Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. The Language of the Breath
     … That’s what it means to master the language of the mind, learning how to use the mind so that it doesn’t cause suffering. It’s one of the most difficult skills of all, but also the most worthwhile.
  3. The Larger Picture
     … The end of suffering is a huge goal. We have to accept where we are at the present moment, and realize that we’re not going to get there unless we look very carefully at the present moment. So you’ve got to put aside memories of the past, anticipations of the future, and just look at what you’ve got right now: this … 
  4. There Is This
     … This is a teaching on suffering, stress. And both of those teaching are also teachings on not-self. In other words, this body that you thought would do what you wanted it to do is suddenly not doing what you want it to anymore. Pain comes, and you can’t share it out among others. There’s a lot you can’t do around … 
  5. No-Tech Meditation
     … The important thing is to see all these levels of concentration as types of fabrication because you’re looking for the origination of suffering. Now, the word origination means cause. Usually when the Buddha uses that word, he’s talking about causes coming out of the mind. Craving comes out of the mind. Clinging comes out of the mind. That’s what we’ve … 
  6. Not Pained by Pain
     … Ajaan Fuang told me that when he was a young monk he suffered from headaches, and he found that by focusing on the base of his spine, and thinking of the breath going out of the base of his spine down into the ground, reduced a lot of the pressure up in his head. So, this step can have that effect sometimes. Other times … 
  7. A Full Heart
    One of the teachings that the forest ajaans hold in common is that dukkha, suffering or stress, comes from a sense of lack—and that the lack is something we create. We don’t normally think in those terms. A lack is often something given. In other words, it’s what we start out with. We want to find something to fill the lack … 
  8. The Desire for Truth
     … It, too, has some stress—although the Buddha doesn’t call it suffering or stress in this context. He calls it a disturbance. You look for the disturbances in your concentration. You see where you’re causing them in the way you perceive things. Then you refine your perceptions. In this way, you take that principle he taught to Rahula and you bring it … 
  9. The Skills of Stillness
     … i.e., “What am I doing? In what way is it causing suffering or stress? How can I learn to stop?” When you’re at the right place, you’re asking the right questions, and you’re really observant, then you’re bound to come up with good answers.
  10. Not-self in Context
     … When you feel tempted to stop, ask yourself, “Okay, you came here for this purpose, which is to put an end to suffering. Do you not want to do that? Don’t you really care for your genuine happiness?" It’s in cases like that where the activity of identifying yourself is actually useful. So, taking action as the context, you begin to see … 
  11. Meditate Because You Have To
     … These are the causes leading to the cessation of suffering. And it’s a funny thing about causes: When you get them right, they give you the results whether you anticipate the results or not.
  12. Circumspection
     … the idea we’re suffering because we don’t connect with all our fellow humanity. Well, there are some people you don’t want to connect with because they’ll have a bad influence on you. It’s not that you’re passing judgment on them forever, but you use your judgment, you use your circumspection to see which friendships are actually having a … 
  13. Happiness Comes from Inner Strength
     … And that, in and of itself, causes stress and suffering. But when you realize that you have more than enough in certain areas, and that there are other people who might benefit from your sharing it with them: That creates a sense of wealth. It’s a sense of wealth that even poor people can have—because generosity is not just a matter of … 
  14. Focused on Results
     … You can keep it up for a while, but there comes a point where it all breaks down—and you suffer. The second unskillful way of being focused on results is basically impatience. We do something good and we want the results right away, without taking into consideration the fact that we’ve been doing things unskillfully for a long time, and some of … 
  15. Virtues & Values
     … Well, I found out later that he, too, was in pain, suffering from the mosquitoes biting him. He was ready to give up, but then he opened his eyes and saw this American sitting there. And he couldn’t let himself be beaten by the American. In that way, we kept each other going. So don’t think of meditation as a selfish practice … 
  16. Images for Right Effort
     … As the Buddha said, there are two types of causes of suffering in the mind: those that go away when you simply look at them, and those that require the exertion of a fabrication. With the first type, all you have to do is look at them. You don’t have to do much, and they’ll go away. The other type requires more … 
  17. Discernment in Concentration
     … It’s because we function in this ignorance that we’re creating suffering for ourselves. But if you’re deliberate about what you’re doing as you settle down, you begin to realize, “Okay, this is the form of the body: This is the warmth, this is the coolness, this is the energy, this is the solidity.” This is the feeling: The feeling may … 
  18. Get Out of Yourself
     … Here I am, miserable, living alone in this little hut, making myself suffer.” A deva appears to him and says, “Do you realize how lucky you are? There are beings going to hell right now, they really envy you because you’re on the way out.” So again, you have to get out of your inner echo chamber by thinking of other beings. There … 
  19. A Strong Post
     … Luang Puu Dune, one of the teachers in Thailand, said that the mind flowing out the senses is suffering right there. Your attention goes out to latch onto things outside, usually from a sense of weakness or a sense of lack or a sense of wanting. When the mind is feeling weak like that, it’s very rare that it’s going to deal … 
  20. Take Care of Your Tools
     … The issue is not so much whether you’re better than someone else as it is how good you are at overcoming your own defilements, how good you are at figuring out where you’re still causing stress or suffering and what you can do about it. Those are the issues that are worthwhile to focus on. So whatever comes up in the course … 
  21. Body as Path
     … What’s special about the Buddha’s path is that it takes the body and uses it in a way that trains the mind so that it doesn’t have to be miserable, doesn’t have to suffer from the body. We were talking this morning about how the path actually takes these khandhas—which are the things we feed on, the things we … 
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