Search results for: virtue
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Sense Pleasures & Sensuality
… He would start with a talk on generosity, a talk on virtue, a talk on heaven. Heaven, of course, would be a description of the pleasures you could experience up there based on the fact that you’d been generous and virtuous down here. But then the talk would turn: He said, actually there’s a downside to sensuality. He called it not only …- Inner Discontent… You look for what that something right might be, in terms of your virtue, in terms of your commitment, in terms of your mindfulness and concentration. How do you make these things right, or even more reliable than they are now? So it’s not simply a case of learning how to accept things just the way they are. If the Buddha had been …
- Cheerfully Ardent… of suffering is, and where the suffering itself is. The same with the path and the cessation of suffering: You don’t do the cessation of suffering. You do the path: virtue, concentration, discernment. The release that comes—that’s going to be the result. You don’t do release, but to get the path to be the middle path you have to try …
- Reading Your Meditation… the themes of meditation called recollection of generosity, recollection of virtue. In other words, you think about the things you’ve done in the past that have been good, such as times when you’ve been generous. If you bring in a negative narrative, you tend to focus on the foolish things you’ve done. And we’ve all done foolish things. Sometimes it …
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Beyond Here & Now : In Quest of Awakened Consciousness
… All aspects of the training in virtue, concentration, and discernment are needed to develop the sensitivity, the powers of judgment, and the dispassion needed to abandon all fabrications. This point explains why the schools of meditation that aim only at a judgment-free present-moment awareness tend to view many parts of the path as unnecessary. Their goal doesn’t require the sensitivity demanded …
- Seeds of Becoming… The Buddha commented on how, in getting to know other people—getting to know their virtue, their resilience, their honesty, their wisdom—you have to focus on the right aspects of their behavior and you have to be observant. That takes a lot of time. Well, the same point applies to your own mind. You have to focus at the right spots, where craving …
- Sensual Passion… This is why we practice the Dhamma, why we listen to the wise people who say that when you want to find long-term welfare and happiness, you look for it in your practice of generosity, your practice of virtue, your practice of meditation; and especially the meditation because, as the Buddha pointed out, if you don’t have the pleasure of concentration, then …
- The Power of Present Kamma… karma come, they don’t have to make an impact on the mind. The Buddha talks about the qualities you want to develop to counteract the impact of past bad karma: virtue, discernment, an ability not to be overcome by pleasure, an ability not to be overcome by pain, and having an unlimited mind, which means developing the four brahmaviharas. Now all of these …
- Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge… You hold onto the practice of virtue, you hold onto the practice of concentration, you hold onto discernment as your tools. And you feed off the well-being that these things can provide. In this way, he gives you an alternative source of food. And when you’re better fed—the mind is not so worked up around things—ultimately it gets to where …
- Everything You Need… We use the body as we practice virtue, as we practice generosity. And for those purposes, it’s useful to think of it as yours. But then the body has its illnesses. It grows old. It’s going to die at some point. You’ve got to learn how to put it aside, put it down, and not carry it around all the time …
- Honest & Observant… So you’ve got the virtue of truthfulness, concentration, discernment, the ability not to be overcome by pleasure, not to be overcome by pain, and that unlimited attitude of goodwill for everybody. These are the qualities that will protect you from doing unskillful things in the future, and protect you from a large part of the results of past bad actions, so the mind …
- Cross-questioning… He said, “In the same way, I tell people to follow the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment. Some people follow it and they get the results. Some people don’t follow it and they don’t get the results. I’m just the one who points out the way.” What the Buddha is doing here is giving the man an analogy to make …
- Inner Wealth Management… If your friends are admirable, they teach you about conviction, they teach you about discernment, generosity, virtue. They themselves are good examples in these areas. When you hang around people like this, you use your wealth wisely. You invest it not only in your pleasure in this lifetime, but also in your well-being in future lifetimes. Now, those are the principles that are …
- Into the Light of Consciousness… finding joy in the practice of generosity, joy in the practice of virtue, joy in getting control over your hindrances. That’s a skillful principle that helps you gain some control over the unskillful impulses without trying to hide them. Then there’s a sense of humor. Learn how to laugh at your defilements. Laugh at the impulses that would pull you in a …
- The Wheel of Dhamma… Is it good to be generous or is it not? Is it good to be virtuous or is it not? Generosity and virtue are part of the path, so you want to develop them. And as you develop them, you begin to see that suffering falls away: the suffering of being stingy, of having a narrow mind, of not being true to your principles …
- Strong-hearted… You have to be patient, to have endurance, to be determined—all those good Capricorn virtues. And that’s a quality of the heart. The Greeks used to say that we had three energy centers in the body: one in the head, one in the chest, one in the stomach. The head, of course, was your intellect. Your stomach was your appetites. And your …
- Breath Teaches the Bramaviharas… generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill and equanimity. You work on these, and you hope that their influence will spread out into the world. But you can’t determine how many people will benefit from it, just as the Buddha himself couldn’t determine how many people were going to follow his way to awakening. Your duty is to work on …
- A Sense of Yourself… The second quality you want to test in yourself is how much virtue you have. How are your precepts? Where could you improve on them? Similarly with the third quality, generosity: How generous are you with your time, with your energy? An important part of the path is composed of the heart qualities that come with generosity: your sympathy for other beings, your sense …
- The Five Hindrances… Stoke up on those qualities of mindfulness and alertness, virtue, generosity—the things you’re really going to need regardless of what happens. And you can do that only by meditating. These are some of the ways of dealing with the hindrances. If you find them getting in the way of your concentration, keep the fact in mind that they’re not your friends …
- Preparing to Meditate… So, when the Buddha teaches us to reflect on our virtues and reflect on our generosity as a way of bringing the mind to a state where it feels confident in itself so that it can settle down, you’ve got to have some generous actions, you’ve got to have some virtuous actions to reflect on. You can’t just make them up …
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