Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. The Identity Crutch
     … You’re looking at things that you’re identifying with and seeing that they are causing you to suffer, so you learn how to let go. Simply that as the practice progresses, you get a more and more refined sense of how to draw the line and seeing how there’s less and less territory that you really want to lay claim to as … 
  3. Staying True
     … There have been times in the past when you didn’t prepare for the future and you suffered. So they might be sneaking around in the back, not very content that you’re just sitting here focusing on the present when you should be worrying about the future, as they would say. You have to remind them that whatever comes up in the future … 
  4. When You’re Discouraged
     … You’ve got to learn how to get your mind under control, otherwise you’re going to suffer a lot when aging comes, when illness comes, when death comes. People may give you advice, but how you manage your mind in the face of those things is something no one else can do for you. So take a cheerful attitude toward a skill like … 
  5. The Positive Side of Heedfulness
     … Make the most of that fact, so that even when you encounter situations you don’t like—whether in the meditation, your work, your family life, or your responsibilities around the monastery—see what you can do not to suffer around them. When I was with Ajaan Fuang, it always seemed that his bouts of psoriasis came at really inconvenient times. Not that I … 
  6. The Escape of Discipline
     … seeing where you have habits that cause unnecessary stress, unnecessary suffering, understanding why you do them, and understanding how you can drop them. A great sense of relief and release comes with that. So the training that the Buddha offers is not three hundred spears a day. The path itself—even though it may involve some difficulties in training your habits, changing your habits … 
  7. A Fool for Sensuality
     … The tedium of the practice is much less tedious than actually having to go through the suffering that comes when you fall for these things.” So be willing to do it again and again until it becomes quite automatic. You look at somebody attractive and you can see immediately that they have their unattractive side as well. Even when there’s nobody else around … 
  8. A Skillful Attitude
     … a lack of skill in dealing with the issue of suffering. Whereas the path—virtue, concentration, discernment—is a skillful approach. So in looking at the meditation as a skill, looking at the whole issue of where there’s dissatisfaction, where there’s discomfort, where there’s dis-ease as something you can approach as a problem to be solved through mastering the skill … 
  9. Tending the Flame
     … After all, when the Buddha pointed out the causes of suffering, he said they’re inside. Sartre said that “Hell is other people,” but no, hell is yourself. Yet it doesn’t have to be. Your self doesn’t have to be hell. The things you do in the mind can switch around and they can become your genuine friends. Your admirable friends. So … 
  10. A Taste of Freedom
     … We speak, we act, we think for the sake of happiness, and yet all too often the results come out the other way around, bringing suffering and stress. It’s when you want to know why that you’re going to begin to be wise. And then there’s asking the right question: “What when I do it will lead to long-term welfare … 
  11. Stupid about Pleasure
     … You give things up only when you really see that there’s a direct connection between suffering and the pleasures you’ve been enjoying — and that there’s a better alternative. Only then will the mind begin to let go. This is the duty of discernment: to see the drawbacks of these things. This is why right concentration on its own, or jhana on … 
  12. To Gladden the Mind
     … And it’s not the happiness simply of patting yourself on the back that you were good, but you open up to a dimension that’s totally other, totally free from suffering. So we respect the Buddha because he teaches us to respect something good in ourselves: our desire for true happiness. About that desire, the world says, “Oh, don’t bother, it’s … 
  13. The Fortress
     … And it is possible to put an end to suffering. So as long as skilful qualities in the mind are not yet fully developed, as the Buddha said, you can’t rest content. You have to keep working, working, working at it. But working at it will be rewarded. That’s the message of his awakening. Now, protecting the fortress at the gate is … 
  14. Disenchantment
     … And these are the factors that make all the difference between whether it’s going to cause stress and suffering or whether it’s not. So normally we bring this huge parcel of attitudes to apply to the present moment, to shape the present moment. And one of the main purposes of concentration is to learn how to pare that down, so at the … 
  15. The Skill of Happiness
     … Because, after all, in the Buddha’s analysis, it’s what we’re doing right now in the mind that’s causing us to suffer right now. We sometimes hear the teaching on karma that what you’re experiencing right now is determined by what happened in the past, but that’s not totally true. There are influences from the past but you also … 
  16. The Treasure of Virtue
     … So you may have to suffer loss of wealth for a while. You may have relatives who want you to lie for their sake, and you have to say No. They may get really upset, but you have to realize that when you’re dying, your relatives can’t come and help make sure that you go to a good place. It’s going … 
  17. Breath Meditation When It’s Hard to Breathe
     … Soon after he arrived at the spot where he was going to stay, he suffered a heart attack. From his description, it sounds like a series of attacks. He knew that he could possibly die. But he decided to look at what he had that might help him survive. He didn’t have much in terms of medicine. The food was very meager. But … 
  18. Determination
     … The desire for anybody to suffer is wrong view. So you want to make sure that, whatever your goal, it’s conducive to genuine happiness, which means a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody. After all, if your happiness is harmful to other people, they’re not going to stand for it. It’s not going to last, which is why goodwill has to … 
  19. Pride
     … Other people have put an end to suffering, so can I. In that sense, pride is a good thing. It gives you the confidence you need in order to stick with the path when it gets difficult. It’s one of the last fetters that’s abandoned on the path, along with several of the other fetters that arahants have to get rid of … 
  20. Equanimity After Victory
     … You have goodwill for them, you have compassion for them when they’re suffering, empathetic joy when they’re happy. That requires work, too, because there are a lot of people who have more wealth than you, more power than you, they’re better looking than you, their lives seem to go better than yours in every way. There are people who’ve gained … 
  21. A Frame for the Day
     … If you suffer loss in terms of any of the first three, that should be considered a small loss. Now, for a lot of us, that’s hard to think about: losing our wealth, losing our relatives, losing our health. But it’s going to happen. What doesn’t have to happen is loss of right view or loss of your virtue. You lose … 
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