Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"
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- Bless Yourself… It was all about the four noble truths. And the four noble truths are about what your desires can do. There are desires that can lead to suffering; there are desires that can lead to the end of suffering. The Buddha deals with the problem that you feel within—suffering—but he also says the cause of the problem is also within. And the …
- Why We Bow Down… He never claimed that he could give you a logical proof of nibbāna, for example, or of the four noble truths—even of the principles of mundane right view, that your actions really are yours. In other words, you’re the one who decides what to do. It’s not some outside force acting through you. And they really do have an impact. Your …
- Resisting the Germs of Defilement… Sometimes this quality is equated with seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. And that doesn’t mean just knowing what the four noble truths are, but remembering what they’re for: They’re for dividing up our experience so that we know what to do with it—because each truth has a duty. Suffering, or stress, is to be comprehended. Its …
- Believe in Your Actions… The purpose of that teaching is to inspire you to be ready to listen to the four noble truths, to think about, “What would it be to put an end to the causes of suffering, totally?” As for mundane right resolve, that grows into transcendent right resolve by actually putting the principles of right view into practice, learning how to divide your thoughts into …
- Stress… There’s the stress in the three perceptions, and there’s the stress in the four noble truths. The stress in the three perceptions has to do with the raw material from which you’re trying to create a state of happiness, create a state of well-being, realizing that the raw material is the raw material for that purpose. But it’s like …
- Pleasure & Pain… He started with the four noble truths. What’s the duty with regard to the first noble truth of stress and pain? Our duty is to comprehend it, to understand it, which is very different from the way we normally react to pain. Usually, when pain arises in the body, we do our best to push it away or to will it away. All …
- To Practice Dying… So focus on mastering them well, so that instead of having willy-nilly to place your hopes on craving, you can place your hopes on the skills that come from being mindful, alert, knowledgeable, seeing things in terms of the four noble truths: In other words, you put aside the ignorance, the sole troublemaker that causes all the problems to begin with. As meditators …
- Stick with It… Some people say the four noble truths are very obvious from the very beginning, but they’re not obvious. The idea that there can be a total cessation for suffering, where have you seen that? It’s something you haven’t seen yet. This is where the conviction comes in. Conviction can be based on lots of things, such as the fact that it …
- Bewildered… There’s so much suffering caused by our ideas of what we have to do or what we should do that really have nothing to do with the duties of the four noble truths. Those duties are to comprehend the pain, abandon the cause, realize cessation by developing the path. If you’re intention is to comprehend pain, that changes the dynamic entirely. As …
- Attention & Intention… The other issue is the four noble truths. These two issues are connected in that the four noble truths take the principle of skillful and unskillful action and apply it specifically to the question of why there’s suffering and how you put an end to it. Unskillful actions in this context would equal the second noble truth, the cause of suffering. Skillful actions …
- A Snare of Death Laid Out… Then, before he taught the four noble truths, he had to take you through that step of seeing the drawbacks and degradation of sensuality, to the point where you could say, “Maybe renunciation really is good.” The pleasure of a concentrated mind is not just a second best—it’s actually much better. When you see that, that’s when you’re ready for …
- On Denying Defilement… In terms of the Buddha’s most basic teaching, the four noble truths: When he talks about the fact that the defilement is a matter of action rather than of the innate nature of your mind, this relates to the second noble truth. The fact that defilement is affliction relates to the first noble truth. The luminosity of the mind is that you’re …
- Dichotomies… The other categorical teaching, the four noble truths, is also a dichotomy. On the one hand, you have suffering and the cause of suffering, and on the other hand, you have the path leading to the end of suffering and the actual cessation of suffering. Those things—suffering and not suffering, the cause of suffering and the path to the end of suffering—are …
- Wandering Aimlessly… And exactly what is it that we have to be knowledgeable about? The four noble truths. You may call them the four noble factors for solving the problem: Looking at the suffering and asking, “Where’s the stress right now? What comes along with it? What can you do to put an end to the stress by abandoning its cause?” So watch the movements …
- Abandoning Effluents (2)Luang Pu Dune, one of Ajaan Mun’s most senior disciples, had a famous short explanation of the four noble truths, in which he said that the cause of suffering is the mind flowing out. The path to the end of suffering is the mind knowing the mind. This teaching fits in with what the Buddha taught about asavas, or effluents: the things that …
- The Kamma of Self & Not-Self… You’re looking at them more in terms of the four noble truths. And at this point, as Ajaan Mun says, the four noble truths collapse into one: Whatever arises is stressful, and what do you do with it? You develop dispassion for it and let it go. That’s it. At that point, you’re not even thinking in terms of whether your …
- Pain Is a Noble Truth… This is an important distinction we make between the stress and pain of the four noble truths and the stress and pain of what they call the three characteristics. The second kind of stress and pain is the simple fact that we have bodies that have pains. It’s a natural part of the physical processes and the mental processes by which we live …
- Appropriate Attention Plus Admirable Friendship… Appropriate attention means seeing things in terms of the four noble truths and the duties of those truths. So when you remind yourself that you’re following the path, that’s part of appropriate attention. And you remember what the duty is: to develop this. In other words, you don’t say, okay, here’s a little bit of concentration, I’m going to …
- Appropriate Attention… Appropriate attention is framed in terms of those categorical teachings, either what you should do to abandon unskillful actions and what you should do to develop skillful actions, or what you should do to carry out the duties of the four noble truths. The Buddha takes this tendency that the mind has to approach experience in an active way and he’s giving you …
- Not Getting What You Want… When the Buddha analyzes suffering in the four noble truths, he talks about the suffering of not getting what you want, the suffering of having to be with what you don’t like, and of being separated from what you do like. And you notice, his solution is not to go out and try to get what you want. It’s to look inside …
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