Search results for: virtue
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- Dhamma for Laypeople… He starts out with emptiness, but they complain, “That’s a little bit too high for us.” So the Buddha teaches them generosity and virtue. The two stories provide an interesting contrast, and get at an issue that’s really important. We see that many of the teachings in the Canon are addressed to monks, but to what extent are these teachings appropriate for …
- Abandoning Effluents (3)… The destroying includes right resolve and all of the factors for virtue: right speech, right action, and right livelihood, because these things depend on maintaining skillful intentions and not acting on unskillful ones. And it’s also part of right effort, the destroying part. As for the seven factors for awakening you’re developing, you’ve got right view in analysis of qualities. And …
- Heedfulness… But the virtues that make life as human beings together really worthwhile—generosity and gratitude—really have a basis in the way the world works. That’s true only in a world where people do have choices and are responsible for their choices. When the Buddha was teaching Rahula, one, he seemed to be getting down on Rahula for apparently having told a lie …
- Withstanding Pleasure & Pain… As the Buddha says, if you’re developed in body, developed in mind, developed in virtue and discernment, and you make your mind unlimited—in other words, with the brahmavihāras—the results of past karma can come, but they don’t have to have an impact on the mind. In fact, in some cases, you scarcely feel them at all. In other cases, where …
- The Best Place to Practice… But even then, before you can get out of that situation, you do want to work with your mind, to discover the areas where you can develop virtue, concentration, and discernment to minimize the harm you’re doing to yourself and to other people. But otherwise, when you find the mind gazing far off, wanting to go practice over the ocean—and maybe someday …
- The Complexity of Pain… It’s through the development of virtue, development of discernment, development of mind and body, as he calls it: basically, learning how not to be overcome by pain or overcome by pleasure. That’s part of the key right there. When we allow ourselves to be overcome by pleasure, then there’s an opening to be overcome by pain, too. So, you have to …
- You’re Already Dead… your life. In other words, he was able to find true happiness through his own efforts, developing qualities in his mind that you have in a potential form in your mind. Virtue: being restrained in your actions, not harming yourself, not harming anybody else, Having a sense of shame and compunction: Shame here doesn’t mean that you’re ashamed of yourself, you’re …
- Sophisticated Dhamma… respect: respect for the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha; respect for the training; and respect for concentration. Now, respect for the training covers all the main parts of the training: virtue, concentration, and discernment. So it’s interesting to think about why the Buddha added respect for concentration. It’s included in the training, but why is it singled out as being the …
- Conviction in the End of Suffering… And the path of virtue, concentration and discernment seems like a good thing.” But that third truth, that’s the one you’ve got to take on conviction. Yet as the Buddha points out, conviction is a kind of wealth. It’s a strength. Often we don’t think of it in those terms. We’ve been through so many instances where we had …
- Refuge… all the elements of the path are here; everything you need is here. It’s just a matter of your making the choice that this is what you want to do. Virtue hasn’t been close off. Concentration hasn’t been closed off. Discernment hasn’t been closed off. They’re all here; they’re all open. It’s just a question of your …
- Secluded from Sensuality… The first two have to do with discernment, the next three have to do with virtue, and the last three have to do with concentration. Those last three are far longer than the others, and are explained in a lot more detail. They really are the heart of the path. They’re what makes the middle way the middle way, because they provide a …
- A Valuable Gift… the merit that comes from generosity, the merit that comes from virtue, the merit that comes from meditating. He was talking to a lot of people who tended to be happy to give gifts but weren’t so interested in following the precepts or practicing meditation. So he told them that if you just give gifts but don’t follow the precepts or meditate …
- A Sense of Space Inside… So try to use the Buddha’s teachings on generosity, virtue, concentration, and discernment to create some space around the processes of the mind. This gives you room to back up and watch. When you’ve got that room, you’re that much closer to being freed from all these old habits. You see that there are other ways you can relate to the …
- The Mind When Trained Brings Happiness… You’re going to be less of a burden on them and you’ll be developing good qualities that you can share with them, qualities like generosity, virtue, and the discernment that you develop from training the mind. True happiness is something that is within our capabilities. So we have to look carefully at where we’re looking for our happiness because there are …
- Tenacity… He still used his discernment and his virtue. But it was all for the good of the world. He’d done all the work he needed to do for his own sake. Then, for the rest of his life, he used those tools for the sake of the world at large. So whatever amount of effort, ingenuity, or difficulties are involved in following the …
- Look after Yourself Happily… So these are our motivations for practicing generosity, virtue and meditation: our sense that we’ll benefit from them and that we have the ability to do them. You want to maintain those all the way to the last steps of the path. Then, once you’ve reached the end of the path and you’ve found the ultimate happiness, there’s nothing you …
- Grief & Regret… Ananda takes the news to the Buddha, and as he’s telling the Buddha that Sariputta’s passed away, he says, “It’s as if all the directions got dark, I lost my bearings, hearing of Sariputta’s death.” And the Buddha asked him, "Well, when Sariputta died, did he take virtue with him? Did he take concentration? Did he take discernment? Did he …
- Not-self for the Sake of Happiness… This is one of the reasons why he gives the graduated discourse, to point out that even the best forms of happiness that can be found as you practice generosity, virtue, thinking of long-term happiness, and being in a position where you can gain long-term happiness for yourself, will have their drawbacks, their “degradation,” as he says. When your reflective self agrees …
- A Refuge from the Winds of the World… They’re people of generosity, virtue, discernment; you try to develop those qualities as well, because you pick up the qualities of the people that you’re near. There’s an image in the Canon of a leaf. If you use the leaf to wrap up fine-smelling spices, the leaf will smell fine as well. If you use it to wrap rotten fish …
- Dhamma Intelligence… The Buddha recommends topics like recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, recollection of your generosity, recollection of your virtue. Those are to give you encouragement. Then there’s recollection of death, which is to remind you that you don’t know how much time you have, so there’s definitely work to be done right now. You can ask yourself, “Are you …
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