Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"
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- How to Listen to the Dhamma… And remember that appropriate attention, especially as it applies to the four noble truths, carries some duties. When the talk points out something that should be abandoned, you actually try to abandon it. If it points out something that should be developed, you try to develop it. That way, in the Buddha’s terms, you get sensitive to what the talk is aiming at …
- Food Insecurity… It doesn’t mean only “not-knowing.” It also means “lack of skill.” Remember that the four noble truths—which form the knowledge that replaces ignorance—have their duties. You can know that and just let it pass. Or you can know that and say, “I’m going to take on those duties”: an act of will that requires that you talk to yourself …
- Heedfulness… And then it develops from that into seeing things in terms of the four noble truths: “Okay, where is the stress right now? What are you doing to cause the stress? How do you comprehend the stress enough so that you can abandon it? What qualities of mind do you need to develop as a path to get to the point where you can …
- Respect Opens Possibilities… The other categorical teaching is the four noble truths, focused first on what is your suffering, after all. The Buddha identifies it as clinging to the aggregates. The aggregates are activities we indulge in. We chanted about them just now. Form—your body is constantly in action. Feeling—feelings of pleasure, pain, feelings of neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions—the labels you apply to …
- Against Your Type… Dependent co- arising, the four noble truths, emptiness: All the really big basic teachings are questions of action and result. That’s how the Buddha wants us to look at things. That’s what right view is all about: seeing things in terms of actions and their results. Then you take that insight and use it to develop all the skills you need, as …
- Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence… In other words, they have to fit into the skills of the four noble truths. That’s when you use them intelligently. So this is the kind of intelligence we’re trying to develop as we practice: pragmatic intelligence. We look at our memory and ask, “What in my memory is useful for right now? What’s not useful?” Focus only on the things …
- 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 …
- Always Willing to Learn… You’re looking to see the four noble truths inside you. If, like the path, they’re not already there, you give rise to them. As for the cause of suffering, that’s already there, and your duty is to get rid of it. All four of these truths have duties. Stress or suffering is to be comprehended. In other words, you have to …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
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