Search results for: virtue

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. Book search result icon Sublime Determinations Friday — Compassion & Empathetic Joy
     … You train it in virtue, discernment, and the brahmavihāras. You also train the mind so that it’s not easily overcome by pleasure or pain. This last ability comes from practice in concentration. You train yourself to master the skills of breathing so that when there are pains in the body, you can use the breath either to dissolve the pains or to give … 
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  7. A Promise to Yourself
     … Why are you not making use of them? The texts talk about people who have virtues that are pleasing to the noble ones. Well, the whole path is pleasing to the noble ones. You think about their standards, and how it would be good to live up to their standards. We live in this world where so often we’re motivated by what other … 
  8. A Home of Your Own
     … So what kind of actions do you want to take with you to make a long-lasting fixture in your home? You want them to be acts of generosity, acts of virtue, acts of discernment. Those are the best things for decorating your house inside. With them, it becomes easier to become more and more at ease being here, having a strong sense this … 
  9. Five Strengths
     … You develop qualities of virtue, concentration, and discernment to give yourself something better to hold onto. As long as the mind is going to hold on, hold onto something good, something that will eventually develop its strengths to the point where it doesn’t need to hold on to anything anymore. When you see that these are the big issues in life, and that … 
  10. Bases for Success
     … This is easy enough to understand when we’re talking about the practice of virtue and the practice of concentration, but discernment is a type of action as well. It’s a means to an end. It’s tactical. And it’s good to keep that point in mind. Sometimes we think that the whole purpose of the path is to arrive at some … 
  11. A Good Mood to Meditate
     … Remind yourself also that you’re following a good path, the path of the Buddha’s teachings—virtue, concentration, discernment—which harms no one. It helps foster good qualities in the mind. It’s a path that was found by people without defilements and taught by people without defilements who, when they taught it, had no ulterior motives are all. They had found what … 
  12. Steering the Raft
     … What it’s good for is as a tool to develop skillful qualities in the mind—as we practice generosity, as we practice virtue, as we meditate. So you’re using this tool. You’re using this raft. Be very clear about the fact that the raft is something just slapped together out of inconstant things, but if you steer it properly, it’ll … 
  13. Happiness Without Conflict
     … This is why even though the practice of generosity and virtue and meditation are relatively harmless, you’re still not totally free from harm. You’re not totally free from having to compete with others until you reach the deathless. So we don’t stop with the sense of well-being that comes from focusing on the breath. We try to figure out what … 
  14. Death Is Normal
     … There’s the pleasure and the happiness, the well-being that come from generosity, the well-being that comes from virtue, and the steadiness of mind that comes from developing the mind in concentration and goodwill. We try to develop these qualities so that when we think of Dang, the current that goes her direction is a good current. It’s a nourishing current … 
  15. We’re All Learning the Ropes
     … By changing your mind, by changing your actions, you can change the world—not by going around and straightening everybody else out, but as you straighten out your own mind, you start doing better things, creating a better world, through your generosity, through your virtue, through your goodwill. And goodwill has to be paired with patience. We want all beings to be happy, but … 
  16. The Power of Human Effort
    Every evening, we have chants in honor of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, recollecting their virtues before we meditate. This is a good way of uplifting the mind—or as the texts say, gladdening the mind. These recollections put you in the right mood to meditate. You think about the kind of person the Buddha was, the person who found this path … 
  17. Fear
     … learning how not to waste your strength, to devote it to things that really are worthwhile—developing mindfulness, developing virtue, developing concentration and discernment—so that you don’t have to hold onto things that can be taken away from you, things that will turn on you. In the course of that, you find yourself letting go also of whatever potential there was in … 
  18. Overcoming Obstacles
     … So there is that possibility, but to get there requires training—heightening your virtue, heightening your concentration, heightening your discernment. So try to be very clear on who your internal friends are, who you want to be spending time with inside. Because it really does make a difference. Just because a feeling comes into the mind doesn’t mean that it has to be … 
  19. Peace of Mind
     … You know when you’ve improved the mind in terms of its virtue, in terms of its kindness, in terms of equanimity when equanimity is needed, discernment when that’s needed, powers of endurance, patience, peace. These are things we can develop within. And doing this is not a selfish project. We’re not just sitting here gazing at our navels. When you develop … 
  20. Focus on Your Intention
     … This is what we’re doing as we practice the practice of virtue. We’re going to be involved in perceptions and feelings, and fabrications around our actions: telling our body to do this, telling the body to do that, telling it not to do this, not to do that, as a way of gaining some sense of our power here. By changing our … 
  21. Brahmaviharas & Noble Truths
     … generosity, virtue, meditation. The generosity is an expression of compassion. All the brahmavihāras are there, embodied in your practice, but we go beyond the brahmavihāras. There’s a passage where the Buddha talks about how, in a previous lifetime, he happened to be a king. The tradition within that line of kings was that as soon as you had your first white hair, you … 
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