Search results for: virtue
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- The Buddha’s Basic Therapy… He started out with what’s called a graduated discourse, building on really basic things like generosity and virtue. And even these build on a foundation, which is what’s called mundane right view. The way it’s expressed in the Canon is rather strange: It starts out by saying, “There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed; there is mother …
- Victory over Death… One of our strengths, of course, is meditation, training the mind, based on generosity, based on virtue. You develop good qualities of the heart and mind. It’s good to remember when training the mind that the Pali word for “mind,” citta, also means “heart.” So we’re not just training the thinking side of the mind. We’re also training the part of …
- Life Well Lived… look at your own life. He says there’s a way to put an end to suffering. Have you found it? Do you know how to do it? He gives instructions: virtue, concentration, discernment. Qualities we can develop in ourselves. One of the hardest ones is concentration, because it’s so easy for the mind to wander off. Catching the mind is like trying …
- New Feeding Habits… You don’t have to feed off your virtue; you don’t have to feed off your discernment. The goal is that good. The path is a good path. After all, learning to be a person of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—these are all good things: good things to do, ennobling things to do—which is one of the reasons why this is …
- Investment Strategies… There’s virtue, the realization that if you learn how to abstain from harmful behavior you’re not going to be weighed down by regret and unfortunate memories, because the regret tends to cause you to want to forget—and the desire to forget, of course, goes against mindfulness. I know people who’ve done things in their lives that they’ve regretted and …
- Hindrances to the Heightened Mind… You could think about the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, think about your generosity, think about your virtue. As long as you’ve got the energy to think, think about good things. And finally, uncertainty: Ask yourself, what’s wise about uncertainty? You’re looking for the allure of these hindrances, that’s basically what it comes down to. Why do you go for …
- Four Determinations… heightened virtue, heightened mind, heightened discernment. It’s all for the calm of nibbāna. Now, in the factors for awakening, where some of the factors for awakening are energizing and some are calm, you energize the body and the mind first. If you start out saying, “I’ll just calm things down,” sometimes you put yourself to sleep. So you learn how to energize …
- A Path Under the Trees… So, as the Buddha said, you are virtuous, but you no longer identify yourself around the virtues. When the mind is released from these fetters, things are a lot lighter inside. You’ve gained an inkling of what the Buddha was talking about. You don’t have a full experience of awakening yet, but you know that the deathless is true, and that that …
- To Begin the Day… As the Buddha said, your right views and your virtue are your most important possessions. For those to be maintained, the mind needs a good solid state of concentration. That’s what we’re working on here. So, now that you’ve established yourself here in the center, look into the center. What have you got here in this body that’s right next …
- Abandoning & Developing… Goodwill is one of those general virtues that’s extolled in almost all religious traditions, but the Buddha has a particular take on it, because when you’re wishing for happiness, you have to ask yourself: Where does happiness come from? It has to come from your actions. If you’re wishing goodwill for others, you’re hoping that their actions will be skillful …
- Staying Still… It’s interesting that in that verse we chanted just now, there’s a phrase, “respect for the training,” and the training, of course, covers virtue, concentration, and discernment. Then it comes back and emphasizes “respect for concentration.” The Buddha wants you to realize that this stillness of mind, this ability for the mind to just settle down and be still, requires extra respect …
- The Ennobling Path… It might be the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha; qualities of generosity, goodwill, any of the brahmaviharas ; the practice of virtue. Contemplate these things until the mind feels inspired. Once it gets lubricated, you can settle down with the breath again. And you find that the mind is willing to settle down and be still. So the practice of concentration is designed specifically …
- Cutting the Fetters… As the Buddha says, you’re virtuous, but you’re not made of virtue. In other words, you stick with the precepts, you stick with the good habits the Buddha taught, but you don’t create any identity around them. You don’t take pride in the fact that you’re virtuous and other people are not. You see the precepts more as medicine …
- Accepting the Way Things Function… If you’re feeling discouraged, think thoughts about your generosity and your virtue: the good that you’ve done. Think in a way that gets the mind more and more in the mood to meditate. Then you can focus on the breath. Here, again, it’s not just awareness of the breath. There are also your perceptions, your visualizations. How do you visualize the …
- Feeding your Attack Dogs… As you look and listen and think in the course of the day, ask yourself, “Is this really helping in the practice, or am I feeding these attack dogs?” Years back, when Ajaan Suwat was asked about how to bring meditation into the course of your daily life, he focused on the issue of precepts and virtue: Sila is the Pali word. Ordinarily when …
- Why We Train the Mind… When you’ve had enough of that, you say, “Maybe there’s another way out, another way to happiness.” You start looking inside, looking into this practice of training the mind through generosity, through virtue, through meditation. You see that you really can change the direction of the mind to look for happiness in new places, to look for happiness in new ways—like …
- Respect for Happiness… the training in virtue—in other words, learning to abstain from things that harm yourself and harm other people; and training in concentration like we’re doing right now—learning to be mindful and alert, developing your strength of mind to stay with one thing consistently, to really learn from it, to really observe it, both so that you gain knowledge and so that …
- Even Animals Can Be Trained… The beauty represents the beauty of a monk’s virtue. The strength represents the right effort that’s needed for concentration. And the speed represents discernment. You have to remember that we’re trying to get the mind to settle down, and it requires some discernment in order to get it settled down right, because you’re trying to keep the mind in a …
- The Duties of Happiness… That’s at the end of the path, when you’ve taken care of all the members of the mind, and the mind gets more and more unified in its agreement that this is the way you want to find happiness, based on this path of virtue, concentration, and discernment, with concentration the big middle ground that gets the mind right here in the …
- Commit, Reflect, Discern… practice in virtue, practice in concentration, practice in discernment. We reflect on these things—and the fact that things are inconstant, stressful, not-self, as we chanted just now; the fact that we’re subject to aging, illness, and death—not to get depressed, but to motivate ourselves to take on the training. After all, the Buddha didn’t simply lay out a theory …
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