Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Worldly Equanimity & Its Uses
     … the goal of freedom from suffering. So he’s teaching you the equanimity of a person with a goal. Think of a warrior trying to win a battle. The warrior has to be very stable, with a mind that’s on an even keel, that doesn’t get upset by things, so that he or she can figure the way out of a particular … 
  3. The Lessons of Good Kamma
     … In the same way, if you develop an expansive mind, the results coming from past actions, even though they may be large crystals of salt, don’t necessarily mean you have to suffer. So when the Buddha’s teaching kamma, it’s not primarily for the purpose of making you feel guilty or bad about what you’ve done in the past. He always … 
  4. Breathing to Awakening
     … On the one hand, you have to accept the things you cannot change, but you also have to have an attitude of defiance—that, whatever opportunity you have not to suffer, you’re going to take it. This is why we look into the qualities of the mind. As we get older, the strength of the body goes down, but the mind doesn’t … 
  5. Seeing Through Your Defilements
     … And the path to the end of suffering is a path to the end of that addiction. Even though it may be difficult to let go of some things that, even though you know they’re bad for you, you continue doing them, it’s when you really understand them and can look at them squarely and not get blown away by them: That … 
  6. The Shape of a Circle
     … There will come a point where you finally get it just right and you can leave the system entirely—this system of suffering, this system of things that are inconstant, stressful, not-self, conditioned, unreliable. You don’t have to go anywhere else, just stay in the circle, stay in the ellipse, and someday you’ll be totally free, even of the ellipse. So … 
  7. Inner Wealth
     … The two remaining forms of wealth are learning, learning of the Dhamma—in other words, figuring out, learning what the Buddha had to say, the teachings that help us look for the causes of suffering inside and also look for the cessation of suffering inside through qualities we can develop inside—and then discernment, learning how to apply those teachings so that we get … 
  8. What You’re Bringing
     … And the reason why what we bring to the situation causes suffering is because it’s all done in ignorance. So when we meditate, we’re trying to shine a light into that area, both for the body and in the mind. The thing about ignorance, though, is that it’s not just an empty space. We have our ways of filling in the … 
  9. Stay
     … You see what causes suffering, what doesn’t cause suffering. It’s all right here, but you need the discipline to keep yourself at this point of reference where everything shows itself and where everything can be tested. So when you want to reflect on what’s going on in your life, here is where you find that you haven’t been able to … 
  10. Cutting the Fetters
     … the same aggregates that go into your sense of self; the same aggregates that, when you cling to them, are suffering. But here you have them in a very pleasant state. You’ve got the breath, which is form. You’ve got the feeling of pleasure that goes with the breath: That’s feeling. You’ve got the perception that holds you with the … 
  11. Good Heart, Good Mind
     … Not holding any grudges against anyone, not wishing to see anybody suffer. But a good heart requires more than goodwill. On the one hand, it needs guidance. It can’t simply go on good intentions and hope that that will take care of everything. Think of the Buddha’s instructions to his son. You look at your actions before you do them in terms … 
  12. Diagnosing the Mind
     … But what you do know is that if the mind is prepared, it’s going to be able to face those things without having to suffer. And the preparation will come from where? It’ll come from developing mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment here in the present moment. As for moods that you like or don’t like, as the Buddha said those are … 
  13. Driving Lessons
     … In this case, we’re here to develop peace of mind, to gain insight, to understand why it is that we’re causing unnecessary suffering for ourselves. To understand that, we have to get the mind to settle down so that it can observe itself clearly. And to get the mind to settle down, you’ve got to give it a good place to … 
  14. Expanding Your Awareness
     … You realize that there has been a lot of suffering in providing those things. Some beings gave their lives—and not willingly. There are the people who’ve had to help in the transport of these things, in the preparation, and it finally gets to you, simply because you’ve got this body that needs these things. They say in the suttas that one … 
  15. Stay with the Breath
     … Yet the only way you can get around unskillful thinking, any kind of thinking that creates suffering, is to look at the process, to see how jerry-rigged the whole thing is, how arbitrary it is: all the make-believe that the mind engages in, all the messages it sends back and forth that say, “Make-believe this is this, and that’s that … 
  16. In the Mood
     … You can get thrown through the windshield or suffer whiplash. But if you learn how to think in ways that are for your own true benefit — like the things we chant about every evening, which are always beneficial to think about — then when the time comes for the mind to settle down and think less and less and less and get more and more … 
  17. The Kamma of Concentration
     … They get killed once, but you may have to endure a long, long time of suffering because of that action. If you want to harm other people, he said, you get them to break the precepts because, after all, they’re agents, too. They’re engaging in actions and they’re going to be experiencing happiness or pain based on their actions. So when … 
  18. The Raft
     … Which means that we take these different aggregates that we use usually to make ourselves suffer and put them to a new and better purpose. That’s what the Buddha meant when he said that you take the twigs and the branches and the leaves on this side of the river and you make them into a raft. You take what you’ve got … 
  19. Growing Up Inside
     … The other quality is restraint, realizing there are a lot of things that you might like to do, and that the children in your mental committee might like to do, but if you give in to those impulses, it’s going to be bad; you’re going to suffer. This is another reason why we have the meditation to fall back on. The sense … 
  20. Respect for the Precepts
     … The precepts, though, are for you to look at your actions and to figure out where you’re causing unnecessary stress and suffering. They’re elemental to the practice. If you hold to them carefully, you have to start looking at your whole life a lot more carefully, too. That way, you can detect attachments you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And only when … 
  21. A Recipe for Jhana
     … When you’re sick, when you’re bored, when you’re anxious, whatever the situation outside, you realize, “I may not be able to change the situation outside, but I can change my perception so that I don’t have to suffer so much. And when I’m not adding any excess suffering, this makes things lighter for other people as well.” So there … 
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