Search results for: virtue

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  2. The Purity of Your Intentions
     … There may be times when, by holding the precepts, you’re going to suffer a loss of some kind, but as the Buddha said, that kind of loss is nothing compared to the loss of your virtue. So when information is hard to come by, all you have is your intentions, the purity of your intentions, to fall back on. This is why we … 
  3. A Slave to the Dhamma
     … all the Capricorn virtues. It’s important to realize that this is a part of training the mind. If training the mind were simply a matter of closing your eyes and sitting very still, it’d be a lot easier, but it wouldn’t really challenge you in the way that the full training of the heart and mind does. One of the things … 
  4. Training like an Adult
     … In other words, we’re not trying to make a self or create a self around our virtue, around our restraint, around our renunciation, around our concentration, or around our wisdom. We’re doing these things because they work. So learn how to look at what you’re doing, learn how to read the results of what you’re doing, starting from the outside … 
  5. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … What helps the mind to settle down? The Buddha says, “views made straight and purified virtue.” Those are the bases for right mindfulness, and then right mindfulness is the basis for right concentration. So make sure your views are straight: that if there is suffering in the mind, it’s caused by the mind. No matter how much you may be suffering over bad … 
  6. Determined on Goodwill
     … In other words, your virtue is not something you’d give up. Even if it may help other people, the Buddha said that’s not in the long run going to be helping anybody. Finally, there’s peace. This is not just the peace of having attained the goal you want, but also of learning to keep your mind calm and unruffled as you … 
  7. You Can Do It
     … As for consummation in conduct, that includes restraint of the senses, moderation in eating, wakefulness, being consummate in your virtue, working on the four jhanas. Then there’s a set of qualities which are the ones I can’t remember, but they’re very similar to the seven treasures: They include conviction, a sense of shame, a sense of compunction, learning, generosity. These are … 
  8. Even Common Animals Can Be Trained
     … Generosity is restraint, virtue is restraint. Concentration, discernment: All of these things involve restraint. With generosity, you hold yourself back from using up things that you could give to other people. With the precepts, of course, you hold yourself back from doing and saying things that you know are going to be harmful. With concentration, you restrain your mind from wandering around as it … 
  9. The Real World Isn’t for Real
     … We develop virtue, we develop generosity, good habits inside, good habits in our relationships with people around us, so that we have a sense of self-esteem, that we do have some self-worth. That way, when things come up in the mind that challenge our self-image, we’re not devastated. We have the confidence that we have enough goodness to deal with … 
  10. A Separate Self
     … That’s what we say every day as we chant the virtues of the Dhamma: “It’s to be known by the observant for themselves.” No one can know this for anyone else. We can’t even show it to other people for them to look at. When the results come, they are yours. And as Ajaan Lee says, no one else has to … 
  11. Everybody Benefits
     … generosity, virtue, meditation. It’s through this symbiotic relationship that everybody benefits. This becomes especially dramatic on a day like today with the kathin. There’s been a lot of activity. A lot of people had to be fed. They came to support the monastery, to support us in our practice, so we have a responsibility. We have to make sure that they’re … 
  12. Go Out of Your Way
     … One of the sources of joy is that you’re in a community where everybody has the same views, everybody has the same virtue on the level of the noble ones, and we’re all generous with one another. We treat one another with thoughts of goodwill, words of goodwill, actions of goodwill. That goodwill shows itself in little ways. If you can be … 
  13. Goodwill & Gratitude
     … After all, generosity, virtue, meditation: These things are all beneficial for others in addition to being primarily beneficial for ourselves. So we’re looking for a happiness that doesn’t create boundaries. This is why the Buddha said we should develop goodwill in all directions: goodwill without limit, compassion without limit, empathetic joy without limit—along with equanimity without limit to balance out our … 
  14. Practice Without Gaps
     … In that way, as your virtue becomes more continuous, it becomes a good foundation for your concentration. You get used to not making exceptions for your likes and dislikes. This is one of the problems of the world right now. There are people who say they honor the precepts and the principle that you shouldn’t be harmful—except for these cases or those … 
  15. Centered on Concentration
     … And it’s interesting that of a three main aspects of the training—training in virtue, training in concentration, training in discernment—the one that the Buddha singled out to the stress in those verses we chanted just now is respect for concentration, the ability get the mind centered in the body, with a sense of ease, even with a sense of fullness, refreshment … 
  16. Self Determination
     … You practice generosity, you practice virtue, and especially you practice meditation, developing qualities of the mind where you take charge of your own mind for the sake of your long-term welfare and happiness. It’s one of those rare cases where you really do get to practice self-determination. Or in the Buddha’s terms, you direct yourself rightly. You choose your direction … 
  17. Planting a Tree
     … Practice virtue. Practice meditation. Squeeze as much goodness as you can out of it before you have to discard the rind. And that connects with the last of the guardian meditations, which is recollection of death. The purpose of death recollection, of course, is heedfulness. We don’t know how much time we have, but we do have right now. When the Buddha talks … 
  18. Totally Secure
     … It’s one of those virtues that has a lot of facets to it. Not only do you want to admit the truth about what’s going on inside and about the things you’ve been doing outside, but you also want to create an environment where the truth becomes clear, where you’re true. When you make up your mind to do something … 
  19. The Dhamma Without Price
     … The practice of merit is the first answer to the Buddha’s question that lies at the beginning of discernment: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What is skillful? What is blameless?” Looking for happiness in generosity, looking for happiness in virtue and universal goodwill: These are blameless ways of looking for happiness. And the Sangha … 
  20. An Admirable Friend — In Memory of Luang Loong
     … And it’s a virtue in us that we recognize that goodness. We try to repay the people who have gone before, and also emulate them in our actions. So tonight at the end of meditation, dedicate the merit to Luang Loong, because without people like him, where would we be? The best way to carry on their influence is to embody it in … 
  21. To Sustain Your Practice
     … The second quality is virtue. When people are really serious about their intentions, they want to make sure that they act in a way that doesn’t harm anybody. This is expressed in the five precepts: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking of intoxicants. The third quality is generosity. This means being generous with material things, but also being … 
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