Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

  1. Page 33
  2. A Passion for the Path
    When the Buddha first explained the four noble truths, he also explained that each truth had a duty. Suffering was to be comprehended, its cause abandoned, its cessation was to be realized, and the path was to be developed. At another point in his career, he explained “comprehension” a little bit further: He said that you comprehend suffering to the point of dispassion. That … 
  3. Something to Stand On
     … And two is to look at experience in terms of the four noble truths, because those truths are what form what he calls vijja, the Pali word that means both knowledge and skill. This is a skillful way of looking at your experience so you can develop the other skills you need in order to overcome suffering. That’s the protection he offers. Like … 
  4. The Message of Mindfulness
     … Sometimes it involves keeping the four noble truths in mind: remembering that we’re here to look for stress, its cause, its cessation, or the path to its cessation. And then you have to remember the duties that go along with those four truths. If stress or pain comes up, you have to remember, “Don’t run away,” because it’s so easy to … 
  5. Samvega
     … Remember that the suffering of the four noble truths and the suffering or stress in the three characteristics are two different things. The three characteristics apply to everything: That’s simply the way they are. Everything that’s fabricated has to be inconstant, stressful, and not-self. But the stress that comes from craving and clinging: That’s not necessary. So you sit with … 
  6. Judging Just Right
     … The other is the four noble truths. As for other teachings, they have their time and their place. For example, when you’re working on concentration, the questions of things being inconstant, stressful, not-self: Don’t apply them to the concentration. Apply them to the things that would pull you away from concentration, because you’re trying to make the concentration constant, easeful … 
  7. A Noble Warrior’s Path
     … One is the four noble truths, and the other is the principle that skillful qualities should be developed and unskillful ones should be abandoned. Those two teachings are true across the board. As the Buddha showed, the three characteristics—or rather, the three perceptions—should be applied only in certain times and certain places. There was once a young monk who was asked by … 
  8. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … One was the distinction between what is skillful and unskillful behavior—that skillful behavior should be developed and unskillful behavior abandoned—and the other was the four noble truths. The truths about yourself as a meditator don’t fall into those categories. In other words, the question of whether you’re a good meditator or a bad meditator is never true across the board … 
  9. Is ‘I Am’ the Problem?
     … But as long as the duties of the four noble truths are not done, their duties are not done. They’re just shirking their duties, saying, “Well, I’m just going to find joy in not doing what I have to do or in telling myself I don’t have to do anything.” But the duties haven’t been done yet. Suffering hasn’t … 
  10. Gratification
     … That’s what the four noble truths are all about. The suffering that really gets to the mind is the suffering that comes from craving—not from the arising and passing away of things but from the craving that makes us try to take these things that arise and pass away and turn them into a foundation for happiness. But they’re not reliable … 
  11. Concentration Nurtured by Virtue
     … And you can regard those disturbances as the suffering in the four noble truths, if you want to analyze them. This is one of the teachings that Ajaan Suwat would give. You sit here trying to get the mind still. If there’s any disturbance in the stillness, you can say, “Okay, this is suffering.” When the Buddha talks about stress and suffering, it … 
  12. Levels of Truth
     … There’s the level of the four noble truths, where he doesn’t talk about beings or worlds. He simply analyzes the problem of suffering. This is for use when your powers of concentration get better and you can start analyzing things simply in terms of stress, the mental movements that are causing the stress, and what to do so you can see those … 
  13. Patient & Inquisitive
     … What does he mean? And why would that be suffering? He sets out the four noble truths not simply as a nice thing to think about. He’s challenging you. Each one of the truths is a challenge. Your cravings are making you suffer. Yet we think that our cravings are what enable us to find happiness. He says it is possible to put … 
  14. Comfortable as an Outsider
     … That’s what the message of the four noble truths is all about. It’s not that we suffer from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations. We suffer because of the commentary we apply to these things. And a lot of meditation is learning to talk to yourself in new ways. In fact, the whole practice is about talking to yourself in new … 
  15. The Right to Repair Your Mind
     … else has to do this for you. But he’s saying that you’ve got the wherewithal within yourself to solve the mind’s problems, particularly the problem of suffering. The four noble truths are his repair manual. They’re things you can find within yourself. They’re right here, right now—all four truths. And the reason we haven’t seen them is … 
  16. Hold a Mirror to Your Mind
     … it give insight into the pattern of action in shaping the world, but also focused in on, “What am I doing that’s causing suffering?” That’s the beginning of the four noble truths. It’s not just actions from the past, it’s actions in the present moment that really matter. Seeing that got him to the third knowledge, and that was the … 
  17. Streams of Anger
     … This is what the dynamic of the four noble truths is all about—wherever there’s suffering, turn around and look inside. Things outside may really be bad, but the suffering is not caused by the things outside. Look at dependent co-arising: Suffering doesn’t begin with unpleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations. Those come in the middle of the sequence. It … 
  18. Cause & Effect
     … Because when the Buddha talks about the four noble truths, he’s not talking about something abstract and far away. It’s something extremely personal: the fact that our unskillful desires give rise to suffering; skillful desires can bring an end to suffering. Our desires are about as intimate a part of ourselves as you can imagine. Yet we often don’t examine them … 
  19. Alone & Together
     … ask yourself: To what extent are they true, and to what extent is the opposite true? After all, there are only a few things that are true across the board: the four noble truths, the duties of those truths, and the basic principle that unskillful qualities should be abandoned and skillful ones should be developed. Everything else has its time and place. Even the … 
  20. Strengthening Your Goodness
     … In other words, you’ve got your own inner set of duties, what the Buddha sets out in the four noble truths: to comprehend the way the mind creates suffering for itself, to abandon the cause, to realize the cessation of suffering by developing the path. It may seem a little disconcerting that here are even more duties for you, but these are the … 
  21. A Pleasure Not to Be Feared
     … In the chant just now, the four noble truths are about suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. The focus seems to be on suffering, but notice that the truths don’t just stick with suffering. They’re also about how to find an end to it. And the end of suffering is true happiness. So those four noble truths … 
  22. Load next page...