Search results for: virtue
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- Playing Your Lute… Work on your virtue. Work on your concentration. Try to get the mind into as still a state as you can. And even if it’s not as still as you’d like, at least maintain what you’ve got. Don’t throw away the good things you’ve maintained. Those basic principles of initiative and maintaining apply all the way through the practice …
- Death Is All Around… Your true treasures are things like conviction in the principle of your actions, a sense of shame at the idea of doing anything that’s not noble, concern for the harm that can come from unskillful actions, virtue, learning, discernment, generosity: These things are your treasures. People can take your body away from you, they can kill you, but they can’t take these …
- Discipline… But the Buddha says, No, the really serious losses in life would be to lose your virtue and to lose your right view. So those are the things you’ve got to hold in mind. Do what you can to see the importance of these things. And make them attractive. An important part of discipline is not just forcing, forcing, forcing yourself. You have …
- Objectivity… This is what we’re working on as we practice generosity, virtue, and meditation. We’re trying to show to ourselves that these activities really do provide a happiness that’s more lasting than anything that unskillful desires can offer. Particularly when you’re meditating: As the Buddha said, a major factor in the first jhāna is pleasure and rapture born of seclusion. In …
- It’s Up to You… It means not only having admirable friends—people who have conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment—but also hoping to emulate them. We saw this today in the kaṭhina: gifts from everywhere, from the Queen Mother on down—people giving things, people giving their time, giving their energy, giving their skills. It’s inspiring and it gives us energy to develop those same qualities within ourselves …
- Responsible Happiness… That connects with your virtue. You don’t harm anybody by killing, stealing, having illicit sex, lying, or taking intoxicants. This is one of the reasons why we take these precepts every week, to remind us that they’re so important. When Ajaan Suwat was invited to teach meditation to a group of Westerners in Massachusetts years back, at the end of the retreat …
- Giving to the Meditation… It’s a virtue. When he was going to teach people about the Four Noble Truths he would start out by talking about giving and then work his way up from there. When you think about giving, you realize it’s what you’re bringing into any particular situation. If it’s a relationship with another person, what you give that other person—that …
- A Doctor’s Strategies… Think about your own virtue, the times when you did the right thing even though it was hard. These are in the traditional list of what they call recollections—meditation as thinking. Because, the Buddha points out, there are times when you focus on the breath or on feelings or on just the state of the mind and you can’t settle down. So …
- Determined to Practice… We do that by developing the qualities of the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment. You read about the precepts and ask yourself: To what extent does my behavior fit in with the precepts, and to what extent does it not? If it doesn’t, there’s work to be done—in particular, the precept on speech. The Buddha points out four kinds of wrong …
- The Garden of Enlightenment… As you develop mindfulness and alertness in the practice of virtue, it helps with the practice of concentration. And again, so on down the line, through discernment to release. It’s something you’ve got to nurture, something you’ve got to train yourself in. It was the Buddha’s great insight to see that by using the processes of causality, cause and effect …
- Restraint… It could be in terms of generosity, virtue, or meditation. In terms of generosity, you may ask yourself: What kind of generosity are you still weak in? Probably the most important form of generosity is forgiveness. It’s often the hardest, so you have to look into why. What pride is keeping you from being forgiving? What offended sense of honor is keeping you …
- Worth… things like generosity and virtue, persistence, patience, discernment, goodwill, and equanimity. Renunciation, truthfulness, determination. These are all qualities that the heart needs. And they’re things that stick with you, in this life on into the next life. This is where you look for value: your value as a person. Of course, it’s not something anyone else can measure, and it has only …
- Karma & Not-self… It’s part of developing generosity, developing virtue, and all the factors of the path. You’re sitting here meditating: Who’s responsible for the meditation? Well, you are. Ajaan Fuang once said that the one thing you have to believe in when you meditate is the teaching on karma, that what you do is what makes a difference. We’re not just sitting …
- Protection from Remorse… The first one is virtue: following the precepts. Like the five precepts we chanted just now: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking of intoxicants. When you avoid these five types of action, you’re providing lots of good protection for yourself. On the one hand, if you don’t go around killing others, they’re not going to come …
- Advice for a New Monk… The first principle is virtue. In the case of monks, this is holding to the Patimokkha or the monastic code. For laypeople it means sticking to the five precepts. The precepts are promises you make to yourself that you’re not going to harm anybody. You’re not going to kill anything, anybody. You’re not going to steal anything. You’re not going …
- May I Look After Myself with Ease… So as you practice virtue, you’re learning how to say No to those things, even though they are in the mind. The things you would like to do or say that would harm yourself or harm other people: You learn how to say No. So at the very least you don’t present an unattractive appearance to the people around you. You keep …
- A Network of Goodness… The same with virtue: There are a lot of people out there who are very happy that you’re not breaking the precepts. Otherwise, you’d be oppressing them one way or another. Other people, other beings, and, of course, you, benefit. And with meditation, the fact that you’re getting your mind under some control means that you’re going to be the …
- 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 …
- Borrowing the Buddha’s Wisdom… He also gives instructions on how to do it—the noble eightfold path, which boils down to virtue, concentration, discernment. This is the raft. He gives instructions in virtue in terms of right speech, right action, right livelihood; concentration in terms of right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration; discernment in terms of right view, and right resolve. He spells it all out. Now, there …
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