Search results for: virtue
- Page 56
- Mindfulness Defined… Some people make a virtue out of ignorance, saying that if you read a lot of the texts it just clutters up your mind. There may be times when that is the problem, but other times the problem is that your ideas about what can be done in the meditation are too narrow. When that’s the case, reading the texts can open your …
- Admit Your Stupidity… The qualities are conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. Of course, the discernment there becomes the internal quality, what the Buddha calls appropriate attention. It’s a matter of asking the right questions, questions that help you understand where you’re creating unnecessary suffering and how you can put an end to that. That, for the Buddha, was the big issue in life, the big …
Non-Reactive Judgment
… In the beginning, we work with generosity and virtue, and we want to be clear about what we’re doing, when we’re in line with our precepts and when we’re not. I got another phone call this morning from someone who, in a fit of real anger, had intentionally killed a mosquito. Even though it was a very small animal, the fact …- Three Recollections… the six recollections are a standard list—recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Saṅgha; recollection of generosity, virtue, and the devas. They fall into two sets. The first three, of course, have to do with the three refuges. The last three have to do with reflecting on yourself—in a positive way. So tonight I’d like to talk about the first three …
- The Middle Way… There’s homage through material things, as we did with the flowers, candles, and incense just now, walking around keeping our right to the Buddha image, as a way of showing respect, the incense representing virtue, the flowers concentration, and the candles discernment. As you may have noticed, there was a breeze tonight. Candles can blow out very easily. Our discernment has a way …
- The Five Strengths… As you develop virtue, concentration, and discernment, they help to loosen up that craving and clinging, so that you’re no long so obsessed with it. This way, the mind gets stronger and stronger because it’s placing fewer burdens on itself. It’s as if we spent the day carrying huge piles of garbage on our shoulders. When other people ask us for …
- Intelligent Respect… It means either virtue or habit. And batta means protocols, practices. Some people say, “Before I came here, I didn’t have any rites or rituals that I was involved in. Suddenly, coming to Buddhism, there are rites and rituals. It doesn’t seem right.” But go back and retranslate the term. Before you came here, you had habits. Here we have other habits …
- Can All Beings Be Happy?… When you’re virtuous and you see the rewards of virtue, you try to encourage others to be virtuous, too. As you gain more conviction in the Buddha’s awakening and see in particular the results of holding to the principle of action, the principle of karma, you do what you can to encourage others to do that, too. Now, you don’t become …
- Determination… In terms of the perfections, truth embodies the perfection of truth, the perfection of virtue, and the perfection of persistence—you really stick with this. As for relinquishment, that involves renunciation and generosity. Renunciation here doesn’t mean just giving up on things. Specifically, it means renouncing sensuality. Years back, I was reading an article saying that people don’t like the idea of …
- Shaping Your Breath, Shaping Your Life… As the Buddha says, you train it in discernment, you train it in virtue, you train it in the unlimited (by which it means unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity), and you train it so that it’s not easily overcome by pleasure or pain. With that state of mind, any past bad karma, when it yields its results, is barely going to …
- In Search of What’s Skillful… So this is something we should keep in mind all the way through our own practice, beginning with the practice of generosity, the practice of virtue, and on through meditation. You want to be very clear about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, what you anticipate, and then the results you actually get. As you get results, you have to learn …
- Perfection in an Imperfect World… After all, a part of developing perfections, of course, is developing the perfection of generosity and the perfection of virtue. These are the perfections with which you help the world as you’re helping yourself. With the perfection of renunciation, the Buddha is basically not talking simply about doing without. For him, renunciation means looking for your pleasures in places besides sensuality. That includes …
- Limitations… generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. That’s the traditional list of good qualities that you can develop as you go through life in the world. You aim at developing those qualities as much as you can. As for the effect you leave behind in the world, you do your best, realizing that there will be limitations. But the …
- Faith in the Buddha’s Awakening… In fact, it’s a virtue to believe in those things in spite of the fact that they’re very unreasonable: things like Original Sin, or the way redemption is supposed to come about. None of those things make any sense, and yet the idea is that if you have strong faith in them, that that will carry you through. So for many of …
- 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 …
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