Search results for: virtue

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  2. Truths of the Will
     … What are the perfections? Generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, energy, tolerance or endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. Sometimes when conditions are difficult, you’ve got to work on the equanimity and the endurance. Other times when opportunities are good, you have to work more on the energy, not to let good opportunities pass you by. When you keep these qualities in mind, you find … 
  3. Faith in Present Intentions
     … We develop virtue, concentration, discernment so the mind is not overcome by pain or by pleasure. When you’ve developed those qualities of mind, it actually can have an effect on past bad actions. They can’t turn the results of bad actions into something good, but they can minimize the bad. The important thing is what we do with our minds right now … 
  4. As Days & Nights Fly Past, Fly Past
     … Is your conviction in the path growing? You know by looking at your virtue*,* which is another one of the qualities: Are you strict with yourself with the precepts, or do you find yourself getting lax about little things? This is especially relevant for the monks: We have lots of little precepts, and sometimes it’s easy to say, “Oh, it’s a little … 
  5. Facing Pain Straight On
    When you give the mind an exercise to do—like focusing on the breath, contemplating the virtues of the Buddha, developing goodwill, or even some of practices that are said to be vipassana practice—they’re all actually concentration practices. You tell the mind to do something, you will the mind to do something—that’s the concentration—and then you observe it. That … 
  6. The Mind Comes First
     … generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truthfulness, determination, goodwill, equanimity. Try to develop these qualities as you go through life because you can take them with you. And they’ll provide a good place to go. They do offer some shelter. When you can’t depend on the world, you have to learn how to depend on the mind. So you’ve got to … 
  7. Respect
     … But if it’s based on generosity, on virtue, on concentration, on discernment, there’s no need for those boundaries. This is why the Buddha said that when you train your mind, you’re also helping others; when you help others, you’re training your mind. The two processes go together when you’re looking for this kind of happiness. And it’s something … 
  8. Good Fundamentals
     … The more experienced the people are in terms of generosity, virtue, conviction, and discernment—particularly discernment into how to put an end to suffering—the more you benefit. What it comes down to is the Buddha’s realization that the Big Problem in life is the suffering we cause, and yet we don’t have to. Why do we cause that suffering? It’s … 
  9. Flexibility
     … So our road here is virtue, concentration, and discernment. Release comes at the end. It’s the result. You focus on the causes, and the result will have to come. It’s like the sense of ease that you gain in the meditation, the sense of fullness, rapture, refreshment: As long as you focus on the cause, you’re okay. If you leave the … 
  10. Seeing the Stillness
     … The word for the precepts, for virtue– sila –also means something that’s normal. We try to create a sense of normalcy in the mind. The mind’s normal state is when it’s not deciding to kill or steal or have illicit sex or lie or take intoxicants. But it’s a state of mind we tend to overlook. The Buddha tells us … 
  11. Directing the Flow
     … the training in heightened virtue, training in heightened mind, training in heightened discernment. The precepts for example: They’re meant to be clear-cut. They’re promises you make to yourself because the practice of learning to keep a promise to yourself is very important for the whole rest of the practice. You make up your mind you’re not going to kill, steal … 
  12. The Body Doesn’t Care
     … The Buddha talks about finding the essence in your body, meaning that you learn how to practice generosity, you use the body to learn about the Dhamma, you use it to practice virtue and meditation. This is where you can find something of essential worth inside the body. We had the question the other day at the Q&A, “What is the essence of … 
  13. Goodness & Goodwill
     … There are a lot of people who don’t want to be persuaded into generosity or virtue or thoughts of goodwill. So you have to learn how to be sensitive to the situation. Think of thoughts of goodwill going out in all directions. Then test them, to see how genuine they are. There are two good ways of testing them. One is to try … 
  14. Not Getting What You Want
     … So one of the virtues of meditation is that it can put you in a position where you can step back and look at these attitudes from a more objective perspective, from a greater sense of inner well-being and stability, and admit to yourself, “Oh yeah, I have been adding unnecessary stress here. I’ve been part of the problem, but I don … 
  15. Admirable in the Beginning, Middle, & End
     … There’s virtue, there’s concentration, and there’s discernment, all of which are good things to develop. That’s the beginning, just learning about the theory. Then there’s the actual practice, and that’s admirable too. As you put these principles into practice, you learn a lot about yourself. You change your environment and you find that you have potentials within yourself … 
  16. Think Calmly about Death
     … The right attitude basically comes from developing virtue, concentration, and discernment—and particularly concentration around the brahmaviharas, the sublime attitudes. Learn how to make your mind spacious. Have goodwill for all beings. There was the time when the Buddha had a wound in his foot. Devadatta had tried to kill him by rolling a rock off of a mountain, and a long splinter of … 
  17. The Six Properties
     … This is where you see the virtue of learning how to hold on to one perception. You realize, as you feel the space around the body, that you could focus on the body, but here you’re going to totally ignore any perceptions or sensations of the body. You’re going to focus on whatever feels like space. When you do that, things begin … 
  18. The Treasure of Equanimity
     … The second noble treasure is virtue, not wanting to do anything that would be harmful, learning how to restrain yourself from doing things that would be harmful to yourself or others. Here it’s interesting to note how the Buddha says that in killing, stealing, having illicit sex, lying, or taking intoxicants, you’re harming yourself. For him, harming others means getting them to … 
  19. Barriers in the Heart
     … This is why one of the recollections is recollection of your own generosity, recollection of your own virtue – the times when you gave of yourself. That helps to nourish the mind. When the mind is well nourished, it’s not interested in picking up those obstacles and making them into bigger obstacles than they have to be. When you remind yourself of the happiness … 
  20. Heedfulness for the Holidays
     … This is one of the reasons the Buddha would emphasize both generosity and virtue as a source of confidence. You go into groups of people who might be ready to criticize you, but you know if you’ve been generous and virtuous, whatever they’re going to criticize you about doesn’t really matter. After all, there are people in the world who will … 
  21. Respect Opens Possibilities
     … an end to suffering—that’s the third noble truth—and the way to do it is the fourth noble truth, the noble eightfold path, which comes down to three things: virtue, concentration, and discernment. The Buddha is asking you to apply the framework of these four noble truths to your problem of suffering. Again, it’s not simply a matter of assent, saying … 
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