Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Your Judgments Matter
     … As the Buddha points out there are things you do that cause suffering, and things you can do that can put an end to suffering. The other feature they have in common is that they deal with actions. Each of them has its shoulds. Skillful actions should be developed. Unskillful actions should be abandoned. Suffering should be comprehended. Its origination should be abandoned. The … 
  3. The Mind Undefined
     … One of the reasons why we meditate is to strengthen the mind so that it is able to push further, to the point where it has a chance to ask that big question, “Is it possible to put an end to suffering, totally?” Here again, the Buddha didn’t define what suffering is. He simply gave examples. He boiled things down to five clinging … 
  4. Strength from Within
     … The craving that leads to suffering is specifically three kinds—for sensuality, for becoming, and for non-becoming—but the desire to do well on the path is not part of the cause of suffering. It’s part of the path. So you try to nurture that desire, give rise to it, and nourish to keep it strong. Again, one of the customs of … 
  5. Hold a Mirror to Your Mind
     … The big issue is the issue of suffering. The solution to it requires getting very clear about what you’re doing right now, and particularly what you’re doing that’s contributing to suffering, what you might do to put an end to that suffering. This is one of the reasons why we focus our attention on the present moment in our meditation. There … 
  6. Stay Principled
     … So instead, the Buddha has you focus on the specific places where you’re causing suffering and then work back from the suffering to the cause. One of the huge areas in our lives is our relationships with other people: How do you cause suffering around that, and how can you use the teachings to apply to solve that problem? First off, of course … 
  7. Basic Wisdom
     … Underlying that is the conviction, and heedfulness, based the motivation by which you tell yourself you really would rather not suffer. You really would like to see the end of suffering. This is how our practice of generosity, virtue, and meditation leads to wisdom and discernment. And it’s how the wisdom and discernment lead to the end of suffering. They’re embodied in … 
  8. You’ll Wish You’d Meditated More
     … And this discernment is what’s going to protect you, because the biggest thing you need to protect yourself from is the way the mind creates suffering out of whatever comes up. If we’re creating suffering out of relatively pleasant circumstances right now, imagine what the mind is going to do when the body starts to break down. So, on the one hand … 
  9. Abandoning Effluents (1)
     … Where is the suffering? What is the suffering? What’s the best way to relate to that? What’s causing the suffering? What’s the best way to relate to that? What actions can lead to the end of suffering? What’s the best way to relate to those? That line of thinking, even though it’s not knowledge yet, at least is conviction … 
  10. Genuine Happiness
     … But to find that happiness, to develop the path to that happiness, we have to understand suffering. That means we have to understand what our minds are doing right now to create suffering, because that’s the suffering that weighs the mind down. The pains that come in from outside, the misfortunes out there in the world: They don’t have to make us … 
  11. Skills to Make a Difference
     … You take that to heart. **When you fire shots in rapid succession, you see where the mind is suffering and where it’s causing itself suffering. In other words, you actually see the act of clinging, the act of craving, and how they’re connected. ** To pierce great masses is to pierce the mass of the ignorance, avijjā.** It’s interesting that the Buddha … 
  12. The Power of Intention
     … And as he found, it was the way to end suffering. Then he spent all the rest of his life teaching that way to other people as the most valuable thing that he could teach. His main message was that the suffering is not due to unpleasant things outside—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations. The suffering comes from our craving. It comes from … 
  13. Maintaining Stillness
     … Most of the harm and evil you see in the world these days is because people cause so much suffering for themselves. They’re suffering, so they find it easy to make other people suffer as well. The cure is for each of us to turn around and look at the ways in which we’re causing ourselves to suffer, realizing that we have … 
  14. The Larger View
     … The teaching on karma gives you more levelheaded attitude toward people’s suffering—your own suffering, the suffering of other people—and it puts it in a much larger perspective. It’s simply a question of action and result. You’ve got to be careful about your actions. That’s the take-home from all this. Whenever the Buddha would teach about the universe … 
  15. “May I Be Happy”
     … Even if you’re not in a position to offer help, you do wish for that person to end his suffering, even when the suffering is self-inflicted. And as often happens when people inflict suffering on themselves, they have a little extra left to spare so they inflict suffering on other people. It would be a lot better if they learned how to … 
  16. The Uses of Pleasure & Pain
     … When pain and stress and suffering come, you want to comprehend them. Comprehending pain and stress teaches you a lot about the mind. The Buddha never said that life is suffering. He just said there’s suffering in life, which is a very different teaching. As long as there’s going to be pain, as long as there’s going to be suffering, get … 
  17. Think
     … Think about these things.” If the problem of suffering could be solved by not thinking, then why do we have so many books and books and books in the Pali Canon? All that Dhamma that the Buddha uses to explain the problem of suffering is because suffering has so many implications, so many ramifications, so many ins and outs. You’ve got to learn … 
  18. You Are Not a Textbook
     … Why are they causing you suffering even though you don’t want to suffer? Why are they causing you stress even though you don’t want to experience stress? There are times when there is dukkha in your concentration. And it’s certainly not suffering, but it is stress. This is why we have to translate dukkha with that phrase, “stress and suffering,” to … 
  19. Lessons from the Buddha’s Awakening
     … It’s all a great oneness.” But if everything were a great oneness, what are we doing here? The Buddha said of the things that arise and pass away, and especially suffering: It’s real, not other than what it seems to be. It really is suffering. The cause of suffering really is a cause of suffering. And the path really is the path … 
  20. The Buddha’s Wisdom
     … The problem is suffering—the suffering we inflict on ourselves but don’t have to. The suffering he identified as clinging to the five aggregates. And he defined clinging as desire and passion. The cause of suffering is craving. Craving, too, is desire and passion, the difference being that the word for craving, taṇhā, is also the word for thirst—you’re looking for … 
  21. 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 … 
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