Search results for: virtue
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- A Good Line to Watch… We have the merit of generosity, the merit of virtue. Now it’s time to develop the merit of meditation, developing good qualities in the mind. After all, that’s what generosity and virtue are all about, preparing the mind to focus directly on its own well-being. It’s also why, in the old days, when the Buddha received gifts, he would give …
- Unchanged by Loss… The serious loss is when you lose your virtue or your right view. The things of the world, the people of the world, are all subject to aging, illness, and death. These losses will happen no matter what you do. But you can keep yourself from losing your virtue or right view. There’s that passage where King Pasenadi has come to see the …Show 13 additional results in this book
- The Buddha’s Currency… From generosity you’d go to virtue, from virtue you’d go to the rewards of generosity and virtue, and then realizing that you can make the mind even higher than that. Because the whole purpose of the teaching is to take what we have here—the things we have around us, the things we have in our mind—and develop them in such …
- Meaning in a Meaningless Universe… Someone once asked Ajaan Mun if virtue was somehow separate from your mind. He replied, “How could it be? Your virtue is in your intentions, and your intentions are definitely part of your own mind. And if your virtue could be separated from your mind, people would do just that. They’d come and steal your virtues. But because they can’t be separated …
- Investing in Noble Wealth… You’re not going to harm yourself, you’re not going to harm other people in anything you do or say or in terms of the virtues of the mind: the virtue of avoiding excessive greed, of avoiding ill will, and of developing right view. Shame and compunction go along with this. Shame here is the healthy sense of shame that focuses on realizing …
- Generosity & Virtue as Skills… So when you approach the issue of virtue as a skill or as a series of skills, it helps to develop the right attitudes, the right inner voices—the ones that learn how to say No in an effective way, the ones that can encourage you and give you a sense of gladness over the fact that you have virtue. In other words, virtue …
- Overcoming Fear… This relates to virtue and right view. It also relates to the quality the Buddha calls *ottappa—*compunction: the fear that comes when you think about the fact that you could behave in unskillful ways and, as long as you haven’t had your first taste of awakening, it’s always possible that you could lose your virtue, lose your right view. We live …
- A Slave to Craving… But inside, the results of the effort stay with you, especially if you take the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment to its total end. The passage a preceptor teaches a young monk says, “Concentration, when fostered by virtue, or infused with virtue, is of great fruit, great benefit.” And concentration really does lead to a sense of well-being. You focus here on …
Still, Flowing Water
Becoming a Samaṇa
… So just as he took those people and trained them to practice so as to attain the noble paths and fruitions, we today take the same sort of people to practice—to develop virtue, develop concentration, develop discernment. Virtue, concentration, and discernment are the names of our practices. When we practice virtue, practice concentration, and practice discernment, we practice right at ourselves. We practice …Show 3 additional results in this book- Working at Home… These are some of the virtues developed as you learn how to live wisely with other meditators, live wisely in a group. Psychologists call these virtues healthy ego-functioning, and even though the Buddha never talked in terms of ego-functioning, he definitely did teach these virtues as part of the path. So you try to use your concentration as a tool in developing …Show 7 additional results in this book
- An Inside Job… After all, part of the training is in generosity and in virtue, and these things directly impact the people around us. But your generosity and your virtue need some support from inside. Otherwise, if you’re producing goodness but nothing seems to come up inside as a resource for your goodness, it gets dry pretty quickly. But when you get the pleasure of meditation …
- Control from Within… As we practice, we tend to overlook these teachings on generosity and virtue. After all, generosity is a pretty generic virtue. Every society talks about it. A lot of the precepts are things that we’ve learned from our own society, and we see them in many, many other societies, too. That’s part of the Buddha’s point, but he takes it a …
- True Happiness Starts with Giving… There were people who actually said that there was no virtue to giving at all. The argument was that everything you do is predetermined by either the stars, or some creator, or your past karma, so that when you actually give something, you didn’t have any choice in the matter, which means there’s no virtue in it. Another argument was that people …
- The Psychology of Virtue… In the Dhamma textbook for the first level of the exams that these books were designed for, they defined virtue as “restraint of body and speech.” Someone brought this to Ajaan Mun’s attention, and he said, “That’s wrong. It doesn’t mention the mind at all. The mind is the important part of the virtue.” When you look at the training rules …
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The Sublime Attitudes
3. Mettā in Words & Deeds
… He emulates consummate conviction in those who are consummate in conviction, consummate virtue in those who are consummate in virtue, consummate generosity in those who are consummate in generosity, and consummate discernment in those who are consummate in discernment. This is called admirable friendship.” — AN 8:54 §3.4 As he was sitting there, Prince Abhaya said to the Blessed One, “Lord, would the …Show 4 additional results in this book
- Make the Most of This Breath… It’s because of this that the Buddha said that virtue and discernment wash each other—and by virtue here he meant not only virtue but also concentration as well. Virtue and concentration, on the one hand, and discernment on the other, he said, are like two hands. When you’re washing your hands, your left hand washes your right hand, your right hand …
- Switzerland Inside… That’s what the qualities of virtue, shame, and compunction are for. Virtue is basically refraining from doing anything that would be harmful, and that’s reinforced by a sense of shame. Not the unhealthy sense of shame that’s the opposite of pride: The Buddha recommends the healthy sense of shame that’s the opposite of shamelessness. In other words, you have a …
- The Graduated Discourse… From generosity or giving, he would move onto virtue, which is also a kind of gift. You give safety to yourself, safety to others, through restraint. Virtue for the Buddha is mainly an issue of restraint. You refrain from killing, stealing, illicit sex, lying, and taking intoxicants. That way, you protect yourself and you protect others. You give the gift of safety to them …
- Dhamma Opportunism… And even though these may be virtues you don’t want to develop, they’re still virtues, and there’s a good lesson in learning how not to give in to your wants. So look around. Look for the opportunities. After all, if people can be opportunistic about wanting to do evil, why can’t we be opportunistic about wanting to do good, to …
- Worry… There’s a passage in the Ajaan Mun biography where someone comes and asks Ajaan Mun about the relationship between virtue and the mind. And Ajaan Mun says that you can’t separate the two. If you could separate the two, there’d be cases where people’s virtue could be stolen. But the truth is, if you have the virtue, nobody can steal …
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