Search results for: virtue
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- Completing Your Merit… in your generosity, in your virtue, and in the good qualities you develop in your meditation. Learn how to spread goodwill to yourself and goodwill to others ,and then live in line with that goodwill by finding a happiness inside that doesn’t harm anybody: doesn’t harm yourself, doesn’t harm others. Because the happiness of the world, as we all know, often …
- Equanimity & Karma… one, the ability to develop unlimited goodwill and equanimity; two, working on your virtue so that you don’t have to criticize yourself over the unvirtuous things you’ve done or said; three, working on your discernment so that you can see these distinctions in karma; and then four, training your mind so that it’s not overcome by pleasure or overcome by pain …
- Blessing Yourself… through your generosity, through your virtue, through your meditation, your training the mind. It’s when the mind is well-trained that it’s more under its own control. Then whatever good things happen in life, you don’t turn them into something bad. When bad things happen, you can actually turn them into something good. So you want to work on training the …
- Protection… But if you lose your right view, if you lose your virtue, that can pull you down to hell. So those are the things you want to protect. And the important point is that when you protect them, nobody can take them away from you. You lose them only when you throw them away. So know where the danger comes from—it comes from …
Beyond Coping
Heedfulness
… This is called the treasure of discernment. “These, monks, are the seven treasures. “The treasure of conviction, the treasure of virtue, the treasure of shame & compunction, the treasure of listening, generosity, & discernment as the seventh treasure: Whoever, man or woman, has these treasures is said not to be poor, has not lived in vain. So conviction & virtue, faith & Dhamma-vision should be cultivated by …Show 2 additional results in this book- The Joy of Heedfulness… Meritorious actions, of course, are generosity, virtue, and developing goodwill. Skillful actions have to do with the ten guidelines: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no divisive speech, no harsh speech, no idle speech. And then for the mind: no inordinate greed, no ill will, and developing right view. These are the things that you shouldn’t underestimate. They can do …
- Reflect on What You’re Doing… After all, the ultimate judgment in all these things is: “This activity I’m doing, is it worth it?” With virtue, concentration, and discernment, there are a lot of areas where holding on to the path really is worth it. But then as you get more and more refined in your perceptions, more refined in your sensitivity, your judgments get more refined as well …
- Desire Is Part of the Path… So the desire is important, which is why the Buddha talks in so many ways to remind you of the drawbacks of an untrained mind and to remind you of the virtues and the rewards of training your mind: being able to find some pleasure with the breath, to find a sense of refreshment with the breath that strengthens your mind, strengthens the ability …
- Long-Term Welfare… We develop generosity, we develop virtue, and we meditate as ways of bringing about long-term happiness. The happiness that comes from giving lasts a lot longer than the happiness that comes from taking. It goes deeper. The same holds true for the happiness the comes from holding to your principles. If you gain the kind of happiness the comes from breaking your principles …
- Training Your Selves… You don’t want to sacrifice your virtue for things that will change on you like this. After all, you’re going to lose your health at some point, you will lose your wealth at some point, and you’ll lose your relatives at some point. But you don’t have to lose your virtue and you don’t have to lose your right …
- Choosing Freedom… You can think about your own virtue. Maybe your virtue isn’t perfect, but there have been times when you’ve been good. You’ve done the honorable thing; you’ve acted on your principles. You could think thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity. Extend those to everybody you can think of—whatever you find calms the mind, gives a sense of well …
- Dedicating Merit… generosity, virtue, developing thoughts of unlimited goodwill. As the Buddha said, genuine happiness comes from doing good. He says that the phrase, “acts of puñña,” is another word for happiness. And it’s a happiness that spreads around. It’s not like the happiness that comes, say, from wealth or status or praise or sensual pleasures. All too often that kind of happiness means …
- Good Heart, Good Mind… It also includes endurance, determination, truth, virtue, strengths of character. This is one of the reasons why we meditate: to develop some strength of character. We’re working on a skill that requires patience, it requires a lot of discernment, and it requires determination. Some people find it easy for the mind to settle down; other people find it a lot harder. But because …
- Noble Happiness… the practice of generosity and the practice of virtue. Because the practice of meditation is both virtuous and generous. So meditate with confidence. As you notice the mind slipping off the breath and you bring it back, have a sense that what you’re doing is something very important, something very noble. It may not seem like much right now, but as you develop …
- No Happiness without Restraint… Ajaan Maha Bua’s term for the normal state of the mind is “unruliness.” Virtue is a fence, he said, for the unruliness in your behavior in body and speech. Concentration is a fence for the unruliness of your mind, because without restraint you can’t focus on what is the big problem in life: the fact that we do everything we can for …
- Bow Down to Your Mouth… Tell yourself, “Okay, I’m going to make up my mind to learn how not to do that again.” Or you can think of some forms of goodness, like generosity, virtue, meditation, where you’re still weak. You might want to figure out some way to make them stronger. Because it’s the goodness that we do in our lives: That’s the monument …
- Doing the Right Thing… Boil it down to those three issues, and the training that the Buddha gives in virtue, concentration, and discernment helps right here. Virtue writes in very large terms: Okay, these are certain actions that you just don’t do, regardless. They’re never going to be skillful. Even though they may seem to be to your advantage in the short term, they’re really …
- Ingenuity… The four are conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. Conviction means conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, and that translates into conviction in the power of your actions. You want to pay careful attention to what you’re doing because your actions really do make a difference. You really do have choices in the present moment. The Buddha is very clear on this. You have …
- Balancing Tranquility & Insight… the sense of well-being that comes from developing virtue, developing generosity; the sense of confidence that arises from contemplating the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha; or recollecting on your own past virtues, your own past acts of generosity, and, as they say, the qualities of the devas that you’ve been developing, which include generosity and restraint. When you think about these …
- Reinvest Your Noble Treasures… You’ve got the profits of conviction, of a sense of compunction, shame, virtue, learning, generosity, discernment. You gain these things. You can use them for all kinds of purposes. There are a lot of people who use their discernment just to gain more money—that’s a real waste. Use your discernment to find the deathless. Reinvest your noble treasures. And you’ll …
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