he says, of sensuality. That’s when the mind is ready to think of renunciation as a good thing—and when you’re ready for the four noble …
- The Need for Right View… Giving doesn’t have any virtue at all,” either because people when they die just vanish, get annihilated, so what you do for them doesn’t have any long-term benefits, for them or for you. Or there was the argument that everything was determined, that there was some causal mechanism put into motion in the beginning of the cosmos, either by a personal …
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