Search results for: virtue
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- 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 …
- Recovering Your Balance… Think about the goodness of your generosity, the goodness of your virtue. You can think about the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha. One of the really fine things about Buddhism is that it was founded by someone who knows what it’s like to make a mistake. Even in his last lifetime, the Buddha made a huge mistake—six years of tormenting himself …
- On Human Nature… After all, those three qualities—discernment, purity, and compassion—are the three virtues traditionally attributed to him. This is how the desire for happiness can be turned into something noble. You benefit; the people around you benefit as well. Don’t think that happiness has to be a selfish goal. If you can uproot your greed, other people around you won’t have to …
- Time to Heal… As the Buddha said, one of the ideal topics of conversation is unentanglement, the virtue of seclusion. So as we’re working with one another, of course there has to be some discussion of the work we have to do. But try to keep the thought in the back of your mind that each of us is here for seclusion. And even though you …
- Perspectives & Priorities… of your heart. Memorize those and listen to the Dhamma regularly to straighten out your views. That really helps put things into perspective. The other things that the Buddha recommends are: virtue—in other words, holding to the precepts—restraint of the senses, and restraint over your conversation. In all these cases, you’re watching over your mind, you’re watching over your behavior …
- Factors for Stream Entry… conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. Those are the qualities you should look for in someone you want to study from. If they don’t have conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, you don’t know what they have conviction in: something, someplace else. If they’re not virtuous, you can’t trust that you’re safe around them. If they’re not generous, you …
- Secluded from Sensuality… He starts with generosity, with virtue, and the rewards that comes from developing these qualities in your mind. You get to the sensual levels of heaven but then you fall. You get carried away with your instantaneous sensual pleasures, and the integrity of the mind, the character of the mind, begins to erode. You get used to having whatever sensual pleasure you want, and …
- Respect as a Sign of Intelligence… good in your generosity, good in your virtue, good in your meditation. That’s the kind of happiness that feels good deep down inside. It’s a happiness that’s worthy of respect. So have a strong sense that your happiness is something very worthwhile. Take it seriously, not in the sense of being grim but in the sense of really wanting to do …
- Dhamma is Timeless… So even though the Dhamma may not have lots of new things to tell you with the passing of time, that’s actually one of its virtues. Its lessons stay the same. I appreciated this when I was staying with Ajaan Fuang, that once you learned the principles, you could live by them. He was the sort of person who wasn’t going to …
- A Thread Out of the Maze… Think of the times when people could have harmed you but they didn’t, and now you have the opportunity to develop that quality, the quality of restraint, the quality of virtue as well. Then live your life with those thoughts in mind. Take advantage of this freedom that you have to choose in the present moment, the freedom of intention. Learn to use …
- The Gift of Meditation… All of the goodness we do in the practice—in terms of generosity, virtue, concentration, discernment—is the kind of goodness, the kind of happiness that spreads around, that doesn’t have clear boundaries—which is what makes it special. As the Buddha said, when you look after yourself, you’re looking after others; when you look after others, you’re looking after yourself …
A Good Independent Self
… When you realize that your true well-being lies in acting in skillful ways, acting on skillful intentions, then even if you have any idea of an independent self, you’ll want to act on impulses for generosity, virtue, the desire to train the mind. At the same time, you avoid a lot of the problems of the idea of an interdependent self. For …- Timeless Dhamma… This is what the basic elements of the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment—are all about. The Buddha’s notion of action covers not just physical action or acts of speech, but also acts of mind. If you want to find a way that leads to true happiness, you’ll have to train all areas of action, in particular, the acts of the mind …
- Nibbana Is Better than You Think… This is why, when the Buddha was introducing the four noble truths to lay people, he would start out with the goodness of generosity, the goodness of virtue, saying that these things do have meaning. But then they get rewarded. Many people who are generous, many people who are virtuous, go to the heavenly realms. There they get complacent and then they fall. So …
- Endurance… The virtue of endurance is that your goodness doesn’t have to depend on outside circumstances, and this relates directly to the principle of four noble truths. Suffering comes from the way you talk to yourself. Physical pain may be inherent in having a body, but the suffering that goes into the mind is not automatic. It comes from how you relate to the …
- All for the Sake of Freedom… And then all aspects of the path—virtue, concentration, discernment: Finally we let those go, too. This is the purpose of everything the Buddha taught. So we’re not here just to be mired in aging, illness, and death or what’s inconstant, stressful, not self; trying to embrace these things briefly and squeeze whatever little pleasure we can out of them before we …
- Respect for What’s Noble… This way, when you train these forms of clinging to be actually part of the path, as you develop virtue, concentration, and discernment, you have energy. You have confidence. This is another reason why we respect the Buddha: He basically teaches us to respect ourselves, that this is something we can do. So it’s all of a piece. Sometimes you hear people say …
- Learning from Labor… We can take that slogan and adjust it a little bit to make it a slogan for the Buddha’s teachings: “Learning from Labor.” In other words, you do the work of the training in terms of virtue, concentration, and discernment, and in the doing you’re going to learn a lot about the mind, a lot about how you’re causing suffering, and …
- Look after the Source… That’s your perfection of virtue. And that’s where you should focus your attention: on the good qualities you’re developing, both because they’ll lead to your true happiness, and also because a mind that’s imbued with these good qualities is going to come up with words and actions that are more conducive to well-being all around. Still, the focus …
- Things that Arise & Pass Away… Creating states of concentration, practicing virtue, working on your discernment, all involve effort. There’s going to be some stress there, so you have to be up for that. But the really amazing part of the path is that it’s the one kind of fabrication that leads to the end of fabrication—or as the Buddha says, the karma that leads to the …
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