Search results for: "Suffering"
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- From Dependence to Independence… But we suffer because of our own lack of skill within, and it’s from within that we have to solve the problem, to develop skill for ourselves. But the Buddha gives you the tools, points out aspects of what it’s like to be inside a mind, inside a body, that you can use to your advantage. You can use the breath to …
- Why We Bow Down… It’s because there is the possibility of finding an end to suffering by developing dispassion that we actually would try to have some dispassion for our cravings. That’s why we would be willing to adopt those three perceptions—inconstancy, stress, not-self—and apply them to the things we’re attached to. People sometimes say we can see these things all around …
- Surprise Yourself… If you couldn’t change things right now, he said, the path to the end of suffering would be impossible. But the fact that things are not totally shaped by the past gives you some leeway right now to make a difference. So play with that. Ask questions that you never asked before. Try to use perceptions you never used before. That’s how …
- Nobody’s Servant… Because if our internal resources are in bad shape, our inside portfolio’s pretty weak, then no matter how good our outside portfolio is, we’re going to suffer a lot. So you have to learn to think about what’s really important in life, and realize that the quality of the mind is your real treasure. Get your priorities straight, along with the …
- A Mental Fortress… One of the worst ways you can harm yourself is if you do something hoping for somebody to suffer, and then you have to live with the results of that action. If you really mean ill, it’s a hard, hard action to look back on. It really weighs heavily on the mind. But if you mean well and then try to go beyond …
- Compunction & Awe… We have power within ourselves to begin with, the power of our actions, which could be used in unskillful ways and cause us to suffer. So have a strong sense of compunction about what you do. Take care about the consequences of your actions. But also have a sense that you’re going for something bigger than the world, bigger than even the physical …
- Opportunities Everywhere… There are always opportunities to sidestep suffering, to sidestep unskillful mental states. This is probably one of the most important teachings: that regardless of how bad a situation may be, at least you always have the freedom to choose to do something skilful, even if it simply means abstaining from some unskillful things—and even if it means making a lot of sacrifices. But …
- Doing the Practice… Right view means seeing where there’s suffering right now, where there’s stress right now, and then seeing the craving, the ignorance that caused it. That’s part of right view as well. You want to see these things as they’re actually happening. This way, you begin to sort out the patterns of the mind, and you begin to see that some …
- Home Schooling Your Inner Children… You can have everything else in the world going really well for you, but if your mind is a mess, you can create all sorts of suffering. In fact, people with untrained minds who gain wealth and power are the ones who create all the big problems in the world. So remind yourself of how important it is to meditate, and how much you …
- Levels of Truth… He simply analyzes the problem of suffering. This is for use when your powers of concentration get better and you can start analyzing things simply in terms of stress, the mental movements that are causing the stress, and what to do so you can see those mental movements and see the stress, and learn how to put an end to the stress by putting …
- Resourceful… If you want to put an end to suffering, this is what you’ve got to do. Certain things you have to avoid, certain things you have to develop: You keep that in mind. And then you find that there are large chunks of meditation where even with the stories you’ve learned about what works and what doesn’t work and the principles …
- Wise about Happiness… The cause of suffering is something you do. You crave. You cling. The path is something you do. You develop all the factors from right view all the way through to right concentration, to overcome that tendency to crave and to cling. These are all things we’re doing and we want to learn how to do them well, to learn how to abandon …
- Right Speech… And as a meditator you can’t engage in that sort of justification at all, because that’s precisely the ignorance that’s going to keep you suffering. As for harsh speech, you don’t want to yell at yourself in a way that gets you discouraged on the path, but there are other times you have to come down hard on yourself. You …
- Delight in Concentration… It’s interesting that he uses that word, because part of the definition of the craving that leads to clinging and suffering is delight: “delighting now here, now there.” But there are also ways of taking delight that are helpful on the path. The first is taking delight in the Dhamma itself: the fact that there is this teaching that’s been kept alive …
- Faith in the Buddha’s Awakening… Then you reflect on the fact that if you want your happiness to last, it can’t depend on the suffering of other people, because they want happiness too. So you have to keep their happiness, their well-being in mind. At the very least, make sure that your happiness doesn’t oppress them. That’s the beginning of compassion. And finally purity is …
- The Teacher Inside… It’s still suffering here. It wants to do something about it. With time, the teacher part of the mind has more and more to offer, because it’s more and more experienced. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, this teacher inside the mind is a very important part of the meditation, first to make sure the mind does its work on time. He …
- Analysis of Dhammas… What is skillful, what is not, what leads to long-term happiness, what leads to long-term suffering and pain—which is a good working definition for skillful and unskillful. But you’ve got to look. You get ideas from other people but then you’ve got to test them. As the Buddha said, he points the way, but it’s up to you …
- Verified Confidence… Whereas if you believe that your actions do have consequences and that it is possible through your actions to put an end to suffering, that opens possibilities that you would otherwise close off. Why close them off when you’re not one hundred percent sure? So those are the pragmatic proofs. It’s up to us to decide whether they’re convincing and worth …
- A Sense of Time & Place… Sometimes we think, “I’d like to have that social position and I’d like to have this security and I’d like to have things this way.” But then you look at people who have things that way, and you have to remember they have the same types of suffering that you do. You begin to wonder: Is it really worth having that …
- Beyond Gratitude… But look at the suffering involved in the interconnected system we live in: It’s not really all that wonderful. Other people deny that they have any debts at all. But that’s like going down to the bank, after you’ve borrowed a lot of money, and telling them, “Okay, I don’t have any debts to you anymore.” The bank’s not …
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