Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Hold onto the Breath
     … 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. Someone in the audience said, “Aha.” They’d caught me in a weak point. “That means you’re saying that there’s going to be suffering on the path.” And I said … 
  3. The Buddha’s Shoulds
     … In other cases, there were more general principles about how certain actions lead to happiness, and other actions lead to long-term suffering. Based on that, you can decide; he gives you principles for deciding. And he attacked any teaching that would not provide you with those principles. So the shoulds are really important. You see them at the very beginning in the four … 
  4. Abandoning & Developing
     … We want to put an end of suffering: the suffering we cause ourselves, the suffering we cause others. That’s a worthy goal. The Buddha called it part of the noble search, the search for something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die—totally free from suffering. **But we have to relate to that goal in a skillful way. If … 
  5. The Swinging Balance
     … That’s what’s making us suffer. This was his real insight: that no matter how bad things were on the outside, it is possible to develop skill inside so that you don’t have to suffer from those things. If you’re not making yourself suffer, you’re placing less of a burden on others as well. So whatever amount of time it … 
  6. Goodwill Is Respect
     … You have to realize that if your happiness depends on the suffering of others, it’s not going to last. One, they’re going to try to do what they can to destroy it if they can. And two, it’s just a fact of karma. The fact that you’re making your happiness rely on other beings’ suffering means that you’re creating … 
  7. Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge
     … As the Buddha said, the feeding is related to suffering, because suffering is clinging, and the term for “feeding” or “taking sustenance” is also the same as the word for “clinging.” But the Buddha thought strategically. He realized that you couldn’t just stop feeding off of form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness. If you forced yourself to stop, parts of the mind would … 
  8. Perplexity
     … When stress or suffering comes, that’s to be comprehended. You’ve got to look and see: What is actually the suffering there in the mind? You have to ferret it out. As the Buddha said, it’s something that’s not obvious: clinging to the five aggregates. If you go out to ask the average person on the street, “What’s suffering?”—it … 
  9. When Things Aren’t Going Well
     … You’re suffering and this is the way out. What is that way out? As the Buddha says, right view comes first. In his analysis of dependent co-arising, the prime factor causing suffering is ignorance. You don’t see things in terms of the four noble truths, and your attention goes wandering off to all sorts of other places. Or if you do … 
  10. To Strengthen the Path
     … All too often we hear that the Buddha bad-mouthed desire, calling it the cause of suffering. But not all desires cause suffering. Some desires are part of the path, like the desire to get the mind in a good state with a sense of well-being with the breath. Breathe in a way that feels good. And if it doesn’t feel good … 
  11. Treasures Beyond Death
     … As you learn how to master the duties of the path as skills—comprehending the suffering until you understand it; when you see what’s causing it, you let that go; you develop the factors of the path so that you can realize the cessation of suffering: That’s the greatest treasure there is. That’s what enables you to stop creating the suffering … 
  12. Focus on the Precepts
     … What exactly are you doing? You’re doing the causes of suffering someplace in your mind, and you want to see those actions along with why you do them. You want to develop the actions that lead to the end of suffering. So you want to get very, very sensitive to your actions and the intentions that motivate them. The precepts get you started … 
  13. Noble & True
     … After all, desire is a part of the path, and yet craving is the cause of suffering. So you have to learn how to distinguish what kinds of desires are good and which ones are bad. Craving for sensuality, the Buddha said, is going to make you suffer. Craving to become this, to become that or, once you become something, to have that becoming … 
  14. Cultivate a Limitless Heart
    Cultivate a Limitless Heart November 24, 2015 We each have our own sufferings that no one else can feel. And the work to put an end to suffering is often something that no one else can even see. As we’re focused on our own issues, things can get very narrow. On the one hand, it’s good that the sufferings that weigh down … 
  15. Part I : Basic Instructions
     … That’s how things get started all the way down to suffering. But if you bring knowledge to the process, that can relieve a lot of suffering. This is why the Buddha recommends that, when you’re working with the breath, you’re upfront about the fact that you are shaping things. You are working with intention. After all, the mind’s not just … 
  16. Making an Effort
     … There’s a phrase in the Pali, viriyena dukkhamacceti, which means suffering and stress are overcome through effort, through persistence. Sometimes the idea scares us off, but you have to remember that life itself requires effort. Think of the effort involved in simply keeping the body going, making a living, scrounging around trying to find some happiness. It all takes effort. It’s simply … 
  17. Coming into the Present
     … Everybody suffers aging, everyone suffers illness, death, separation from those we love. So what do we have left? Our actions. Right here in the present moment is where our actions are being decided. So let’s make the most of what we do have. Use your perceptions as wise actions, skillful actions. Apply some of the Buddha’s teachings, and see where they lead … 
  18. Creating a New Self
     … He saw that in each of those worlds, there is some suffering—there’s always something wrong in that world. If you can admit to yourself that there’s something wrong in this world, that by inhabiting this particular world or taking on this particular identity, there’s going to be suffering, or there is suffering as I do this. And you can’t … 
  19. The Need for Right View
     … So what you want to choose is to focus on the issue of suffering, and what happens in the mind to create the suffering. When you look at your experience in those terms, a whole new set of duties comes up in line with those four noble truths. Suffering, you want to comprehend. That means you want to see the clinging that is there … 
  20. Self-reliance
     … The Buddha’s big question is, “What is suffering? And how can you put an end to it?” That’s a question that other religions tend to leave in mystery. They point your attention to something else. But the Buddha’s focus is right here, and his analysis comes down to the fact that you can do something about suffering because you’re causing … 
  21. Layers of Selves
     … But then as you’ve dealt with that, then the next question is, “Okay, is there a potential for suffering there in that identification?” Of course, there is. Wherever there’s identification, there’s going to be suffering. We sometimes hear that the reason that clinging is bad is because everything you try to cling to is going to be impermanent. And when the … 
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