Search results for: "Suffering"
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- Gifts of Goodness… What protects you from suffering from these things is the goodness you do. So be inspired by the goodness of people in the past and do some goodness that’s appropriate for you. And be happy to share it. The more you share, the more you gain. There’s an image—it’s not in the Canon, but it’s a nice image—of …
- Serial Clinging Is Still Clinging… This is what the Buddha calls the kamma that leads to the end of kamma, and it’s going to require firmly held right views, and devotion to skillful precepts and skillful practices, and a consistent view of yourself as being responsible, of wanting to put an end to suffering, and believing in yourself that you can do this—at the same time, realizing …
- Strength from the Basics… And notice that, after Ajaan Suwat had his accident, he suffered some brain damage and didn’t have much energy to give Dhamma talks, but when he did give a Dhamma talk, it would always be on the topic of the Triple Refuge: the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. This is the basic teaching. Thinking about the Buddha reminds us of what can …
- The Train Trestle… So even though there may be some situations where there’s going to be a lot of pain or a lot of confusion, you don’t have to suffer from the pain or be confused about what you’re doing. That puts you in a better position to help yourself—and other people, too. Because if everything in your life is going up in …
- In a World of Crooked Wheels… He’s trying to save you from suffering. The preparation for those three kinds of loss lies in holding on to those two other things: virtue and right view. You don’t have to lose those. You lose them only if you throw them away. You throw them away because of people’s example. You see that the rest of the world has no …
- Strong Against Anger & Fear… You realize that what the Buddha said is true, in terms of the truth of karma, the truth of rebirth, the truth of how to put an end to suffering. The emphasis in each case is on what you’re developing from within. The media telling us that the important things are being done right now by somebody else, someplace else. But the Buddha …
- For a Routine That Isn’t Routine… And it goes into detecting, “What are you doing that’s causing suffering? When does that action start? When does it stop?” You’re discerning these differences. When you discern differences, you can begin to discern connections. It’s simply a question of seeing activities you didn’t realize were activities; detecting the fact that they *are *activities, and that they’re part of …
- Right Action & Right Livelihood… And there’s no real meat there, because often, when you’re thinking about their bad points, you can think about, “Well, they deserve to be punished,” or deserve to suffer in this way or that way. That turns into ill will, which is one of the major hindrances. Then of course, the precept against illicit sex: Any sensual thoughts that come up in …
- Meditate to Win… If you want to put an end to suffering, this is what you’ve got to do, based on the way causality actually works. And these duties, these shoulds, are all formulated for your true happiness. You always have to keep that in mind. We’re aiming at a happiness that’s totally enveloping, totally all-around. That fact should give you a sense …
- A Valuable Gift… It’s found by straightening out your own mind, because the source of suffering is inside, in our own lack of skill. You can’t make other people skillful, but you can train yourself to be more skillful. And in doing so, you set a good example and you have a more solid base to offer advice to others. The extent to which you …
- Believing & Knowing… the hypothesis that our actions actually do matter, and that the training of the mind is the most direct way of living skillfully in this world—and also of finding release from suffering. As Ajahn Maha Boowa once said, if you could take a nibbana and all the noble attainments so that people could actually see them, nobody in the world would want anything …
- Whole-body Consciousness… There is a deathless, and it’s totally free from suffering. And you obtained it through your discernment. Your discernment didn’t cause it, because it’s totally uncaused. But your discernment took you there, and the discernment was based on virtue and on concentration. The virtue makes you honest, makes you sensitive to what you’re doing and the power of your actions …
- A Good Path to Be On… When there’s pain, physical pain, is there some way you can be with the pain and not suffer from it? When there’s the pleasure of the concentration, how can you learn to be with it and not get overwhelmed by it? In other words, you don’t just wallow in it. You try to be alert and mindful so that you can …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
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