Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"
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- Asalha Puja… One is because, after explaining the four noble truths, the Buddha sets out three levels of knowledge for each truth. He then goes through each truth, giving the three levels of knowledge for each truth. In English, we would call that a table where you set out different variables, and run through all the permutations. In India, they called it a wheel, the idea …
- Deconstructing Suffering… When the Buddha started his teaching career, he started with the four noble truths, and he really meant it. This is what he was going to be teaching for forty-five years. It boils down to two things: suffering and the end of suffering. All his tools are for that purpose. When we use them for that purpose, then we use them properly, and …
- Controlling… Appropriate attention is when you look at things in terms of the four noble truths or in terms of the question of how to develop what’s skillful and how to abandon what’s not. These are all attitudes you want to bring to your contact at the senses. They come down to what you’re paying attention to, how you’re paying attention …
- Pain & Patience… So as the Buddha said, with the four noble truths, you’ve got to learn how to comprehend your suffering, comprehend your pain. That means developing all the qualities you can muster to sit with it. This is why we develop right concentration, so that there’s at least some sense of well-being in the mind as you look for the pain. In …
- One Thing Clear Through… Look at the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths. What are they motivated by if not goodwill? The desire for an end of suffering, the desire for happiness that doesn’t place any burdens on anyone else: What is this if not compassion? And look at his teaching career. Wherever there was anyone ready to learn the Dhamma, he would go there …
- Stay with the Knowing… That’s the whole point of the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths. The mind goes looking for trouble and then it blames other people. But your craving, your clinging, and your ignorance: Those are the causes of your suffering. You can’t blame them on anybody else. You can’t say, “I was born without craving and without clinging. People taught …
- Two Kinds of Middle… Once you look at your experience in those terms, then the imperatives of the four noble truths kick in. Where there’s stress, you’ve got to comprehend it. In other words, you look at your experiences, not with the question of “Is there something behind there? Is there nothing behind there?” “Behind there” is not the issue. The issue is what you’re …
- Our Variegated Minds… In other words, you bring knowledge and awareness in terms of the four noble truths to the process of breathing: That’s the verbal fabrication. Mental fabrication is learning how to perceive the breath in such a way it becomes more and more of a home, leads to more reliable feelings of well-being, rapture. It’s with these building blocks that we create …
- The Equanimity that Doesn’t Give Up… He said to think in terms of appropriate attention, to think in terms of the four noble truths. Ask yourself questions as to what’s skillful and what’s not. Put things to the test, evaluate them. There’s a lot of thinking in following the path. So we’re not trying to cut off our brains and just say, “Okay, well I’ll …
- Fear of Missing Out… You know how to ask questions in terms of the four noble truths. Where is the suffering right now? Can you detect the clinging? What are you clinging to? Why are you clinging? What’s the craving? Is it a sensual craving? Is it a craving for becoming, a craving for non-becoming? Are you developing the path to know these things better so …
- Where the Mind & Body Meet… And right here is where the Buddha said that we do the work of the four noble truths. Or in one formulation he says that it’s where we find the world, the origination of the world, the cessation of the world, and the path to the cessation of the world. There’s a sutta where a deva comes to see the Buddha and …
- Getting the Most Out of the Present… Of course, the duties here refer to the duties of the four noble truths. To what extent have we yet to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize its cessation, or develop the path? That’s something we have to take stock of, and then figure out what has to be done right now. Right now you’re trying to develop the path. As for …
- The Brahmavihāras Aren’t Enough… You have to contemplate the aggregates that make up your sense of self and understand them in line with the four noble truths, because it is possible to hold build a self-identity even around equanimity. As the Buddha said, it’s one of the highest objects of clinging, but it’s still clinging. There’s another passage where the Buddha talks about a …
- Evaluation… The big message of the four noble truths is that the suffering that weighs down the mind comes from your own actions. This is a message that some people find depressing—it means they have to change. But other people find it liberating—they can change and, if they change, they can make a difference. Those are the ones who are going to benefit …
- Discernment: Commit & Reflect… After all, as the four noble truths point out, the cause of suffering isn’t outside. It’s not in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations; it’s not in what other people do or don’t do. It’s in what your own mind does or doesn’t do. Yet the mind’s constantly flowing out, paying attention to things outside, and paying …
- The Buddha Aimed High… It’s the kernel of the four noble truths. You solve the problem of suffering not by solving suffering, but by solving the cause. You’ve got to abandon the cause. We want to abandon the suffering, we want to push it away, but it doesn’t work. You’ve got to find the cause. It’s like going into your house and seeing …
- For a Routine That Isn’t Routine… The main framework for the questions is the four noble truths: What are you doing that’s causing unnecessary stress? What could you do to let go of the cause? It’s simply a matter of taking those two questions and learning how to apply them to the particulars of your experience. Each breath is particular; each movement of the mind is particular. They …
- Meditate to Win… They’re part of the actual duties of the four noble truths. Again, the Buddha didn’t make up these duties, either. If you want to put an end to suffering, this is what you’ve got to do, based on the way causality actually works. And these duties, these shoulds, are all formulated for your true happiness. You always have to keep that …
- In Training… take it on as your working hypothesis, you’re going to act in honorable ways that you feel good about—so you take it on. Everything else comes from there. The four noble truths come down basically to what kind of kamma leads to suffering and what kind of kamma leads to the end of suffering. More detailed instructions, like dependent co-arising, place …
- Warm Your Heart… Because remember, the ultimate expression of wisdom in the Buddhist teachings is the four noble truths. We’re not just here to say, “All things are impermanent, suffering, not-self: Let’s just give up on them.” Even though they have those characteristics, still we can create something really of solid worth out of them. We can create this as part of the path …
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