Search results for: "Suffering"

  1. Page 118
  2. Friends with The Breath
     … The other is the pain doesn’t go away, but you can be with the pain, and the mind doesn’t suffer. But if you’re analyzing the pain, and it’s just getting too much, you’re not getting anywhere with it, then go back to the comfortable parts of the body. Those are your safe place. The pain can have the other … 
  3. The Second Frame of Reference
     … So simply having that perception that you have a role to play in how much pain there’s going to be, and how much suffering there’s going to be: That gives you the confidence to face down a lot of pains that otherwise you couldn’t stand. This is what mindfulness of feelings is all about: learning how to see the intentional element … 
  4. Befriending the Breath
     … Once you develop this good relationship with your breath, then it’s a lot easier to be on good terms with the people around you, and to be really helpful to them, because you’re not burdening yourself down with unnecessary suffering. That way you have more energy to help the people around you, to deal with whatever their issues are. So it comes … 
  5. In Line with the Dhamma
     … The Buddha came and basically said that there is an end of suffering, and anybody can do it. Yet there were still people who clung to their old beliefs and attacked him. They would rather be unhappy in their way than happy in the Buddha’s way. As we practice, we have to ask ourselves if we have that attitude as well. There’s … 
  6. Overcoming Fear
     … Some people say, “Here you are with your eyes closed, looking after your own mind, when so many people in the world are suffering.” But you have to ask yourself, “What are you responsible for?” The very first thing you’re responsible for is your actions. If you can’t trust your actions, how can anybody else trust them? You have to make your … 
  7. Training Your Minds
     … Remember that as you’re sitting here thinking black thoughts about those people, who’s suffering? You’re the one who’s suffering. They’re pretty oblivious, usually. Yet here you are all worked up. For what purpose? Have some compassion for yourself. Part of the mind will say, “Well, if I don’t think about this hard enough, justice won’t be done … 
  8. On the Surface of Things
     … That’s where the problem of stress and suffering happen, and that’s the level on which it can be solved.
  9. Urgency & Contentment
     … As long as there’s attachment, the mind is leaving itself open to all kinds of suffering. So the skills you develop with the breath to cut through that attachment are very important, because we have this house not just for relaxing. It’s also a place where we can work in comfort—this house of the breath, this home for the mind. So … 
  10. Do Jhana
     … Now, it is true that there are many of us in this society who are suffering from a negative body image. But that’s an unhealthy negative body image. Society is teaching you that your body’s ugly while certain people’s bodies are beautiful. But this contemplation reminds you that everybody’s body are made up of the same things. It’s a … 
  11. Fear & Conviction
     … He’d been in an automobile accident and had suffered brain injury. He mentioned to me one time that his brain was sending him very weird perceptions. But he’d trained his mind and so he could recognize them as weird perceptions. Then he went on to say, “But that thing I got from my meditation: That hasn’t changed.” That thing is our … 
  12. Unparadoxical Happiness
     … Even the cessation of suffering is something you have to realize. But once it’s realized, there’s nothing more that needs to be done.
  13. Self Power, Other Power
     … He didn’t have a tradition that told him that there’s a path to the end of suffering, a way to the Deathless. All he had was his conviction that life wouldn’t be worth living unless he could find a happiness that wasn’t affected by aging, illness. and death. And he couldn’t live with himself unless he actually gave it … 
  14. The Path of Giving
     … You read about the results of the practice—states of peace, states of calm, states of total freedom from suffering—and you want them. That’s a good desire. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that it’s bad or wrong, that you’re supposed to get rid of that desire. After all, without that desire, what would you have? Why would you … 
  15. Respect
     … He sets out a path that leads to the end of suffering that’s been tested for thousands of years. So we should be willing to put aside some of our preferences and give a little extra time, a little extra space, a little more patience to the path—and we’ll be amply rewarded. That’s the lesson of respect: If we give … 
  16. Stern Kindness
     … That’s the teaching on suffering and stress. And as for the statement, “The world has nothing of its own,” the king says, "Look, I have all this money, all these treasures stored away. How can you say the world has nothing of its own?” And Ratthapala replies, “Can you take that with you when you die?” “No, I’ve got to leave it … 
  17. The Real World
     … And they’re going to suffer as a result. But you take advantage of the opportunity you have to do good. That becomes yours. So there’s no need to resent those who are not doing good along with us. This is an important attitude you need to participate in this economy of gifts we have here, where the more you give, the more … 
  18. Deep Understanding
     … You see directly how the mind is causing itself suffering. It’s not a theoretical proposition. Now, you can understand it on the level of theory, you can listen to it being described, but as Ajaan Lee once said, if insight were simply a matter of things you could listen to, he could explain it all in less than three hours. But for actually … 
  19. Making the Dhamma Your Own
     … Otherwise we’ll suffer in a way that’s not necessary, and that serves no purpose at all. Aging comes, and you find that certain of your body functions no longer work. There’s a great passage in the Canon where a king says that when he was young he thought he had the strength of two men, but now that he’s 80 … 
  20. A Sense of Entitlement
     … You think about all the suffering that goes into making sure that we have the food we need to keep this body going, the clothing, the shelter, the medicine — not only from the work we ourselves have done to get these things, but also all the work and sacrifices that other beings make so that we can have them. So we come to the … 
  21. Negativity
     … His overriding purpose was to get people out of suffering. So you tell yourself, “I’m here for the sake of true happiness.” Then you extend thoughts of goodwill to the people you’ve wronged, and then thoughts of goodwill to everybody. If the mistake you made to begin with was based on ill will, you tell yourself you have no reason to repeat … 
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