Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Delight & Beyond Delight
     … This is why, when the Buddha taught the four noble truths, there are four. There’s not just one noble truth. It wasn’t just that life is suffering. Life has suffering, but life also has the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path you can follow to get there. You want to keep that possibility in mind. That helps teach … 
  3. Investing Your Happiness
     … People often complain about how the four noble truths focus on suffering, but if you look at them carefully you see that the most important of them is the fourth truth, the path to the end of suffering. It’s the first one the Buddha taught. It’s the one truth that contains all four noble truths right there in Right View. At its … 
  4. Purity Comes Through Discernment
     … To see the four noble truths is like seeing a clear still pool of water in the mountains. You see the fish and the rocks very clearly because the water is still. Why is the water still? Because you’re not stirring it up. When you’re still, you can see even the slightest movements in the mind. You catch yourself, “Oh, I had … 
  5. Goodwill First & Last
     … Looking at intentions as skillful and unskillful, looking at views as right and wrong, and applying those perspectives to the question of suffering, he discovered the four noble truths. He applied them, followed the tasks appropriate to them, and gained awakening. So notice the pattern. It starts with his own narratives, moves to the larger picture, and then focuses in on the present moment … 
  6. Mental Movements
     … And when the Buddha talks in terms of the four noble truths, that’s the suffering he’s focusing on, where there’s clinging to the five aggregates: clinging to your body or forms of any kind; clinging to feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness. There’s clinging only when there’s craving. So, these are the issues we have to watch out for. He … 
  7. Overcoming Delusion
     … And that’s what the Buddha provided in his teachings on the four noble truths. These are the categories of what he called appropriate attention: Look at things in terms of cause and effect, skillful and unskillful. Judge them by the level of stress or harm or suffering that they cause. That’s how you want to look at things. Look at your own … 
  8. Between You and Your Eyes
     … I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say about meditation, “Well, get the mind to be still and then start looking for the three characteristics.” That’s skipping over a huge area of practice, which is based on the four noble truths. Look for where there is stress. Try to comprehend it. Comprehending means knowing it so thoroughly that when … 
  9. Hold onto the Breath
    Earlier this year I was giving a talk back East, and I pointed out the fact that in terms of the four noble truths, the first noble truth is basically the clinging. We cling to the five aggregates, and the clinging itself is the suffering. Then, later on in the talk, I mentioned that there’s got to be some clinging in the path … 
  10. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … You have to raise your sights as to what true well-being is and bring your oughts or your shoulds, your sense of what should be done, in line with the duties of the four noble truths, because as the Buddha said, this is the way to true happiness. This is the way to freedom. This is the way to stop oppressing the rest … 
  11. Dhamma is Timeless
     … Buddha said, they’re categorical, which means they’re always true, always beneficial, no matter where you go. There are only two of his teachings that he said were categorical: the four noble truths and the teaching that skillful qualities should be developed, and unskillful ones should be abandoned. The two principles come together, because the noble truths are not just ideas that sit … 
  12. To Comprehend Suffering
     … The second kind is the stress in the four noble truths, dukkha, which can also be translated as suffering or dis-ease. That, the Buddha said, we have to comprehend. And he gave us tools for comprehending it: the five aggregates. If there’s any stress weighing the mind down, you can know for sure that it’s because you’re clinging to any … 
  13. Take Nothing for Granted
     … That’s what the four noble truths are all about: actions you’re doing in the present moment, some of which are leading to suffering, some of which are leading away from suffering. The Buddha gives you some pointers, but you’ve got to see for yourself: Exactly what do those pointers point to? What are you doing right now? Where is the craving … 
  14. Factors for Stream-entry
     … asking questions in terms of the four noble truths. What’s skillful and unskillful? The Dhamma is Dhamma not because you can defend it with rational arguments, or you can put up very elaborate lists of citations that this comes in that passage, and that comes in this passage. Those aren’t the criteria that the Buddha mentioned. His first criteria are: If it … 
  15. Factors for Stream Entry
     … Appropiate attention means basically looking at things in terms of the four noble truths, seeing how whatever teaching you’ve learned from the Dhamma applies to the problem of suffering in your life: Where are you suffering? And what are you doing to cause that suffering? Notice that’s the question: What are you doing? We don’t blame the suffering on things outside … 
  16. A New Framework
     … You measure them in terms of the four noble truths: Are you causing suffering? Or are you not causing suffering? You’re causing stress or you’re not. These are things that anyone can notice, yet most people don’t notice because they don’t look very carefully. Or they don’t make the connection between the fact that they’re suffering and the … 
  17. No Foolproofing
     … What little things are you still doing that are knocking it off balance? The answers to these questions again fall under the duties of the four noble truths. What are the things that you want to comprehend? What are the things you want to abandon? What are the things you need to develop, and what are the things you simply want to realize? So … 
  18. Solid in the Face of Death
     … He saw that it lay in mastering the four noble truths, which meant looking straight at the issue of suffering. In particular, he was looking to see what the mind is doing that keeps it coming back, back, back to suffer even more. So on the one hand, depersonalizing it helps make it all easier to bear. When it’s easier to bear, you … 
  19. To Certify Yourself
     … When the Buddha set out the four noble truths, the first truth was the truth of suffering. He says suffering is something you want to comprehend. That means you want to see it in action—exactly, what is the suffering in the mind? Then you want to see the cause, because if you’re going to put an end to suffering, you have to … 
  20. It’s All about Action
     … how they relate to actions, you understand them a lot better: where he’s coming from and what the teachings are supposed to do. The Dhamma is connected with action. The four noble truths have their duties. The meaning of the Dhamma: the word attha is often paired in Thailand with the word Dhamma. It means “meaning”: what the Dhamma means but also what … 
  21. The Wisdom of Wising Up
     … When you consider the Buddha’s teachings—for example, the four noble truths, the three characteristics, the five hindrances—it’s easy to dismiss them as cultural relics or somebody’s personal proclivity. Why not five or three noble truths? Why does he focus on these particular teachings? Why focus on suffering? Was there something about his culture that kept him from seeing the … 
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