Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"
- Page 34
- Study & Practice… That’s what the four noble truths are all about. You have to learn to distinguish between stress and suffering on the one hand, and its cause on the other. Then there’s the path, which does involve some stress and suffering. After all, it’s made out of aggregates, which are subject to conditions. But you have to use them, so you have …
- Basic Wisdom… They’re embodied in the four noble truths. Craving leads to suffering. That’s an issue of action and result. The path leads to the end of suffering. That’s another action and result. And you see the path as preferable to the craving, because the results are on different levels. Then you figure out that the best way to develop the path is …
- Thinking Your Way to Stillness… They’re the ones that will eventually lead you to see things in terms of the four noble truths: looking at what’s going on simply as events and connections between events, seeing what the events do, and learning how to use that knowledge for the purpose of putting an end to suffering. So meditation does involve some thinking. It’s not simply being …
- Cornered… It’s easy to say that everything is fabricated, is inconstant, stressful and not-self and then wonder, “Okay, well what next?” What does all that mean? What do you do with that insight? The insight is useful only in the context of figuring out what you can do in terms of either the four noble truths or dependent co-arising. If you look …
- The Skill of Not Suffering… And that’s related to a second kind of suffering, the suffering of the four noble truths. This suffering is optional; it doesn’t have to be there. It comes from our own ignorance, from our own craving and clinging, and those things can be changed. We bring our awareness to the present moment to minimize our ignorance. We try to look at our …
- Mastering Pleasure & Pain… When the Buddha taught the four noble truths, he taught that there are duties that go along with each truth. In other words, the truth is not there simply to know. It’s there to act on. If your mind is overcome by pleasure or pain, then it’s not going to act on its duties: to comprehend suffering, to abandon its cause, to …
- Painful Thinking… This is why the Buddha started his teachings with the four noble truths. There’s suffering in life and there’s a cause to that suffering, and you can put an end to the suffering by following a path of practice that puts an end to the cause. It sounds all very straightforward. Some people have complained that it seems to be a very …
- Papañca… What’s the action? What’s the result of the action? ** **This is why the Buddha expresses the four noble truths as cause and effect, or path and fruit. There’s a path of action that leads someplace. You don’t have to ask who’s walking the path. Just follow it, and you learn to see these things as processes before they turn …
- Remembering Ajaan Suwat… You want to bring the framework of the four noble truths to your thoughts, your words, your deeds. What’s going on in the mind? What’s going on in your actions? Take the Buddha seriously. This is a training, and you have to submit yourself to the training if you’re going to know whether this kind of discernment works or not. This …
- The River of Karma… This is where the four noble truths come in. You observe the action and ask, “Okay, where is the stress here?” At that point, it might be very subtle, but after a while you begin to notice: There is a level of stress. And you notice it because it goes up and down. So what do you do? Well, what did you do when …
- Smart About Lust… You haven’t seen the third noble truth yet, but that’s the whole purpose of the Buddha’s teaching the four noble truths: There is that possibility for the cessation of suffering. And it’s not just a blank lack of suffering, it’s a very positive well-being. Anything that stands in the way of that has a lot of drawbacks. This …
- Lessons from the Buddha’s Awakening… As the Buddha said, the parts he taught about his awakening—the four noble truths—are for the sake of getting people to come to the end of suffering. You focus on that, and you’re focusing on the right spot. Which is why we’re here meditating, developing some of the factors of the path—right mindfulness, right concentration—or, at the very …
- A Well-thatched Roof… They don’t like the four noble truths. They tell us that they’re not noble. They tell us that they’re not truths. They tell us that the word for origination doesn’t mean origination; it means result. 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 …
- There is This… They are the subject of the four noble truths. That’s the suffering in the first noble truth: the suffering that craving and ignorance shoot into the heart. So our training is learning how not to shoot ourselves with that second arrow. Although it’s always struck me that there’s more than just one second arrow. Lots of arrows get shot into the …
- What We’re Here to See… different issues as they come up, but then as your practice gains more and more of a mastery, then you’ll find that it settles back into the main points: the four noble truths, the teachings on fabrication. So keep that framework in mind. But also remember you’re going to be discovering the details about your mind, and a lot of the insights …
- As Days & Nights Fly Past, Fly Past… When the Buddha set out the four noble truths he wasn’t simply setting out four interesting facts about an interesting topic—suffering and stress. He was pointing out the fact that this is the big issue in life—the suffering and stress that we’re causing ourselves—and that we don’t have to. The fact that we’re causing it doesn’t …
- Attachment to Views… The test always is appropriate attention to the four noble truths: To what extent does this insight give you insight into how to comprehend suffering or stress, how to abandon its cause, or how to develop the path, so that you can realize cessation? Those are the issues. And everything should get tested by those issues. Then, if the insight has done its work …
- The Buddha’s Conventions… So, when the Buddha gives his teachings like dependent co-arising, the four noble truths, or the three perceptions, they’re a form of social conditioning, too. This is why the Forest tradition never describes them as ultimate truths. They’re assumptions. They’re conventions. We use the Buddha’s conventions because they serve a purpose that our ordinary conventions can’t. His perceptions …
- The Whole Elephant… It’s not too much to grasp. The handful contains everything important to know. And it’s something we can get not only our hands but also our heads around: the four noble truths. That’s not all that much to comprehend. To paraphrase Ajaan Lee, “There are people out there who can manage orchards of thousands of acres, and here we have just …
- The Body Doesn’t Care… Look at the duties with regard to the four noble truths. The duty for the second noble truth, the cause of suffering, is to abandon it because it’s when you abandon the cause that you can solve the problem of suffering. Look at the third noble truth: That actually is the abandoning, where you successfully abandon the craving. But there’s an extra …
- Load next page...
