Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. A Snare of Death Laid Out
     … After all, one of the ways we suffer is through sensual clinging. And one of the causes for suffering is sensual craving. “Sensuality” here doesn’t mean the pleasures in and of themselves. It means the mind’s fascination with planning them, all the embroidery we create around them, all the perceptions and feelings and thought constructs—verbal and mental fabrications. Often that’s … 
  3. Things as They’ve Come to Be
     … Look at where there’s stress, and that’s where you’ll see fabrication; where you see fabrication is where you see the ignorance that’s been causing you to suffer. As you bring more and more of that ignorance out into the open, there comes a point where it just stops — because you see even the slightest little things that would cause stress … 
  4. Success Through Maturity
     … To put an end to suffering requires really understanding the mind, training the mind, bringing the mind into states of concentration so that it can see itself clearly. That’s a big task. As with any big task, you need to be mature in how you approach it if you want to succeed. The first requirement is realizing that it has to be taken … 
  5. Smart About Lust
     … There is that possibility for the cessation of suffering. And it’s not just a blank lack of suffering, it’s a very positive well-being. Anything that stands in the way of that has a lot of drawbacks. This is why we bring out the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self to help underline the drawbacks of your fantasies so that you … 
  6. Descartes’ Error
     … Part of the Buddha’s map to the exits is realizing that life is made out of actions, the path is made out of actions, and because your thinking is a certain kind of action, you’ve got to learn how to put it to good use as part of the path to the end of suffering. So if you are going to be … 
  7. Appreciating Merit
     … Usually, running into suffering, running into stress are the things that finally force us to learn. So even though the teaching on merit is one that we tend to overlook or push off to the side here in the West, it’s something we really ought to bring back to center stage. It teaches us to appreciate the goodness of the mind, the goodness … 
  8. Motivation
     … And if you don’t work on the skills, there’s going to be a lot of suffering. If you do work on the skills, you can avoid the suffering. Heedfulness means you have a choice. It’s not just a matter seeing dangers and getting all upset and scared. It’s the heedfulness that allows you to develop skill because you know there … 
  9. The Buddha’s Medicine
     … So as a good precaution, you have to go on the assumption that as long as there’s suffering, as long as there’s stress, you’re still suffering from delusion. That means there’s always something new to learn. There’s always the possibility that you might be misreading the diagnosis or applying the wrong medicine. That’s why it’s important to … 
  10. Pleasant Practice, Painful Practice
     … If we do it in ignorance, it’s going to cause suffering. So we bring the other factors that shape our experience—our ways of directing our thoughts to a topic and evaluating it—and we apply them to the breath in a way that also gives rise to the way we shape the mind through feelings and perceptions. In other words, we have … 
  11. The Kamma of Self & Not-Self
     … By that he means if you feel like giving up on the path, you remind yourself that you embarked on this path to begin with because you wanted to put an end to suffering. And if you give up on the path, do you really love yourself? So those are cases where your sense of self as being responsible, as being capable, is necessary … 
  12. The Heart of the Teachings
     … He did it so that he could find the way to the end of suffering, and teach it to others so that they could find the end of suffering as well. So in putting his teaching in practice, we’re honoring his intention. At the same time, we’re benefitting. So focus on your breath, because that’s one of the Buddha’s teachings … 
  13. If at First You Don’t Succeed
     … He set out as our goal the end of suffering, and he describes it in different ways. There’s a passage in the Canon where he gives 33 different names for nibbāna: nibbāna being the image of a fire going out. Most of the names are metaphorical, either that or they’re negative descriptions describing what nibbāna does not have, because after all, nibbāna … 
  14. Right Livelihood
     … When pushed for the third time, he finally says, “When you’re in the midst of battle, giving rise to the desire for the killing of other beings — ’May these other beings suffer, may they be harmed, may they be killed’ — that mind state, if you die then, will take you to the hell of heroes who die in battle.” Like the actor, the … 
  15. Goodwill for the Real World
     … What would you gain, what would anybody gain, by seeing that person suffer? You think it through, and you realize that nothing would be gained. Then focus on what you’re doing as you think these thoughts. You’re engaging in directed thought and evaluation. That’s verbal fabrication. And you hold in mind those images—the images of the bandits sawing you into … 
  16. No Running Away
     … Honest goodwill goes through all the people, “Is there anybody out there that you really have trouble feeling goodwill for?” And you have to ask yourself, “Why? What do you gain by having ill will for somebody? Why would you want that person to suffer?” And part of your mind will say, “Well, they did this and they did that, either to me or … 
  17. Treating the Diseases of the Mind
     … We all have diseases in our minds—not necessarily the really heavy kinds of diseases that they put you in an institution for, but we do suffer from greed, aversion, and delusion. We suffer from the hindrances, the fetters. There are long, long lists of the problems of the mind. So we want to make sure we take the right medicine. When we think … 
  18. Appropriate Attention Plus Admirable Friendship
     … Remember, this is the path to the end of suffering. As the Buddha said, there are two factors that are important in leading to awakening: the internal factor is something he calls appropriate attention, the external factor is admirable friendship. Appropriate attention means seeing things in terms of the four noble truths and the duties of those truths. So when you remind yourself that … 
  19. On Being Non-reactive
     … pain, suffering, stress? The Buddha’s answer is that we’re not fully aware of what we’re doing. We’re not paying appropriate attention, seeing it in the terms of what we’re doing that’s causing stress and what we’re doing—or what we could do—to put an end to that stress. That requires that you step out of the … 
  20. In the Mood to Meditate
     … You recognize that the suffering you cause yourself and others is something that you can learn how not to do. You’re taking responsibility for it. And you’re going to learn the skills that help you to stop doing the cause that gives rise to suffering, whatever that cause may be. This is a good thing. There are so many people out there … 
  21. Three More Recollections
     … What, when you do it, will lead to long-term welfare and happiness? What when you do it, will lead to long-term harm and suffering? The Dhamma keeps you focused on what you’re doing right now, and the importance of what you’re doing right now. So having that kind of learning in your mind helps to catch you when you’re … 
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