Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Appreciating Dispassion
     … Years back, I was giving a daylong retreat on the four noble truths. We went through the truths in order and we got to the third noble truth. We talked about the realization of nibbāna, and some of the images the Buddha gave for it. Then we looked at the fourth noble truth, going through the factors of the noble eightfold path, until we … 
  3. One Thing Clear Through
     … And basically that’s the message of the four noble truths: You’ve got to change the way you’ve been acting. The way you’ve been acting has been leading to suffering, but you can act in a different way. You can give up your old habits and try something new. It takes effort, but it’s going to be worth it in … 
  4. Don’t Underestimate Merit
     … And when the Buddha taught the four noble truths, suffering was the first thing he talked about. Some people come with a particular problem that’s been eating away, but once that problem gets solved, they stop meditating. We see some of that. But there are other cases: As you take care of that particular problem, you see that there is a larger structure … 
  5. Choices that Matter
     … When he taught the four noble truths, he didn’t present them simply as four interesting facts about suffering and stress. He said, here are four different things you can do: You can try to comprehend the stress and suffering—looking to see that in the action of clinging there is suffering right there—and to see how that’s true. Then see how … 
  6. The Power of Action
     … Each of the four noble truths has a duty, but nibbana doesn’t have a duty. There’s no action there at all. But you get there through acting skillfully and looking very carefully at your actions. And to act, you need strength. This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration, but it’s also one of the reasons why we try … 
  7. Think
     … Firing shots in rapid succession, he says, is basically seeing the four noble truths. What this means is that you watch the mind and notice when it’s creating stress and when it’s not creating stress. Sometimes it goes back and forth very quickly between the two. You can gain an insight and then immediately latch on to it. Okay, the insight was … 
  8. What’s Relative, What’s Constant
     … They’re part of the teaching on the four noble truths, the part of the teaching that can help put an end to suffering. So, instead of seeing these teachings as weird artifacts of Asian culture that somehow got stuck in the Buddha’s teachings, realize that they’re something he thought about and he chose carefully as tools you can use. So learn … 
  9. Your True Responsibility
     … Take the Four Noble Truths: They deal with suffering and the end of suffering. What do you do to bring about the end of suffering? In other words, how do you arrange the issues in your mind skillfully so that they no longer lead to suffering? Even the Buddha’s teaching on causality can be compared to modern theories about learning. He tells precisely … 
  10. Compassionate Duties
     … In this case, you’re keeping in mind the duties that the Buddha set out in the four noble truths, as we chanted just now: Suffering is to be comprehended, its cause is to be abandoned, the cessation is to be realized, and you do that by developing the path. It’s a way of dividing up your experience so that you know what … 
  11. Don’t Focus on Jhana, Focus on the Breath
     … One of Ajaan Lee’s most important insights into concentration practice is that this is how evaluation starts out, paying attention to a simple question that’s very closely related to the four noble truths. “Where is the stress? What can I do to alleviate the stress?” In this case, “Where is the discomfort in the breath?” How do you breathe in? What are … 
  12. Joy in Getting It Right
     … As for the mind states, they’re usually paired—concentrated, unconcentrated; released, unreleased—the implication being, if you think of the duties of the four noble truths, that if an unskillful mind state is there, you want to switch it over to its skillful counterpart. So we are trying to get things right. After all, the duty of mindfulness is not simply to watch … 
  13. Gratitude, Goodwill & Generosity
     … We often read the texts that right view consists of seeing things in terms of the four noble truths, but there’s a more preliminary form of right view that reminds you of the power of your actions. In particular. it focuses first on the power of your good actions:, that there is a special value to generosity. There’s a special gratitude you … 
  14. A Concentration Diet
     … It starts with: “What is one?” “What is two?” “What is three?” and it goes all the way up to, “What is ten?” For example, “What is four?” The four noble truths. “What is five?” The five aggregates. “Eight?” The noble eightfold path. The most interesting answer, though, is the answer to, “What is one?” And that is, “All beings subsist on food.” And … 
  15. Playing by the Buddha’s Rules
     … The second set of rules are the duties of the four noble truths: to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize cessation of suffering, and develop the path to that cessation. These rules and duties are very different from the rules and duties that the world places on you. So as you engage with the world, engage with your family, with people around you, especially … 
  16. Wisdom as a Tool
     … Remember that only the four noble truths are true everywhere, so use wisdom in how you interpret the limits of the insights you’ve gained. Ajaan Mun had another piece of advice, which you can read about in Ajaan Maha Boowa’s account of Ajaan Mun’s passing away. Ajaan Maha Boowa was feeling really abandoned after Ajaan Mun’s death, and then he … 
  17. Right View: Feeding Instructions
     … So an important part of adopting right view is not only learning to look at your experience in terms of the four nobles truths, but also realizing that this is the important problem. It takes precedence over everything else. That may sound selfish, focusing on your own suffering, but look at the people in the world. The fact that we’re making one another … 
  18. The Buddha’s Cost-Benefit Analysis
     … realizing that—given the four noble truths, particularly the truth of how suffering is originated—you want to avoid any thinking that would originate more suffering. So you learn how to step back from your thoughts, step back from your desires, and view them in this context of a cause-and-effect chain—where they come from, where they go—so that you can … 
  19. Perceptions for Training the Mind
     … When you’re doing that, you’re acting in line with the duties of the four noble truths. And, as the Buddha said, when you stay on the path, you’re safe. It’s when you wander away from the path that you get into danger. Here again, he gives an image: people with a cart, and they decide to leave the main road … 
  20. A Sense of Duty
     … In terms of the four noble truths, suffering should be comprehended—in other words, you should see that suffering is in the clinging to the aggregates. That takes a lot of effort to comprehend because we tend to see suffering in other places. But this, the Buddha said, is where the real suffering is. So you want to comprehend that. How do you cling … 
  21. Return of Wisdom for Dummies
    When the Buddha introduced his teachings to people, he very rarely started out with big principles like the four noble truths or the three characteristics. He started out instead with an action that his listeners were familiar with: He’d start out with the act of generosity. And he had an etiquette around that. It wasn’t to get people to be generous. Often … 
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