Concentration Nurtured with Virtue
July 23, 2009
The Buddha once said that concentration, when nurtured by virtue, has great fruit, great reward. Now, he wasn’t saying that you can’t do concentration without virtue. There are many examples around of people who have very strong powers of concentration but very little virtue at all. What he was saying is that if you want your concentration to yield great fruit—in terms of bringing about the discernment that leads to release—it has to be done in the context of life where you’re trying to be virtuous in your actions, taking your actions and your words seriously, and also taking seriously their impact both on yourself and on others.