Search results for: virtue
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- 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 …
- 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 …
Merit
Introduction
… giving, virtue, and meditation. The next three sections focus on the ways in which each of these activities can be pursued so as to produce the most happiness. For instance, the section on giving discusses how the happiness of generosity can be maximized by wisely choosing the proper motivation for giving a gift, a proper gift, and a proper recipient for one’s gift …Show 6 additional results in this book- A Graduated Discourse… If the Buddha saw that the person listening to the talk was receptive and had some experience with generosity, he’d go on to virtue: abstaining from killing, stealing, illicit sex, lying, and taking intoxicants. Virtue, too, is gift, a gift of safety. He’d talk about the benefits of virtue both, again, social and individual: social in the sense that you’re creating …
- Lift Your Mind… Even when we do the external practices of generosity and virtue, the emphasis is on the mind, what qualities of mind you’re developing. When you give a gift, you’re developing a sense of inner worth and inner wealth—that you have more than enough to share. Even in difficult times, the Buddha says it’s always wise to give a gift. Maintain …
- Virtue & Right View… As he said, if you lose virtue and right view, then it’s a serious loss. Loss of your relatives, loss of your wealth, loss of your health—even though those they may be serious, they’re not nearly as serious as losing your precepts and losing your views, right views. So maintain those as your precious possessions as you go through the day …
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An Unentangled Knowing
Part II : Breath Meditation Condensed
… The same holds true with virtue, concentration, and discernment. They’re our tools—and we need a full set. We need the discernment that comes with Right View and the virtue that comes with self-discipline. Virtue is very important. Virtue and discernment are like our right and left hands. If one of our hands is dirty, it can’t wash itself. You need …Show 2 additional results in this book
- Happy in the Doing… generosity, virtue, meditation. Notice he says that the act itself is a kind of happiness. It’s not the case that you have to work hard and sweat and then hope for a reward later on. In the act itself, you know that you’re doing something good that’s leading to happiness for you and for others, something that’s harming nobody at …
- Pleasing to the Noble Ones… training in heightened virtue, heightened mind—or heightened concentration—and heightened discernment. They’re listed in that order to give you a sense of the order in which they’re mastered. When you reach stream-entry, you’ve mastered virtue. You have some mastery of concentration and some mastery of discernment. It’s not as if you start doing concentration only after stream-entry …
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A Meditator’s Tools
The First Six Recollections
… And how is the defiled mind cleansed through the proper technique? There is the case where a disciple of the noble ones recollects his own virtues.… As he is recollecting virtue, his mind is cleansed, and joy arises; the defilements of his mind are abandoned. He is thus called a disciple of the noble ones undertaking the virtue-uposatha. He lives with virtue. It …Show 3 additional results in this book
- Freedom from Fear… your virtue and your right views. If you look at your behavior and keep to the precepts, that’s the quality that develops all kinds of good qualities in the mind. Ajaan Mun was once asked if you could divide a person’s mind from his or her precepts. He said, “No, it’s a quality of the mind in and of itself.” Then …
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Noble Conversation : A Study Guide
VI. Virtue
… Virtue Better than a hundred years lived without virtue, uncentered, is one day lived by a virtuous person absorbed in jhāna. — Dhp 110 Virtue is a blessing into old age. — Dhp 333 “Now, there are these five gifts, five great gifts—original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, unadulterated from the beginning—that are not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and …Show 2 additional results in this book
- Visakha Puja… the middle way, which essentially is composed of three things—virtue, concentration, and discernment. The symbolism of our circumambulation right now relates to that. The incense relates to virtue. There’s a saying that the scent of incense can’t go against the wind, but that the fragrance of a person’s virtues does go against the wind. In other words, the appeal of …
- The Power of Focus… So how do you protect yourself? You begin with virtue, like those precepts we took just now. You remind yourself, “Okay, there are certain forms of harm I’m not going to engage in.” When you don’t do those forms of harm, the harm won’t come to you. The Buddha’s image is of a hand carrying poison. He says if there …
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The Divine Mantra (Ajaan Fuang Version)
Part II: Chanting
… The chant for each of the remaining properties is identical with the chant for the wind property, i.e., (1) the passage on the Buddha’s virtues, (2) the passage on the Dhamma’s virtues, (3) the passage on the Saṅgha’s virtues, followed by the passage beginning, ‘Dhātu-parisuddhānubhāvena….’ Only the name of the property is changed: 2. Fire property: Tejo ca buddha …Show one additional result in this book
- Free to Choose… To practice virtue frees us from all the defilements that would cause us to harm ourselves. To practice meditation frees us from all the internal delusions that make us suffer. So this is where real freedom is found. It’s not found out there in constitutions and bills of rights. It’s found in the fact that the mind doesn’t have to be …
- Strength from the Basics… generosity, virtue, and meditation; or virtue, concentration, and discernment. Keep focusing on the basics, even when they seem awfully simple. Virtue, for instance, consists of the intention to hold by the precepts, to hold by the rules. It may not feel very creative to hold to rules rather than expressing yourself, but then again there are parts of life where self-expression and creativity …
- Succeeding at Happiness… You want to succeed at generosity, succeed at virtue, and succeed at meditation. Despite what you may sometimes hear, that there is no such thing as a good or a bad meditation, there really is. Good meditation helps you to settle down. The mind is still, satisfied, nourished by the meditation. It can be done. The same principle applies to generosity and virtue. You …
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