Search results for: "Suffering"
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- The Chess Game… The problem is for most of us is that the way we question issues of suffering and pain doesn’t frame the questions very well. We frame them out of ignorance and bewilderment, so our questions, instead of helping us get beyond suffering and stress, often actually compound the problem, leading us into more suffering, more stress. So to gain insight, the Buddha recommends …
- Investigative Work… Actually, it delivers a lot of stress and suffering. Then it hopes you forget. Then it promises more happiness, and it delivers more stress and suffering. ** So you’ve got to learn how to uncover the facts, because, of course, the mind itself is making itself suffer. But all too often, it refuses to admit that. So you have to present it with the …
- Remorse… The Buddha never talks about people deserving to suffer. He simply says that certain actions lead to certain results. But he’s here to cure our problem of suffering whether it’s “deserved” or not. He never said, “I’ll teach you the end of suffering only if you don’t deserve to suffer.” The end of suffering is there for everyone, whether they …
- Sensuality Is a Fetter… Many of us learn our lessons about suffering not only from our own suffering, but also seeing the suffering of others. How many more people do you want to see suffer—how many other people do you want to help suffer—before you’re willing to take the Buddha up on his offer? That’s a question you have to answer for yourself.
- Genuine Goodness… Particularly in terms of the suffering that we place on ourselves: They don’t have to be that way. We have the choice not to suffer. We have the choice of putting things together in the mind in a way that, instead of being a burden for the mind, actually becomes a path out of suffering. This is an important insight: realizing that the …
- It’s up to You… If that were the case, there’d be no way that you could develop a skill, no way to see any pattern for figuring out what actions would lead to suffering and what actions would not lead to suffering. If suffering and not-suffering were spontaneous, there’d be no path of practice. The third view that he argued with was that there was …
- Deconstructing Suffering… That’s why you can gain release from them, from all the suffering that you’ve been creating. You can see this as a process of deconstruction, but it’s deconstruction with a specific purpose of putting an end to suffering, in particular the suffering that you’ve been creating. It’s deconstruction handled skillfully. Like a hammer: Some people take the process of …
- Dissolving Narratives… Why are you making yourself suffer? When you make yourself suffer, it’s very easy to spread out and start making other people suffer, too. And when you make yourself suffer, the actions of other people can give you grist for your mill for making yourself suffer even more. So here’s the way out. It’s better to bring the mind to the …
- Attention & Intention… Noble right view pays attention to the questions of what suffering is, what’s causing suffering, and what you can do to put an end to that suffering. Right view is not just a collection of some interesting facts about suffering. It’s also stating that this is the big issue you should pay attention to. Right resolve starts on the mundane level by …
- The Dhamma Eye… In particular, not understanding why there is suffering, what the mind does to create suffering, and if there’s a way to practice that puts an end to it. These were what he called the four noble truths: suffering, its cause, the cessation of suffering, and the path to its cessation. When he clearly saw those noble truths, he saw further than that each …
- Close to the Heart… When that happens, you can use the sensitivity you’ve developed in the meditation — along with the understanding of the Dhamma you’ve developed by reading and listening, gaining a perspective on the whole issue of suffering and the end of suffering — and apply them directly to your own, immediate sufferings. The Buddha wasn’t talking about suffering in the abstract; he was talking …
- Not-self… Craving, the cause of suffering and stress, is to be abandoned. The cessation of stress and suffering is to be realized. And the path to its cessation is to be developed. So if we want to understand the perception of not-self, we have to see how it fits into those duties. For example, with comprehending suffering and stress, comprehending means to understand suffering …
- The Lessons of Equanimity… Then there’s compassion: “Any beings who are suffering, may they be released from their suffering.” Empathetic joy: “Those who are happy, may they not lose their good fortune.” You notice that those first three attitudes are all about “may, may, may this happen.” They’re wishes. But as the Buddha said, if we could get what we wanted simply out of wishes, who …
- A Load of Straw… They want to save all sentient beings from suffering. Now if suffering were a thing — like a house — that you could clean up, then it would be possible to go around cleaning up other people’s houses for them. But it’s not a thing. It’s a pattern of unskillful behavior. Each person is suffering because of his or her own lack of …
- Goodness Comes from Heedfulness… They’re suffering, too, so why would you want to add to their suffering? What do you get out of their suffering? You learn to perceive that other people’s suffering is not helpful to you at all. Even when they’ve been bad to you, nasty to you, the idea of wanting them to see them get theirs doesn’t accomplish anything for …
- Three Virtues for the Mind… Which means that when we’re suffering right now, we don’t have to continue to suffer. We can change the way we’re relating to a particular sensation, a particular idea, a particular state in the body or to conditions around us. We can take them and turn them into a lot of suffering, or we can turn them into a lot of …
- Right View Comes First… That’s the suffering. Suffering is not something that you’re passively receiving. You’re actually doing the action that constitutes suffering. Think about that. And why do you do that? Because of craving: either craving for sensuality, craving for a state of becoming, or craving to obliterate some state of becoming you already have. Buddha would then explain that this craving can be …
- To Know the Buddha… And the activity itself is suffering, stress. We do these things for the sake of happiness—we cling to them, and yet they cause suffering. In fact, the clinging and the doing is suffering in and of itself—in the same way that the doing of a skill is happy. This is why the discernment that the Buddha taught may start with the words …
- Your Duty Lies Right Here… comprehending suffering, abandoning its cause, realizing its cessation by developing the path. So when something comes up in the mind, you have to ask yourself, “Is this an instance of suffering, is this the cause of suffering, or is this part of the path that I should be developing?” If you simply sit and watch things coming and going, you’re missing an important …
- Maintaining Goodwill… That’s the best use for this concentration, because when you stop creating suffering for yourself, you don’t feel inclined to create suffering for anybody else. The reason we make life miserable for other people is because we feel threatened, along with this attitude: “As long as I’m suffering, let everybody else suffer too.” Or: “If I’m suffering, I don’t …
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