Search results for: virtue
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- Smoothing It… The important thing is you don’t see the pain as a virtue in and of itself. You sit with the pain because you want to understand it—although it’s not so much understanding the pain, it’s understanding how the mind creates the pain out of the potentials for pain. You sit here right now and there are parts of the body …
- Guardian Meditations… And as the Buddha said, when you’re resolved to be harmless to all in line with the precepts, with no exceptions, when your virtue is universal, then you have a share in that universal safety. If the safety you give to others is partial, then your safety is partial, too. So you want to learn to see your anger and your aversion as …
- On Deserving to Be Happy… That’s how you develop any skill, and particularly how you develop the skills of virtue, concentration, and discernment. By bringing these four bases of success to bear, you desire to do things well. You keep at it. And you do your best to learn how to maintain when you’ve got something good. You stick with it as best you can. Remember, we …
- Purifying Gold… As you try to get the mind to settle down, you can engage in recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, recollection of your virtue—in other words, ways of thinking that will induce you to want to settle the mind down. Or thoughts that give rise to a sense of samvega, thinking about how if you don’t find your happiness inside …
- Willing to Question Yourself… things like virtue, mindfulness, concentration, and right view. Then there are other things that you use for the purpose of the path: certain attachments; certain desires. Even craving and conceit: There’s a role for them on the path. too. A certain sense of self that’s competent: That’s also something you want to maintain—the sense of self that’s heedful, that …
- Delight… As the passage that we chant says again and again, “It’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end.” We start with good principles like generosity and virtue, we move on through concentration and discernment, and arrive at a goal that’s absolutely excellent. So, when your defilements want to get you to delight in other things, think about …
- A Noble Path… And in doing so, we’ll be protecting each other.” The happiness that comes from virtue, generosity, and meditation is not a happiness with clear boundaries. Your practice is bound to have a good influence on other people. The best influence that it can have, of course, is to inspire them to practice as well, because this is the part where each of us …
- A Soiled, Oily Rag… To get the mind in the right place to be able to do this and not feel threatened by the idea of letting go, you develop the path, a healthy sense of self that comes with virtue, the sense of well-being that comes with concentration that also allows you to settle down and look at things clearly. You look first at your other …
- The Buddha’s Last Word… Where are your defects? In Pali, they talk about having a defect in virtue, a defect in conduct, a defect in your views. Which parts need to be worked on? If you’re still suffering, that means there’s something that needs to be done. There’s a defect in your behaviour, so look for that. Sometimes you can see the defects, and sometimes …
- Views & Vision… Similarly with the recollection of your virtue, times in the past when you could have harmed somebody or done something against your principles, but you decided not to. Your principles were more important. Think about that. You have worth as a human being because of that. The same when you were generous. For many of us our first real experience of freedom was when …
- The Dhamma Wheel… This is one of the reasons why the Buddha lists right speech, right action, right livelihood before he lists the factors for concentration, because the development of virtue makes you honest. You really have to look at what you’re doing, you really have to keep the precepts in mind, and you have to do your best to stick by the precepts. This focuses …
- Inner Negotiating Skills… True happiness is found through training yourself in virtue, concentration, and discernment. It’s something you can do. This is probably one of the most important parts of the Buddha’s teachings—his emphasis on what human beings can do for themselves. You look at the other teachings of his time. So many of them said, “Well, there’s only so much you can …
- Inconstant, Stressful, Not-self… our generosity, our virtue, our meditation. On the other hand, we have to reflect that we’re going to die, too. Where are you going to put your energy, where are you going to focus your time, however much time you have left? Because you don’t really know how much time you have. The Buddha says that the only people who are really …
- Brahmaviharas on the Path… So the brahmaviharas do provide a rudimentary foundation for virtue, concentration, and some discernment. They’re not just something tacked on to the path. But at the same time, you have to learn how to step back from them eventually and see that there’s more work to be done. That’s primarily the function of what’s called transcendent right view: the right …
To be Debt Free
… The Triple Training is training in heightened virtue, what’s called heightened mind, which is basically the mind in right concentration, and then heightened discernment. Then the Buddha goes back and emphasizes again, “and respect for concentration.” There may be several reasons why he emphasizes concentration. One is that there is the tendency to write it off. Everybody says, “Well, the real work is …- Strong Through Admirable Friendship… The same with virtue: There are some people who say it doesn’t matter how much you harm other people as long as you get what you want, or force them to do what you want. But that’s the attitude of people who are crazy about power, who just do what they want without any regard to how it’s going to have …
- Common Sense… The Buddha said that above all else, these were the two main virtues he was looking for in a student. He said, “Bring me someone who’s observant, who’s truthful and no deceiver, and I’ll teach that person the Dhamma.” In other words, you don’t deceive others about what you’re doing and you don’t deceive yourself. If you want …
- Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing… that on an external level, but you can also interpret it on an internal level. The external level is the practice of merit. Generosity leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Virtue leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Developing attitudes of universal goodwill in the mind leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Those are attitudes and actions you want to develop because …
- To Comprehend Suffering… This is why we develop the path of virtue, concentration, and discernment. These are the tools we can develop that can enable us to understand suffering. Years back, I was involved in a psychology experiment at Oberlin. They had you put your hand in a bucket of ice-water. And there were three groups: The first group was told to pull your hand out …
- Suffering Is a Feeding Addiction… You can feed it off virtue. You can feed it off concentration—all the good things that the Buddha set out in the path. This is why the path is an eightfold path. It requires all eight factors for it to do its work.
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