Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Selecting from the Teachings
     … Then we take the questions that the Buddha supplies, which basically come down to the four noble truths. The other day, we talked about skillful questioning, well, these are the terms of skillful questions: Where is there stress? What is the cause of stress right now? What teaching is effective to get rid of that particular cause? The books will tell you all the … 
  3. Fourth Truth, First Duty
    Fourth Truth, First Duty July 23, 2023 When the Buddha gave his first sermon, the topic was the four noble truths. But he didn’t start with the first truth. He started with the fourth, the path. In doing so, he showed that that was what the truths were all about. That’s the purpose they served, as part of the path to the … 
  4. Wisdom Through Doing
     … This is the one that’s informed by the four noble truths that we chanted about just now. When you’re judging your actions, you have to have a high standard if you really want to get the best results. The Buddha says the best is available. It is possible to put an end, a total end, to suffering. A lot of people just … 
  5. Heedful of What’s Precious
     … In the passage we chanted just now, the Buddha talks about the different duties appropriate to the four noble truths. These are the duties of a person who practices the Dhamma. You want to develop the path so that you can comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, and realize the cessation of suffering. So be very protective of this path. Do your best to keep … 
  6. Harmlessness
     … The whole function of right resolve is to remind yourself that simply knowing about the four noble truths, knowing about the teachings on kamma, is not enough. These are types of knowledge that demand action. They point out possibilities and they also point out dangers—in other words, the possibilities for the good things that come from training your mind and developing your goodness … 
  7. Right but Wrong
     … So how do you avoid being wrong even when you’re right? In the case of understanding where a teaching should be applied, always think about how it fits in with the four noble truths. For instance, with the three characteristics or the three perceptions: They’re useful for developing dispassion for suffering, developing dispassion for the origination of suffering. That’s why they … 
  8. Here Be Tigers
     … What can you do minimize the amount of unnecessary suffering you’re causing yourself? When the Buddha taught the four noble truths, he put this problem—the suffering caused by craving, suffering caused by the mind itself—as the top problem. This is the number-one priority. This is the problem that needs most attention. Once you’ve solved this problem, then nothing else … 
  9. Licking Yourself Clean
     … That’s how you see the four noble truths. You see stress, you see how it’s caused, you connect it to your own actions. You see what you do or don’t do that lets the stress be shed away. So think of the meditation as an experiment, something you try. You’re trying to prove a hypothesis: that you can put an … 
  10. Two Kinds of Defilements
     … It was a book on the four noble truths, and I translated that part for Ajaan Suwat. His comment was, “The writer is teaching people to be stupid.” Because the defilements that are brazen: They like that. They’re happy to hear that you’re not going to attack them, that you’re not going to try to dig down. And yet those are … 
  11. Focus on Your Skill
     … This is why the Buddha taught the four noble truths. That’s the framework, and in that framework there’s no mention of who’s suffering or where in the world they’re suffering. They point at something that’s immediately present right here, right now. It’s simply up to us not to slip off from right here, right now—which we do … 
  12. Determination
     … The Buddha compares this with someone who’s able to see the four noble truths. And even though you may not be seeing things obviously in that framework, still when you see things in terms of: What are you doing that’s causing suffering? What can you do to stop that?—That’s when you develop your good eye. One of the other attributes … 
  13. The Language of the Breath
     … In other words, you’re starting to see the motions of your mind in terms of the framework of the four noble truths: cause and effect, skillful and unskillful. As you start evaluating the motions the mind not only as they relate to the breath, but also as they relate to everything else—how they relate to the contact of forms and eyes, sounds … 
  14. Looking Off to the Side
     … Whereas what the Buddha said was that the things we don’t know are the four noble truths. Each of the truths has a duty, and as with any kind of activity, you can develop it more and more skillfully. You can get more skillful at comprehending suffering, more skillful in abandoning its cause, more skillful at developing the path and realizing the cessation … 
  15. Evaluating the Practice
     … This is particularly useful when we get into issues around the four noble truths. The Buddha wants you to step back from your craving. He wants you to step back from your clinging to the aggregates so that you can see, “What is this all about?” The world teaches us to go with our craving. “Obey your thirst,” they tell you. Then, of course … 
  16. A Matter of Life & Death
     … Then there’s stress in the context of the four noble truths, stress that comes from craving and ignorance. When he talks about putting an end to stress, that’s the one you put an end to, because once that’s put an end to, then the mind doesn’t suffer. It can live in a world of inconstancy, stress, not self, but it … 
  17. Skillful Thinking
     … This is what the Buddha was getting at when he said to put thoughts of “me,” “myself,” “what I have been,” “what I will be” aside and to think instead in terms of the four noble truths. These truths give you a way of looking at experience that focuses directly on the issue of skillfulness. In other words, you look at your experience in … 
  18. The Skills of Stillness
     … All of his teachings—the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path—are all aimed right here. It’s like tuning a radio. If the radio is not well tuned, there’s a lot of static and it’s hard to tell what’s being said, what the music is. But once it’s finely tuned, then things come through clearly. So you’re … 
  19. The Governing Principle
     … Your duty with regard to the four noble truths is to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize its cessation, and develop the path. To “develop” means that you give rise to it; and once it’s there, you keep it going. That’s the function of desire and right effort as well: the desire to abandon unskillful qualities, to develop qualities that are skillful … 
  20. Useful Vocabulary
     … And then you can know what to do in terms of the four noble truths. Just having the vocabulary in and of itself, is not enough. It’s not enough to be able to identify that this is a feeling or this is a perception or whatever. But it is a start. The next thing to do is, what do you do with it … 
  21. Fear of Mistakes
     … We take as our standards the duties of the four noble truths: Suffering is to be comprehended. That means that our clinging is to be comprehended. What do we cling to? We cling to our views of the world. We cling to our sensual desires, our sensual fantasies. We cling to our ideas of how things should and should not be done. We cling … 
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