Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Stay Principled
     … We talk about discernment as being the ability to see things in terms of the four noble truths, using the Buddha’s teachings on inconstancy, stress, and not-self. Those are the general outlines, but each of us has his or her own specific problems, the things that cause us to suffer. Some people are over-confident. Some people lack confidence. Some people find … 
  3. Analysis of Qualities
     … You begin to see it so clearly that you can understand how the mind creates unnecessary suffering for itself—because that’s the original question we’re trying answer as we follow the four noble truths: Why is there suffering? Because of craving. Where is the craving? The craving is in the mind. So the questions of appropriate attention come back to the questions … 
  4. Forest Bathing
     … And the guide for dealing with those dangers is the four noble truths. We often hear that we’re here to see things as they are largely in terms of the three characteristics. But the Buddha never taught that. The three characteristics, he said, are subordinate to the four noble truths. We’re here to understand our craving. We’re here to understand our … 
  5. Admirable Friendship
     … And particularly, seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. That’s pretty radical. We hear the term four noble truths so often that we don’t stop to think about what a radical teaching they are. They’re a guideline for how to look at your experience. Most of us look at experience in terms of what’s us and what’s … 
  6. Discernment Is in the Doing
    There was a book a while back that discussed the Buddha’s teachings in the context of the four noble truths. The author didn’t know where to put the brahmaviharas in the context of those truths, so he just tacked them on at the end as a separate section. Actually, the brahmaviharas are an important part of the noble eightfold path. They’re … 
  7. Learning by Doing
    When we think in terms of the four noble truths, what we’re doing right now is developing the fourth truth—developing the path. And as the Buddha said, the heart of the path is right concentration. So, focus on staying with your breath. Take a couple of good, long, in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in your body, because … 
  8. Discernment
     … They’re here to help you look at things in a whole new way, applying the four noble truths to your experience. That’s the framework the Buddha gives you. It’s not only the framework for his teachings, but also the framework he’d like you to apply to your experience. It’s hard to shift frameworks. We’re used to our old … 
  9. The Power is in Your Hands
     … That’s what the Buddha means when he says, “You do your duty.” The duties here, of course, are the duties of the four noble truths. The first is to comprehend suffering. When you find the cause, you abandon the cause. You do that by developing the path. And in developing the path, you get to the most important duty, which is to realize … 
  10. Of Past & Future
     … He also talks about the four noble truths, and each of them has a duty. With stress and suffering, your duty is to comprehend it. If you happen to run into some suffering here in the present moment, try to comprehend it. If you run into any craving, recognize that that’s the cause for suffering. Do what you can to abandon it, to … 
  11. To Go Where You’ve Never Gone Before
     … This goes very much against the grain, which is why we hold to the four noble truths as our guide, because they tell us: There is a cause for suffering, but it’s not where you think it is. There’s also the cessation of the suffering that comes by allowing the cause to cease. And there’s a path of practice that can … 
  12. Abandoning Effluents (3)
     … The first of the approaches, seeing—i.e., seeing in terms of appropriate attention—is applied to abandoning the effluents of becoming and ignorance, because you’re putting aside questions that deal with your identity, which is the kernel of becoming, focusing instead on seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. That puts an end to ignorance. The next four approaches deal … 
  13. Stubborn Clinging
     … This is why the Buddha taught the four noble truths, why he began the path with the four noble truths: pointing out first that our clinging is suffering. This is the essence of all the mind’s sufferings: its ways of clinging to the five aggregates. The recognition of this suffering—the stress, the pain you’re causing yourself—and the recognition that it … 
  14. Be Heedful & Think
     … That’s a lot of what the four noble truths come down to. You’ve been allowing yourself to think in ways that lead to suffering, and you’ve been doing it for so long that you don’t really see the connection between what you’re doing and the suffering, because the suffering is so constant. But if you learn how to be … 
  15. A Handful of Leaves
     … And what was in the handful of leaves? The four noble truths. This is one of the Buddha’s teachings that’s categorical—in other words, it’s true across the board, for everybody—and he chose these leaves because they were going to be beneficial. So you have to stop and think: There’s a lot the Buddha knew in his awakening that … 
  16. Developing Absorption
     … It’s part of a series of duties that the Buddha says is to be applied to the four noble truths. The first noble truth, the truth of suffering, is to be comprehended: not just registering the fact that there is suffering, but realizing that clinging to the aggregates is the suffering. That’s not a point that’s easy to comprehend, because it … 
  17. Prerequisites for the Practice
     … From there, you move into the four noble truths. In looking inside, what kind of actions in the mind are unskillful, i.e., the ones that create suffering? Which ones are skillful, the ones that don’t, the ones that actually lead to the end of suffering? That’s how the question on skillfulness and unskillfulness translates into the four noble truths. You’ve … 
  18. The Trick to Staying in Place
     … Classically, they describe ignorance as ignorance of the four noble truths. It sounds pretty abstract, but what it comes down to is what are you doing, what are the results of what you’re doing: what are you doing that causes stress and suffering, and what might you do to bring an end to stress and suffering? So if we are going to see … 
  19. The Middle Way
     … Right view is seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. The main point of the four noble truths is that the cause of suffering is inside, and the suffering itself is something you’re doing. Clinging-aggregates are not just things sitting around. The compound means the act of clinging to the aggregates, and it’s related to craving, which is the … 
  20. Patience & Endurance
     … Everything the Buddha teaches falls under the four noble truths, and the four noble truths all have duties: four different duties. It’s not just noting, noting this or noting that. Where there’s stress or suffering, you want to comprehend it. When you begin to see what’s causing it—in other words, you ask yourself, what comes along with the stress and … 
  21. When Nothing’s Happening
     … Remember your duty with regard to the four noble truths. You do want to realize the cessation of suffering, but you don’t do that by realizing the cessation of suffering. The realizing is a result. The cause of that result is that you develop the path. And in developing the path, you have to comprehend wherever there’s any stress or suffering that … 
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