Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Insight into Pain
     … There’s the pain in the three characteristics and there’s the pain or suffering in the four noble truths. The pain in the three characteristics is something universal. Wherever there’s a process of fabrication where conditions come together to create other conditions, there’s going to be stress. There’s stress inherent in the fact that things arise and pass away, and … 
  3. Practicing for Dispassion
     … Sariputta didn’t start with the four noble truths. He didn’t start with three characteristics. He started with the goal of the practice —which is dispassion. In Thai, they have a way of putting two words together to make paired concepts, and the word they tend to pair with Dhamma is attha: the goal, the meaning, the purpose. So we have the Dhamma … 
  4. Fear & Anger
     … In other words, you see things in terms of the four noble truths. Each truth has a task, which has to be mastered as a skill and brought to completion: comprehend the stress, abandon the cause, develop the path, so that you can realize the cessation. That’s a very different approach from simply being non-reactive, or learning to accept whatever comes. If … 
  5. Remembering Ajaan Lee
     … Of course, this fits in with the four noble truths. We’re looking for the cause of suffering. We want to see what arises together with the suffering, what passes away together with the suffering, so that we can know where it comes from. And this focused analysis is also a burning away of the defilement. As soon as you see the defilement for … 
  6. Truths That Are Noble
     … The first factor of that noble eightfold path was right view, which is composed of the four noble truths. So, noble, noble, noble: noble goal, noble path, noble truths. People sometimes question what’s noble about them. Was the Buddha just advertising? But no, “noble” for him had a very specific meaning—in fact, two very specific meanings. As he said, the search for … 
  7. Questioning & Acceptance
     … The second sort are questions framed in terms of the four noble truths. Those are the most categorical of his categorical teachings, the only ones that he actually describes as categorical in the Canon. So the questions derived from those issues are the ones that you should be applying yourself to. And this is what appropriate attention is all about. You pay attention to … 
  8. The Buddha’s Questions
     … In this case, it turned out to be ignorance of what he later taught as the four noble truths: suffering, its origination, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. What was he to do with those truths? He realized that there were duties that you had to fulfill with regard to them. Again: “What’s the most skillful use of this knowledge?” That … 
  9. Experimental Intelligence
     … The larger context is formed by the four noble truths: the fact that there is suffering, that there’s a cause for suffering, that suffering can cease, and that there’s a path of practice leading to its cessation. These truths in turn relate to a more basic issue: that the whole purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is for the sake of finding … 
  10. Allowing the Breath to Spread
     … That’s stress in the four noble truths, which is based on craving. Because of the craving, you have your perceptions of your feelings that are based on craving, you have thought-constructs about your feelings that are based on a craving, even the ways you breathe are based on craving. Those are going to make the pain even worse. So remind yourself that … 
  11. Shoulds & Ideals
     … And where do the shoulds come from? From the Buddha’s teachings of the four noble truths, as in that chant we had just now: understanding suffering, what’s causing suffering, the end of suffering, and the way to the end of suffering. This is where his shoulds come from, because each of these four truths has a duty. Suffering is to be comprehended … 
  12. The Tools of the Path
     … He’d seen the truth of the four noble truths. In other words, he’d actually had a taste of the cessation of suffering, but even then he said, “I don’t really know the entirety of the Buddha’s views, or the entirety of the views of the awakened monks.” So think of right view as the Buddha’s directions to us specifically … 
  13. A Good Foundation
    One of the messages of the four noble truths is that you’ve been making some pretty big mistakes. Everything you do, say, think, is for the purpose of happiness, pleasure, and well-being, yet so much of it actually leads to suffering. When you learn how to admit that fact, then you’re ready to grow in the Dhamma. But it means that … 
  14. An Apprenticeship in Integrity
     … When the Buddha was talking about the four noble truths, he wasn’t just telling us information about the four noble truths. He was asserting a value, that this is the most important way of looking at things to help attain the most important goal you can set for yourself: putting an end to suffering. So to understand him, you have to understand not … 
  15. An Auspicious Night
     … What are your duties? The duties of the four noble truths: Suffering is to be comprehended; craving—its cause—is to be abandoned; its cessation is to be realized; and the path of that cessation is to be developed. So, there’s work to do, especially in the abandoning and the developing. As the Buddha says twice in the poem, you have to be … 
  16. Admirable Intentions
     … All of the four noble truths have their duties: *Dukkha—*suffering, stress, pain—is to be comprehended. Its cause is to be abandoned. Its cessation is to be realized. And the path to that cessation is something you develop. You don’t simply watch the mind as it gathers and then falls apart, and say, “Oh, I’ve learned something about inconstancy.” If the … 
  17. Strength of Persistence
    One of the lessons of the four noble truths is that we suffer largely because of the way we talk to ourselves, and we can learn not to suffer by learning to talk to ourselves in new ways. This point applies especially to the question of right effort or persistence. You look at what’s required by the path, and if all you can … 
  18. Mindfulness the Gatekeeper
     … The duties here are the duties for the four noble truths. These are duties for the sake of your well-being. The first duty, with the first noble truth, is to comprehend suffering. Now “comprehending” here means understanding suffering to the point of dispassion. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t think that we’re passionate for our suffering, but as the Buddha said, suffering isn’t … 
  19. The Dhamma Wheel in the Heart
     … We hear a lot about the four noble truths, but not so much about the duties. But the reason we have four noble truths is because there are four duties. Now, the Buddha’s not imposing these duties on us. He’s not a god who comes down and says, “You’ve got to do this.” He’s just saying, “If you want to … 
  20. Free Not to Suffer
     … He gives us the four noble truths to explain that we can put an end to suffering, because the suffering’s something we’re doing right now. There’s the suffering in what are called the three characteristics, which basically consists of the fact that things change, the change comes about because they’re conditioned, and the conditions are unstable. So, there’s a … 
  21. It’s Up to You
     … You can hear the questions of the four noble truths and say, “Well, that’s really interesting,” and discuss whether you agree with them or not. But you can choose to say, “This is how I’m going to look at my life. This is where I’m going to focus my attention—inside”: taking the lessons we’ve learned from others, taking the … 
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