Search results for: "Suffering"

  1. Page 105
  2. A Mirror for the Mind
     … In particular, it’ll show us how to find happiness by understanding where we cause suffering, because all the suffering that weighs the mind down comes out of the mind. But because it’s so difficult to look directly at the mind, we have to look in a mirror. It’s like trying to look directly at our own face. If you cross your … 
  3. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … Right view focuses you on the issue of suffering and what can be done to put an end to suffering. Right resolve deals with the ways that you make up your mind that you’re going to follow the path: You’ll try to put aside your sensual obsessions, put aside ill will, put aside thoughts of harmfulness. Then you’ve got to focus … 
  4. The Good Side of Kamma
     … The reason the larger cycles are so full of suffering is because our actions are unskillful, and our actions are so unskillful because we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing right here, right now. So this is why we meditate, to pay more attention, to be clear about what’s happening and in particular about what we’re doing. As you … 
  5. Practicing Meditation to Perform at Death
     … Reflect on the fact that even devas suffer from self-identity, identifying with the aggregates one way or another, either identifying with the aggregates themselves or feeling that they are someone who possesses these aggregates, wants to use them as tools, or they’re in the aggregates, or the aggregates are in them. Even a state of infinite consciousness: You can develop a sense … 
  6. Inner Civil War
     … As Ajaan Lee points out, there’s the suffering that comes from just having a body, and that’s natural. But the suffering that comes from defilements is not natural and it’s not necessary. It’s simply a bad habit you’ve picked up. This is one of the reasons why we work with the precepts. They give us some clear lines that … 
  7. Stress
     … For example, the three perceptions are teachings on discernment, so they fall in the context of the questions that lie at the basis of discernment: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What when I do it will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? What’s skillful? What’s unskillful? What’s blameless? What’s … 
  8. Motivation
     … We realize that if we act in unskillful ways, there’s going to be suffering down the line. Our actions really do make a difference. If our actions didn’t make a difference, heedfulness wouldn’t be a really worthwhile attitude to have. Regardless of what you did, it wouldn’t have any effect on anything so it wouldn’t matter what you do … 
  9. Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)
     … I’ve been reading some books on the noble eightfold path, and the general message they give is that we suffer because we have the wrong map of reality: that inside we believe there’s a permanent self, and outside we believe that there’s a permanent happiness. And because of that wrong map, we make a lot of wrong decisions. We react to … 
  10. Appreciating Your Practice
     … He judged his meditation based on the level of stress and suffering still in the mind, and the types of stress and suffering that had been abandoned. So focus on what you’re doing right now and try to be sensitive to what’s changing, realizing that it will sometimes take a while to see progress. One of the images in the Canon is … 
  11. Mindfulness Island
     … Your actions are going to have consequences and you’d rather not add to the suffering that’s already there in your life. Try to keep these two qualities in mind. Keep in mind the fact that someone in this world system we live in has found the end of suffering, has found that it can be attained through human effort. The teaching of … 
  12. Capture Your Imagination
    One of the Buddha’s teachings that we don’t like to hear is that it’s through persistent effort that we put an end to suffering and stress. We don’t like to hear it because we think persistent effort means drudgery, a chore. But that’s not necessarily the case. The Buddha talks about bringing joy to the practice, finding happiness, finding … 
  13. Learning How to Learn
     … That’s why the Buddha taught, so that we could learn how to stop suffering, which means that we have to learn how to change our actions, improve our actions, master our thoughts and words and deeds as skills. Because it’s only then that we have any hope to get beyond the suffering we keep causing ourselves.
  14. Alone & Together
     … We wouldn’t know that there was a path to the deathless or that the end of suffering could be found—so we’d be lost. So, we need to spend time with admirable friends. This is one of the reasons why young monks, as they get started, are told to look for seclusion but also to stay with the teacher. The seclusion is … 
  15. Strengthening Your Goodness
     … to comprehend the way the mind creates suffering for itself, to abandon the cause, to realize the cessation of suffering by developing the path. It may seem a little disconcerting that here are even more duties for you, but these are the ones that are for the sake of your true happiness. So give them the space and the priority they deserve.
  16. Mending the Social Fabric
     … There are a lot of people suffering out there right now. We all have our own connections with people who are suffering, but the fact that we’re able to meditate means that we’ve got an opportunity to do something good. Spread thoughts of goodwill around. You create a good energy around yourself that way. And the world needs more good energy of … 
  17. No Mistakes Are Fatal
     … the fact that it’s creating suffering for itself. Its every action is aimed at happiness, but it’s creating suffering for itself. That’s the big problem in life. Only the practice can solve it. And the practice is an activity that gives results only when you’re willing to be patient and experiment and learn from your mistakes. So that’s what … 
  18. In Charge of Your Moods
     … Yet, as the Buddha says, it’s because of the mind that there’s suffering in the world—because of the way the mind processes things. Sometimes things can be perfectly fine outside, and yet the mind can use them to make itself miserable. But it can also develop a skill: that no matter what things are like outside, it can be fine. What … 
  19. Agreements to Perceive
     … So much of our suffering comes from our belief that we don’t have a choice. A particular sensation comes up, and we immediately label it as a pain. Then it becomes a pain, a Big Thing. It becomes solid and grabs on to a certain part of the body. But look at the sensation of that pain. Which parts of the sensation are … 
  20. Remembering Ajaan Suwat
     … What does this do to the mind? Does it lead to the end of suffering, as the Buddha promised? The Buddha made virtue—in the factors of right action, right speech, and right livelihood—an essential part of the path. Why is it essential? The only way to know is through practice. The same with concentration: The Buddha sets out the pattern for right … 
  21. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … In fact, we identify ourselves with our suffering. As the Buddha said, suffering comes from clinging to the five aggregates. And what is our identity made out of? Out of the clinging to those same five aggregates. We identify with our suffering. So of course it’s going to be hard to let go as long as we say, “This is me” and “This … 
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