Search results for: "Suffering"

  1. Page 109
  2. Arising & Passing Away
     … He says that discernment means seeing things arising and passing away in a way that’s penetrating and leads to the right ending of suffering. There’s a lot to unpack there, because you can see things arising and passing away and say, “Okay, I see things arising and passing away, big deal. I see it all the time.” But how do you do … 
  3. A Foundation for Restraint
     … So if you really are earnest about training your mind, really are earnest about trying to see if there’s some way you can lessen its burdens and relieve its suffering, then meditation can’t be simply a matter of what you do when you sit with your eyes closed or when you’re doing formal walking meditation. It’s how you engage the … 
  4. Patience & Urgency
     … Lucky in the sense that we get to hear the message that it is possible to put an end to suffering, that it is possible through the development of virtue, concentration, and discernment to find something deathless. We’re unlucky because we tend to bring all these notions into the practice and we want to see the results right away. We have everything all … 
  5. Hindrances
     … So the best way to resolve issues where someone has behaved in a bad way is not to have ill will for them and not to want to see them suffer. It’s to want to see them recognize that they’ve been doing wrong, and voluntarily change their ways. That way, you can spread goodwill to them, because that’s what goodwill means … 
  6. Heedfulness for the Holidays
     … You see what their problems are – where they’re suffering – and you have compassion. You have goodwill for them. But at the same time, you don’t let yourself be influenced by them. You’ve got to keep your protection up. The other quality of being a well-protected warrior, of course, is knowing which battles to pick. Sometimes you’re ready to fight … 
  7. Voices in the Mind
     … Now you’re creating less suffering for yourself, and the people around you suffer less as well. So have a sense of the range of tools available to you. And remind yourself of the possibility of not having to identify with these voices. For a lot of people just that possibility, the possibility of choice, is revolutionary. Then after realizing you have the choice … 
  8. Talking to Yourself
     … You want to be happy, free from oppression, free from suffering. Then you realize you’re not the only one. Everybody wants to be happy, free from oppression, free from suffering. That movement from just thinking about yourself to thinking about everybody is an important part of settling down, because it’s so easy to get involved in your own narrative and forget about … 
  9. Sensuality
     … All the strife in the world, the suffering is obvious. It’s easy to look at ourselves when we’re really angry at somebody, or have a lot of ill will and see that the mind is on fire. It’s not a pleasant place to be. The drawbacks of sensuality, though, are harder to see. This is where the mind gets really resistant … 
  10. Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt
     … Nothing is accomplished by making those people suffer. There’s no need for them to suffer before they can come to their senses and realize that they’re actions are wrong. Remember that they, too, are active beings, and goodwill means wishing for the happiness that comes from their own actions. In other words, they have to see that what they’re doing is … 
  11. Don’t Underestimate Merit
     … Many of us come to meditation because we’ve got particular problems that cause suffering in our lives. Something’s wrong, something’s lacking, something’s eating away at our hearts. We have a sense that meditation might be able to do something for that. That’s a perfectly fine motivation for coming. And when the Buddha taught the four noble truths, suffering was … 
  12. The Endurance of a Long-distance Runner
     … You notice the perceptions you hold in mind, and the feelings you focus on so that you don’t have to suffer from these things. They’re there, but they don’t invade the mind. That’s the important thing. We endure them as they happen to us in the body, in our ears, but we don’t allow unskillful thoughts to develop around … 
  13. A Gentle Touch
     … What you come to see as you meditate ultimately is the mind’s own abuse of itself, its own mistreatment of itself, causing itself to suffer in ways that it doesn’t have to. A lot of these lessons are things we don’t want to learn, which is why we have to put the mind in a relaxed, calm, steady state, with a … 
  14. Dissolving Distress
     … to realize that you have this power, and you can develop this skill—at the same time realizing that if you don’t develop the skill, you’re just going to keep on suffering, even though the suffering could be brought to an end. So you try to make the breath interesting while you try to make the world uninteresting. You do this with … 
  15. Clinging & Its Cure
     … The problem is that we can also fabricate things pretty sloppily, with a lot of ignorance, and we end up causing suffering. The way out, of course, as the Buddha says, is to fabricate a path. You take those aggregates and turn them into concentration; you turn them into a right view; you turn them into all the factors of the path. That will … 
  16. The Kamma of Self & Not-self
     … Actually, the Buddha asks you to imagine a lot of things, to open up your imagination to the possibility that there could be an end to suffering and that it’s something you can attain through your own efforts. Can you imagine that? Try to get your head around that idea and think about what it means for your life. Then examine everything you … 
  17. The Karma of Perception
     … The Buddha’s message is that if you find you’re shaping them in a way that’s causing stress or suffering, you could shape them in another way. You could apply other perceptions. The trick is learning how to make the new perceptions stick. This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration. You’re holding a perception in mind, the perception … 
  18. A Safe Harbor
     … We do so many things that cause suffering not only for ourselves but also for other people. So who can you depend on? Where can you find true safety? It’s in response to that need for safety that the Buddha offered his teachings. On a relative level, there’s the safety of following the path, the safety it provides for you and for … 
  19. A Mind like Wind
     … Is that really true? Is it really beneficial? Is this really the right time to be thinking that thing? Why should I believe that story if it makes me suffer? In this way, you learn how to free yourself from a lot of influences that otherwise would take over your mind and then stay there ensconced for days on end. This ability to be … 
  20. The Basic Medicine
     … Everyone comes up here wounded in one way or another, suffering either from things outside or from things inside. At the time of the Buddha people were suffering from greed, anger, and delusion just as we are. With modern culture, modern society, it seems as if we have more diseases of the mind, more complex ways of getting involved in creating delusion, but they … 
  21. Here to Learn
     … The structure of the way in which each of us creates suffering is the same. Now, some of the details will be different, but the main structure in terms of the fact that the suffering is in the clinging; that the clinging comes from craving, the kind of craving that leads to more becoming; and that craving can be ended by following the path … 
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