Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Unburdensome, Part 2
     … You’ve got to be sensitive to how you’re creating your own suffering, and it’s going to be in areas where you’re very much attached. After all, by definition: The suffering is in your attachments. And those are areas where we tend to be very insensitive to where we’re being burdensome, and insensitive to where our attachments are inappropriate. So … 
  3. Understanding Goodwill & Equanimity
     … There’s part of the mind that says, “I’d like to see them suffer a little bit, to get a taste of what they’ve been handing out to other people.” But think about it: Often when people are suffering from their unskillful actions, they don’t stop. They can often become even more and more unskillful. So, ideally you’re hoping that … 
  4. Seriously Happy
     … And before he even said Hi, he said, “You know, I don’t have any suffering in my life.” He probably heard that the Buddha talked about how life was suffering—although the Buddha never really said that life was suffering. But, at any rate, the guy started in about how he wasn’t suffering. As he told us about his life, it sounded … 
  5. Just Rightness
     … You don’t want suffering; you do want an end of suffering. But the question of whether your actions mean you’re a good person or bad person, someone who deserves to suffer or doesn’t deserve to suffer: That doesn’t enter into the equation at all. Just look at the arising and passing away of suffering, trying to figure out where it … 
  6. Admit Your Stupidity
     … But the questions always revolve around: “Where’s the suffering? What is the suffering? What am I doing that’s suffering or causing the suffering? What can I do to learn to stop?” That’s what appropriate attention is all about. It asks those questions and it asks the questions that are related to the duties of the four noble truths as well. “How … 
  7. The Duty to Understand
    In the first noble truth, the Buddha defines suffering or stress—the Pali word is dukkha—as the five clinging-aggregates, and the clinging is the important part of the compound there. The suffering that eats into the heart is made up of those five types of clinging: clinging to form, clinging to feelings, clinging to the perceptions or mental labels, clinging to thought … 
  8. Feeding on Feeding
    Feeding on Feeding November 11, 2011 There’s a saying in Thailand that if you haven’t suffered, you usually don’t go to a monastery, or you don’t go to stay. This is one thing we all have in common: We’re here because we see that ordinary pleasures are not enough. We’ve all suffered in one way or another and … 
  9. An Issue of Control
     … But if you come at them at a point where they’re suffering from pain, and you say, “Would you like to have the choice not to suffer?” that’s where nobody really wants determinism. They want to have that opportunity not to suffer, and the Buddha says it’s real. So take that as a working hypothesis. As he said, if everything were … 
  10. Representing the World to Itself
     … As the Buddha said, suffering is not necessary. There may be some suffering in the path, but it’s not going to be there forever. There are ways of acting where you can create less and less suffering for yourself and for the people around you. As long as you’re open to that possibility, there are other ways of perceiving things. There’s … 
  11. Freedom
     … Sometimes the things we do to gain happiness make us suffer further down the line, sometimes they make us suffer right here in the present moment, but we’ve learned to block that suffering out of our awareness, so we miss it. At the same time, our happiness often place burdens on other people as well. Look at the fact you’ve got a … 
  12. A Well-thatched Roof
     … In other words, suffering results in craving. But that doesn’t give you any idea of how you’re going to get rid of the suffering. It’s basically saying you have to put up with the craving and the suffering. Learn to embrace them, and you’ll be okay. So there are lots of different ways you can be passionate for ignorance, and … 
  13. For the Cessation of Dukkha
     … We’re in the right spot so that we can develop the sense of well-being that will counteract the causes of suffering. Then we can see those causes more clearly. As the Buddha says, any craving that leads to becoming is going to be a cause for suffering. So you want to notice what little becomings are appearing in the mind. For the … 
  14. Working with Fabrication
    When the Buddha lists the various conditions that lead to suffering, he starts out with the way ignorance conditions our fabrications. It sounds pretty abstract, but it’s actually a very useful tool for understanding what we’re doing and how we can step back from the way we ordinarily create suffering. We can learn how to fabricate in ways that are actually more … 
  15. Acceptance
     … You can act in skillful ways and not have to suffer. But he wanted to see if you could put an end to suffering entirely. That led to his third knowledge, the four noble truths. The important part of the four noble truths is that they have duties. Suffering is to be comprehended. Craving, its cause, is to be abandoned. Cessation, dispassion for craving … 
  16. Feed the Hungry Mind
     … We fix our food in ignorance, which is why we suffer. But with knowledge, we can fix our food in a way that leads to the end of suffering. Of course, we don’t really know in the beginning stages. We have to listen to what the Buddha has to say, and we learn right view from following his instructions. It’s as if … 
  17. Ways to Think
     … comprehending suffering, letting go of the cause, realizing the cessation of suffering, and developing the path to the cessation of suffering. He was able to do this skillfully because he had seen the universal picture first. So when the events of your life are weighing you down, try to look at that more universal principle. Get the right perspective on things. That makes it … 
  18. Skillful Effort
     … In the Buddha’s analysis of the causes of suffering, sankhara or fabrication comes right after ignorance. We tend to fabricate, we tend to create intentions out of ignorance, and that’s why we suffer. But if we learn how to do those fabrications with knowledge, that leads to the end of suffering. These are our tools. So what are the tools? There are … 
  19. No Happiness without Restraint
     … Their singing is actually their expression of suffering. The ajaans who could understand the language of animals said that most of that language is about how much they’re suffering. Your issue, though, is: What suffering are you causing for yourself? So learn to bring the mind into concentration. That’s allow you to focus on this issue—and by focusing here, you can … 
  20. Of Past & Future
     … With stress and suffering, your duty is to comprehend it. If you happen to run into some suffering here in the present moment, try to comprehend it. If you run into any craving, recognize that that’s the cause for suffering. Do what you can to abandon it, to undercut the ignorance that makes it unskillful. As for the factors of the path — concentration … 
  21. A Mirror for the Mind
     … So our goal is to understand our actions so that we can stop creating suffering. This is what we mean when we say that we train the mind for the sake of the mind. If our actions are done in ignorance, they lead to suffering; if they’re done in knowledge, they become a path to the end of suffering. And that goal—the … 
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