Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Goodness & Goodwill
     … You’re looking for someone’s suffering. You think, “Well, it would be useful suffering, helpful suffering—maybe teach them a lesson.” Yet there are a lot of people out there who suffer for their unskillful actions but don’t see the connection between their unskillful actions and the suffering. They think the suffering is wrongly imposed. So they never learn anything. What you … 
  3. The Broken Gong
     … This way you find that in the present moment there’s the potential to suffer, but there’s also the potential not to suffer. We’re working on the skill of how not to suffer, no matter what happens. That’s our gift from the Buddha. So don’t leave it on the shelf. Take it down and put it to use.
  4. Discernment Through Right Effort
     … Essentially, what’s talked about in right effort are the duties with regard to the cause of suffering and the duties with regard to the path. The further duties include trying to comprehend suffering. In other words, you look at it and try to figure out, in any situation: Where is the suffering right now? Where is the stress right now? And what kind … 
  5. The Thoroughbred Horse
     … When you’re suffering, if you place the blame on other people outside, you’re not going to see the real causes of suffering, because those causes happen inside. You’re acting on ignorance and, as a result, you’re doing things that are causing harm, causing suffering. Well, you can bring knowledge to that and turn your actions into a path to the … 
  6. Conviction in the End of Suffering
     … There’s stress, suffering, which comes down to clinging. There’s a cause for suffering, which is craving, and there’s a cessation of suffering that comes from putting an end to the cause. And there’s a path of practice that leads to that cessation: the noble eightfold path. Now, this is radically different, because that third noble truth is special. The four … 
  7. Countercultural Conditioning
     … The Buddha’s basically giving you new conditions for the purpose of putting an end to suffering. As he said, the purpose of our thinking is to put an end to suffering. It’s why we start thinking to begin with: If we didn’t have any suffering, who would think? You’d just bliss out. But we start thinking and talking because we … 
  8. The Right Medicine
     … Of course, the big problem we all share is that we’re suffering: We suffer because of our craving, and we have craving because of ignorance. Sometimes we’re ignorant that we’re suffering, or exactly what the suffering is. We know that there’s pain in our lives, but the question is: What kind of pain is important? Some people are really concerned … 
  9. Fear of Mistakes
     … You want to comprehend suffering so that you can get beyond it. You want to abandon the cause—what you’ve been doing—so that it doesn’t cause any more suffering. You want to realize the cessation of suffering, so you want to develop the path that takes you there. Those are all values in your favor. Those are all good standards to … 
  10. Inner Critics
     … We’re here because we’re suffering. And at least part of us realizes that the suffering that really weighs the mind down is the suffering we’re causing ourselves. This is why a necessary part of being a practitioner is learning how to be a self-starter. In the beginning, learning about the Dhamma alerts you to the fact that the suffering that … 
  11. Faith in the Buddha’s Awakening
    This practice we are engaged in, the practice of trying to put an end to suffering, is a long-term process. And it has its ups and downs. Sometimes the downs get really down. So you need something to sustain you, to keep you going, even when things get difficult—either in terms of the state of your mind, the state of the body … 
  12. Training Heart & Mind
     … You realize there’s so much suffering in life. And who are you going to blame? You could blame the economy; you could blame the political system. But even in the ideal economy, the ideal political system, people would still suffer. There would still be suffering in your heart and mind. That’s what we want to work on: the unnecessary suffering that the … 
  13. Your True Responsibility
     … They deal with suffering and the end of suffering. What do you do to bring about the end of suffering? In other words, how do you arrange the issues in your mind skillfully so that they no longer lead to suffering? Even the Buddha’s teaching on causality can be compared to modern theories about learning. He tells precisely why it is that people … 
  14. Big Desire, Detailed Focus
     … And it’s true that we have to learn dispassion for the things that cause suffering and for the clinging that is suffering itself. But we’ve got to have some passion for the path. We’ve got to have some desire. All things, the Buddha said, are rooted in desire, and that includes the path. When we get to the end, we put … 
  15. Insight into Pain
     … The Buddha’s not going to take the pain away for you, but he does tell you what you can do to overcome the suffering. In particular, he talks about two kinds of pain, two kinds of suffering. 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 … 
  16. Purity Comes Through Discernment
    We suffer for a reason, but it’s not just one reason. There are lots of different kinds of reasons. There’s one word that covers them all—craving—but there are lots of different cravings in the mind. Which means that we need lots of different tools to use against those cravings. The Buddha classified them two broad areas. He said some forms … 
  17. Metta Can Hurt
     … May all those who are suffering be free from their suffering. May all those who are happy or doing good things, may they continue to be happy. May, may, may. But you look at the world. Not everybody is happy. A lot of people are suffering or doing things that are going to cause suffering both for other people now and for themselves on … 
  18. Mind in & of Itself
     … realizing that if the mind is suffering, even though there may be bad things happening outside, the suffering is coming from within—you can’t keep blaming other people for your suffering. That’s right view. Right view tells you that if you want to look at the reasons for your suffering, you have to look inside and you have to step out of … 
  19. Dhamma Books & the Actuality
     … We’re here to see how the mind creates suffering for itself and what it can do to alleviate that suffering and ultimately put it to an end. There are specific movements in the mind that are actually causing specific instances of suffering. As we’re working here on concentration, we’re learning to take those movements and direct them in another direction, make … 
  20. Brahmaviharas on the Path
     … We see that there’s suffering that comes from sensuality. There’s suffering that comes from thoughts of ill will, suffering that comes from harmfulness, and we want to develop qualities of mind that don’t allow these things to take over. The brahmaviharas are precisely those qualities. Goodwill counteracts ill will. Compassion counteracts harmfulness. And there’s a passage where the Buddha says … 
  21. Good at Thinking
     … That’s, “Why are you suffering? Why is there suffering?” Wisdom, the Buddha says, comes from learning to ask the question, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Now, this may seem selfish, focusing on your own happiness, but true happiness, long-term happiness, can’t rely on the suffering of other people. If it did, they … 
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