Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Allies
     … This is where you can really put to use the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths. The duty with regard to suffering and stress, he says, is to comprehend it. Most of the time, we feel threatened by it, we feel engulfed by it, surrounded by it, squeezed in by it, so the only thing we can think of it is how … 
  3. Strengthening Discernment
    Strengthening Discernment January 11, 2012 The standard definition of discernment is the comprehension of fabrications, or sankharas, and you try to comprehend fabrications in terms of the four noble truths: seeing, on the one hand, how some fabrications cause suffering and actually constitute suffering—suffering itself is a fabrication—and on the other, how you can turn some of these fabrications into the path … 
  4. The Door of the Cage
     … about the world, thinking about what you want out of the world—and you hold on to the teachings on karma. You hold onto the teachings on what’s skillful. The four noble truths are a variation, or a development, of the teaching on karma—what you do that leads to suffering, what you do that leads to the end of suffering. It’s … 
  5. The Energy in the Body
     … What you want to do is learn how to read your experience, get a sense of what’s skillful and what’s not, because this is the basis for the four noble truths. Skillful action, desirable result, unskillful action, undesirable result: Those are the basic parameters of the four truths. You have to develop your sensitivity as to what really is desirable and what … 
  6. Clinging
     … But the superego in the Buddha’s teachings, the duties of the four noble truths, are there specifically for the sake of true happiness, or long-term happiness. They’re on your side. So there doesn’t have to be a constant conflict between your desires and your sense of what should be done. It’s more a conflict among desires, a conflict among … 
  7. To Suffer Is an Active Verb
     … This is one of the reasons why, when we come to the four noble truths, the Buddha’s analysis of suffering, we have to take them on faith—because, in his analysis, to suffer is an active verb. It’s something we’re doing actively. It’s a choice we make. It’s a choice we make badly, out of ignorance. The suffering is … 
  8. Heightening the Mind
     … This is why the path is one of the four noble truths, on a par with the others. So keep this teaching in mind, this issue of the heightened mind. Watch out for when you allow the mind to lie beneath its objects, under the power of its objects, and when you’re able to lift it up above them, so that even though … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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