Search results for: "Suffering"

  1. Page 35
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. Calm & Insight into Pain
     … If they’re doing it in ignorance, there’s going to be suffering. If you can see how you’re picturing pain to yourself, how you picture your body to yourself, how you picture the mind to yourself, and you can see where it’s causing suffering, then tell yourself, “Maybe I can change the picture.” Now, you don’t have to change pictures … 
  10. Universal Truths
     … He doesn’t force anyone to carry out these duties—but the stress and suffering that we suffer from: They force us. If you really want to gain release from these things, you first have to comprehend them. You have to do the duties appropriate to each of the truths. One of the reasons we start with the breath is that it gives us … 
  11. Parsing Out Suffering
    The Buddha says that to get beyond suffering, we have to comprehend it. That’s the duty with regard to the first noble truth. And comprehending it basically comes down to understanding why we look for happiness in all the wrong places, in all the wrong ways. The Buddha could have simply said that—we want pleasure, but we’re not finding it the … 
  12. The Right Focal Length
     … What he meant, of course, was that they kept complaining about things outside, blaming their sufferings on conditions outside, and never taking seriously the idea that maybe their suffering was actually coming from within, and that your main focus should be inside. Actually, one of the purposes of having a monastery that’s not all that comfortable—particularly in a monastic life where we … 
  13. Respecting Death
     … It’s one of the few things that can see you through that experience so that you don’t suffer. And this is why recollection of death is traditionally used to spur you on the practice, to be heedful, to get over your laziness, realizing you don’t know how much time you have, and death is a big problem. Sometimes the suffering of … 
  14. Advice for a New Monk
     … Once your understanding of suffering falls in line with the right general principles, you’re a lot more likely to see the genuine cause and then dig it up, really understand the suffering enough so that you can put an end to it. Most of us know that we suffer, but we don’t really understand our suffering, so we keep pushing and pulling … 
  15. The Uses of Fear
     … You become heedful to try to develop skillful qualities, i.e., qualities of mind that will lead to good results, leading you away from suffering; and to abandon and avoid unskillful qualities, the ones that cause suffering. If you develop your mindfulness, your alertness, your concentration, you can do this. So fear isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s an important part of … 
  16. The Buddha’s Metaphysics
     … It’s very important because the big issue he addressed was the question of suffering and how to put an end to suffering. Well, suffering is something you do. The act of putting an end to it is also something you do. So the Buddha had to address the question of action, because questions about action address such issues as, “Is everything you do … 
  17. The Awful Truth
     … These are the things that cause us to act unskillfully, so that we cause ourselves suffering, and we cause suffering for the people around us. If these things can be uprooted, we’re not going to suffer; we’re not going to cause anybody else any suffering. When these things are uprooted, then no matter where you live, you don’t pick up the … 
  18. Ajaan Suwat’s Gift
     … And look in here as well for the cause of the suffering, and also for the solution. In other words, it’s not the case that we suffer because of things outside. There can be bad things outside, but we don’t have to suffer from them. We suffer from them because of our own lack of skill, our own lack of understanding. So … 
  19. Questions of Skill
    Sometimes the Buddha traces the causes of suffering down to craving, and sometimes he traces them further, to avijjā. This word is usually translated as ignorance, but it also means lack of skill. So, what are the skills we need? The skills having to do with the duties of the four noble truths. The truths are not just truths “about” something. They’re truths … 
  20. Fear of Others
     … And at the end of the hour, she turned to the woman who brought her here and said, “I’ve never suffered so much in my life.” Which just goes to show that the mind can create a lot of suffering for itself. In fact, as the Buddha pointed out, the suffering we create for ourselves is what really weighs down the mind, much … 
  21. Chanting Before Meditation
     … The food we eat—even if it’s vegetarian or vegan food—involves suffering for the people who have to work to farm the food and to get the food here. It takes work to fix it and to clean up afterwards. Clothing requires work. Shelter requires a lot of work. Medicine requires a lot of work. There’s a lot of suffering that … 
  22. Load next page...