Search results for: virtue

  1. Page 51
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. The Kamma of Meditation
     … When you’ve trained yourself in virtue and concentration, you develop discernment to see that even the good things you’ve developed in the path as you’ve let go of everything else, you’ll eventually have to let go of those good things, too. There’s a time and place for using the perception of self. There’s a time and place for … 
  5. Beyond Imagination
     … As you practice virtue, you find yourself challenged in different ways—specifically around the precept on lying, which is probably the most important of the precepts—because there will be times when you have some information and don’t want to give it to everybody. There are some people you know who will want that information but then abuse it. So how do you … 
  6. Slogging Through Difficulties
     … Keep remembering that patience and equanimity are important virtues—and this is how they’re built, one breath at a time. This is how all of those Capricorn perfections—determination, truthfulness, persistence, patience, the ones that require work, the ones that require that you slog through things—this is how they’re built: one step at a time. Those steps are nurtured by your … 
  7. Nobody’s Servant
     … There’s virtue, not harming others; a sense of shame, in other words, being ashamed at the idea that you would do something harmful. Compunction, realizing that if anything that would cause harm, you just don’t really want to have to inflict that harm on yourself or anyone else. Conviction, conviction in the principle of karma, that your actions really do make a … 
  8. Gratification
     … And if it so happens that virtue, concentration, and discernment are not your forte, then you’re really stuck, because these are skills that everybody needs. So be the sort of person that takes pleasure in learning, takes pleasure in meeting a challenge. If you don’t conquer the challenge right away, okay, just keep trying different angles, different ways. Find some enjoyment in … 
  9. Believe in Your Actions
     … Mundane right view grows into transcendent right view through the Buddha’s description of generosity and virtue and the rewards, followed by his description of how those actions—which we’ve all experienced, we’ve all engaged in—lead to rewards that are good but have their drawbacks. The purpose of that teaching is to inspire you to be ready to listen to the … 
  10. Mindfulness Island
     … the importance of your virtue, the importance of right view—things you don’t want to lose. This means that when you’re faced with loss of other kinds in the world, you realize that you can hold on to these things and they can’t be taken away from you. People can make it difficult for you to hold by the precepts, and … 
  11. Guilt & Shame
     … Whereas if you don’t have an expansive mindset, haven’t developed the mind in virtue and discernment, and you haven’t learned how not to be overcome by pleasure or pain, then your mind is like a small cup of water. You throw that large crystal of salt in, and you can’t drink the water. It’s too salty. So regardless of … 
  12. Book search result icon Skill in Questions Chapter 6: Cross-questioning: II
     … A person gone forth should often reflect on this. “‘My life is dependent on others’…. “‘My behavior should be different [from that of householders]’…. “‘Can I fault myself with regard to my virtue?’… “‘Can my knowledgeable fellows in the holy life, on close examination, fault me with regard to my virtue?’… “‘I will grow different, separate from all that is dear & appealing to me … 
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  13. What Should & Shouldn’t Be Done
     … They don’t define a sense of who they are out of the precepts, but virtue becomes a natural part of the mind. So when you hit a state like that, you have to remember what the Buddha said about the fabrications of the mind. We can create different states out of the way we breathe. We can create them out of the different … 
  14. Guarding the Truth
     … As we practice virtue, we stick with it to know our intentions. We practice generosity to know our intentions. Then, when we sit down to meditate, we’ve got the right focus, on intention. We intend to focus on the breath—ardent, alert, mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. That’s the formula. We’re trying to get the … 
  15. Basic Wisdom
     … This is how our practice of generosity, virtue, and meditation leads to wisdom and discernment. And it’s how the wisdom and discernment lead to the end of suffering. They’re embodied in the four noble truths. Craving leads to suffering. That’s an issue of action and result. The path leads to the end of suffering. That’s another action and result. And … 
  16. The Middle Way
     … qualities of what you do, what you say, how you think—or to look at it in another way, virtue, concentration, and discernment. What we’re working on right now is the concentration. How are you going to make your concentration part of the middle way? For one thing, you have to look at the other ways that your mind is tempted to deal … 
  17. Precarious Knowledge
     … In other words, you realize the knowledge you have about virtue, concentration, discernment, what to do when you meditate, is not something you’re going to be able to hold on to forever. So you try to get the most use out of it while you can. There is the opportunity right now. This is why the present moment is so important, not that … 
  18. Book search result icon The Mirror of Insight 4  |  The Mirror of Insight
     … After developing the elements of the path leading to release—virtue, concentration, and discernment—the meditator makes the mind dispassionate toward all phenomena conducive to passion, and then releases the mind from the factors conducive to release: “And what, TigerPaws, is the factor for exertion with regard to purity of release? That same noble disciple—endowed with this factor for exertion with regard to … 
  19. A Sense of Time & Place
     … There’s also recollection of our generosity and our virtue to reinforce our sense of self-worth. These are places for the mind to forage, to go when it needs a particular antidote to a particular problem. But you can’t wait until the problem comes up to start practicing these things. You’ve got to practice them ahead of time. It’s like … 
  20. The River of Karma
     … What kind of pleasure is bad for the mind? Okay, learn how to develop the pleasure that’s good, i.e., the pleasure that comes from concentration, the pleasure that comes from generosity and virtue. You develop these forms of pleasure so that they can put the mind in a place where it can observe things clearly. So there are the two things: You … 
  21. A Meritorious Heart
     … Now, the two practices of generosity and virtue are nurtured by the third form of merit, or the third expression of the meritorious heart, which is the development of an attitude of universal goodwill, the desire for everybody to be happy, realizing that if you’re the only person in the world who’s happy and nobody else is happy, it’s be a … 
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