Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Keep It Simple
     … And you’re applying the four noble truths as you do that. Wherever there’s any stress that you notice is unnecessary, just stop the cause, abandon the cause. In other words, stop doing whatever is causing the stress. So as we’re meditating, we’re just progressively making ourselves less and less burdened. The trick lies in being consistent. This is why restraint … 
  3. Comfortable With the Truth
     … When they talk about ignorance of the four noble truths, that’s precisely what they mean: We don’t see our own craving, we don’t see our own ignorance in action, and so we keep doing things to cause suffering and we don’t realize what we’re doing. Or when we happen to do things right and we’re not causing ourselves … 
  4. Inner Worlds
     … Remember the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths: The suffering that weighs the mind down is the suffering that comes from inside, not from things outside. If we’re constantly focusing on things outside—“This is wrong, that’s wrong”—we’re missing the point. The point is that we’re making ourselves suffer from this thing or that thing. And we … 
  5. Don’t Believe Everything You Feel
     … The duties that the Buddha assigns, of course, are the duties in the four noble truths—and they’re duties in your favor. It’s not that he’s some god who has come down and simply ordained that this must be that way and that must be this way. Instead, the Buddha as an expert discovered the best way to treat suffering: comprehending … 
  6. The Power of Intention
     … That’s the basic message of the four noble truths. The role of intention in that is so important that, even though the Buddha didn’t make a habit of going around and arguing with people, he would go out of his way to argue with people who taught teachings that would deny the power of your intentions. Those who said that there really … 
  7. The Tricks of Denial
     … That’s looking at wisdom and forgetting the four noble truths. Because when issues arise, you want to see what’s the cause, what’s behind them. That’s seeing the connection between cause and effect—and that’s real wisdom. That’s real discernment. So in this case, you want to see, when something’s arising that pulls the mind in, what’s … 
  8. Four Determinations
     … But the whole point of the Buddha’s teachings, the whole point of the four noble truths, is that the cause for suffering is inside. The things outside are simply excuses. The real cause is our own clinging and craving, our desire and passion. When you understand that, you look inside and you can see where you’re disturbing yourself. Or as the mind … 
  9. Centered on Concentration
     … It gives you a sense of proportion, a sense of direction in the practice—what the Buddha calls appropriate attention, seeing things in terms of the four noble truths: in other words, looking at the present moment and realizing there’s not just one thing you can do in the present moment, there are actually four things you have to look for, four things … 
  10. Quiet in Every Way
     … You can take this approach as a basic principle all the way through the practice because it embodies a lot of different teachings, like the four Noble truths: look for where there’s stress, in this case the disturbance; see what you’re doing to maintain it; let it go. This approach also embodies the teachings on emptiness. Notice what your mind is empty … 
  11. Being a Buddhist
     … What he learned about karma, what he learned about rebirth, what he learned about the four noble truths: You take that as your guide. You take the Buddha’s awakening as the event in world history by which you look at the rest of your life, you look at the rest of the world, to get a sense of the possibilities within you and … 
  12. Cooking with Kamma
     … But, as the Buddha’s pointing out in the four noble truths, the suffering’s not necessary. There’s the suffering in the three characteristics, which is in the way that things change. But that, he says, isn’t the suffering that weighs the mind down. The suffering that weighs the mind down comes from craving and clinging. Craving and clinging he defines in … 
  13. The Heightened Mind
     … But to do that, you need the daily practice of sitting here with nothing else to do, no other responsibilities, no other duties—just the duties of the four noble truths, one of which is to develop concentration, to develop discernment, to develop your mindfulness, all the factors of the path that things you need right here. In this part of your awareness that … 
  14. A Radiant Practice
     … The basic principle of merit operates on the same principle as the four noble truths. In other words, the suffering that weighs down the mind is the suffering that we create for ourselves. The happiness that most uplifts the mind is the goodness we do. That’s merit. You’re looking for happiness in a way that causes no suffering to anyone at all … 
  15. More Wisdom for Dummies
     … Then a more refined version of that duty comes in relation to the four noble truths. Each of those truths has a duty. The duty with regard to suffering and stress is to comprehend it. For the cause of suffering, the duty is to abandon it. The cessation of suffering is something you should realize. And the path to that cessation is something you … 
  16. Keeping Your Head
     … The duties that he gave in the four noble truths are for people who, of their own accord, want to put an end to suffering, who see that their untrained mind is causing trouble for themselves and for other people. They see that this is the area where they have real responsibility as well as the ability to make a difference. You do have … 
  17. Using Right View Rightly
     … It comes in the terms of the four noble truths, which are not expressed in terms of beings or worlds. Simply, “This is suffering, and this is the cause of suffering. This is the activity that leads to suffering, and this is the activity that leads to the end of suffering.” They get identified, and then you can look at your experience in those … 
  18. Only One Person
     … that if you’re doing something that’s not getting good results, you turn around and look very carefully at what you’re doing to see what you can change. The four noble truths are also teachings on karma. They give you a set of categories that tell you what to do in any given circumstance. When you’re dealing with suffering, the duty … 
  19. From Compunction to Release
     … to run into the unfabricated. But again, the Buddha never taught that. There are actions that are worth developing and actions that are worth abandoning. That’s a value judgment. The four noble truths are a value judgment. You act on craving, there’s going to be suffering, so craving is something you should abandon. If you act on the noble eightfold path, you … 
  20. To Sustain Your Practice
     … Where are we blind? What can we do to put an end to that blindness? Those questions are in line with the four noble truths. Then there are the perceptions you hold in mind. The world again would have us hold in mind certain perceptions—that success in life means getting ahead, getting a lot of money, getting status—but the Buddha called these … 
  21. The Problem of Suffering
     … The teachings on the four noble truths, all the various ways of expressing the path, relate to what you’re doing right now. The important thing is what you’re doing. You pick up the Buddha’s teachings as they become necessary, as they become useful. But the first thing is to get the mind to settle down. As the Buddha once said, right … 
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