Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Warm Your Heart
     … We’re not just here to say, “All things are impermanent, suffering, not-self: Let’s just give up on them.” Even though they have those characteristics, still we can create something really of solid worth out of them. We can create this as part of the path. Making merit is not the whole path, but it gets you started. Dedicating merit reminds you … 
  3. Not-self Is a Value Judgment
     … What ways of selfing and not-selfing will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What ways of selfing and not-selfing will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” That’s the beginning of wisdom around the issues of self and not-self. So learn to see the choice to self or to not-self as it happens, as you take … 
  4. Pain
     … How can I be right here next to the pain but not be pained by it? How can I be with the pain but not suffer from it?” Sometimes, when you separate things out like this, the pain will go away. It’ll actually slip into the heart and disappear. Again, that’s because what you’ve been doing around the pain has actually … 
  5. Immersed in the Body
     … It helps ward off the currents that come flowing from outside or inside, and it also allows you to see your sense of self a lot more clearly, to understand what it is — where there’s still suffering even in this position of strength, where there’s still stress and uncertainty and inconstancy. But first you do your best to make it constant. How … 
  6. Lift Your Mind
     … Learn how to exert some control over your mind so that it doesn’t go wandering off into places that would cause you to suffer—like greed and distress with reference to the world. A lot of that has to do with the narratives of your life. It’s not the case that you drop all narratives. You actually nurture any narratives that can … 
  7. Dhamma Intelligence
     … The questions having to do with what is the suffering right now, what’s causing it, how can we put an end to it?: Those questions are worth trying to figure out, trying to answer as best you can—through your own powers of observation. Questions about the nature of the world, about the self: You put those aside. When you can keep your … 
  8. Death Without Drama
     … But then when things like that actually happen to you, the suffering can be immense and overwhelming. That’s not what we want. We want to learn to keep the mind from being overwhelmed. The Buddha talks about feelings invading the mind and remaining. What he means is that the feelings overwhelm you. He trained himself so that he was not invaded by the … 
  9. The Meaning of Happiness
     … As for compassion, you have to realize that if your happiness depends on other people’s suffering, it’s not going to last, it’s not going to be true happiness. So you have to take their needs into account. As for purity, you look at your actions and see: Do they really fall in line with your values, your desire to be compassionate … 
  10. A Home of Your Own
     … But we’re dealing with something that’s important inside, in the same area of your awareness, and that’s pain, stress, suffering. The Pali word dukkha covers all those things. That’s what we are working on understanding. Because that sense of pain is what makes it hard to live in this home of ours right here, and it drives us to do … 
  11. Appreciating Merit
     … Often when people are suffering from addictions, one of the things they’re taught is on an evening or a day or a night when you don’t give into your addiction, then the following morning you should remind yourself how good you feel from having not given in. Hold that sense of happiness in mind to remind yourself the next time around. That … 
  12. Tranquility & Insight with the Breath
     … You can begin to ask yourself, “Do I really need those? Do I really need that identity? Am I causing myself suffering by holding onto these ideas?” No matter how right they may be, there are times when you’re holding onto something and you’re right—but it’s totally useless. It serves no purpose at all, aside from weighing the mind down … 
  13. In Charge of Your World
     … Back in the 19th century when Westerners were beginning to read some of the Buddhist texts, and all saw was suffering, death, aging, illness, As a result, they wrote Buddhism off as a very pessimistic religion. But when they went to Asia, they saw that Buddhists in general were very happy people. The temple fairs, the various observances in the course of the year … 
  14. The Importance of Being Focused
     … This skill becomes really handy as you get older, as you start suffering illnesses and as you approach death. When an illness arises, it’s so easy to get upset about what you suddenly can’t do, how the illness is getting in the way of other things you’d like to do. That doesn’t help at all. You realize you’ve got … 
  15. Training Your Inner Teacher
     … What does the talk have to tell you about how you’re creating suffering for yourself where you don’t have to, and what you can do about it. So it’s always good to reflect, when you hear the Dhamma: “How does this apply to me, to what I’m doing right now?” And of course, “right now” doesn’t mean only while … 
  16. A Good Mood to Meditate
     … When the Buddha describes suffering, he talks about clinging to the five aggregates. And we hear that one of the aggregates is feeling. People often assume that means our emotions, but that’s not where the emotions are in the aggregates. The emotions are under fabrications. They’re put together. What are they made out of? They’re made of, one, the way you … 
  17. Issues of Control
     … The fact that you’re creating suffering for yourself and a lot of it spills over to burden other people: That’s where you’re responsible, so that’s where you need to develop a good sense of self as being responsible. Ajaan Lee comments on this a lot. That observation that we do have some control over the aggregates, and that’s what … 
  18. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … This way, the meditation becomes an activity that you really look forward to, and you do develop the kind of sensitivity that’s going to be an important part of your discernment into suffering and its causes. So the outside helps the in; the inside helps the out. Sometimes Theravada is criticized for being focused solely on getting your mind in shape and not … 
  19. The Dangers of Sensuality
     … Yet if you want to put an end to suffering, you can’t keep feeding on that kind of food. It’s bad for you. So you’ve got to see the dangers of sensuality. You’ve got to see the drawbacks of sensuality. Examine your sensual fantasies and look at them as part of a cause-and-effect process. The Buddha recommends that … 
  20. A Confident Ego
     … The first is anticipation, which in the Buddha’s teachings is heedfulness—the ability to see that there are dangers down the road, and if you don’t get your act together, you’re going to suffer. You have to have that heedful sense of self in order to function properly. You have to be able to use it to overcome your desire to … 
  21. Relating to Results
     … After all, we’re not here to learn about Buddhism, we’re here to learn how to overcome our own suffering. And although the general principles may be the same now as they were 2,500 years ago, the particulars are ours and those are the things we have to deal with directly. And it’s by learning how to apply the principles to … 
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