Search results for: "Dukkha"

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  2. Listening to the True Dhamma
     … Animals call out and it teaches the principle of dukkha. There’s Dhamma for you to hear everywhere.” What he didn’t say at that time was also an important part of his listening to the Dhamma. He would have visions—visions of the Buddha coming to teach him, visions of the devas coming to teach him, nagas. He realized that if he believed … 
  3. Attention & Intention
     … That’s the primary meaning of the word dukkha. Some people translate that as “unsatisfactoriness,” but that’s a very unsatisfactory translation. You don’t say, “I have an unsatisfactoriness in my hip.” You have pain in your hip. And it’s important that you realize that, in comparison to what the mind could be experiencing right now, even the most pleasant experiences in … 
  4. Action & the End of Action
     … can also mean heart. It also can mean a mental quality of being intent—to will something. Sukha, the word for happiness, can mean everything from ease to pleasure to bliss. Dukkha can be any level of pain—mental pain, physical pain, stress, suffering. Each of those words has a wide range of meanings, and the Buddha leaves them pretty undefined. In the case … 
  5. The Duty to Understand
    In the first noble truth, the Buddha defines suffering or stress—the Pali word is dukkha—as the five clinging-aggregates, and the clinging is the important part of the compound there. The suffering that eats into the heart is made up of those five types of clinging: clinging to form, clinging to feelings, clinging to the perceptions or mental labels, clinging to thought … 
  6. An Issue of Control
     … It’s suffering or dukkha in the three characteristics. But you don’t just write it off. You look at it. What are the ups and downs of that pain? What makes the pain worse? What makes it better? Is there anything you’re doing right now that makes a difference? Always the Buddha has you explore this line between where you can make … 
  7. Unraveling the Present
     … I’ve noticed some people resent the idea of translating the word dukkha as stress. They feel it doesn’t give it enough dignity. Well, that’s the whole point. Cut through your all your existential anguish and everything, and you see that it’s just that. It’s just stress that you create for yourself. When you look at it from that angle … 
  8. An Anthropologist from Mars
     … As for pain, we all know that the Buddha said that pain, suffering, stress—however you translate dukkha—is a noble truth. There’s a lot to be learned there. So try to face the ways of the world with equanimity and not let yourself get sucked into the narratives or systems of values that people use to tie you in, to keep you … 
  9. Pain Is a Noble Truth
     … As the Buddha said, *dukkha—*pain, suffering, stress—is a noble truth. I read something else really strange recently, saying that the fact that we’re suffering is something to be ashamed of. It’s very ignoble because it’s a sign that we’ve been clinging and craving. That shows a lot of misunderstanding. The truth about pain is noble in the sense … 
  10. Facing Pain Straight On
     … The ones who gain insights with ease are in very strong states of concentration, and for them the stress or dukkha that comes up is very subtle. But it’s enough for them to see it. Something happened in the mind, and they check it out. Other people are more stubborn. They have to be faced with really serious pain before the mind is … 
  11. Choiceful Awareness
     … If you’re going to be thinking about inconstancy, stress, or not-self— anicca, dukkha, anatta—focus that analysis on the distractions so that you can quickly let them dissolve. Allow your concentration and awareness of the breath to be as constant and pleasurable and as much under control as possible. It’s in exercising these choices that you get really, really sensitive to … 
  12. The Noble Truth of Suffering
     … thesis—in which the author was saying the Buddha defines *dukkha *as the five aggregates, and the five aggregates are basically what you experience, which means that the four noble truths are not about suffering, they’re about experience. Another scholar said that the way the Buddha names the four noble truths is ungrammatical. And because the Buddha would speak only in standard grammatical … 
  13. Over-informed
     … The word dukkha: We translate it as suffering, but it also means stress, and everything between subtle stress to really out-and-out misery. It’s all the same word in Pali. But as he pointed out another time, this is something that’s been with us for a long time. Our problem is that we’re bewildered by it. We don’t know … 
  14. Infinite Good Humor
     … It’s a teaching on *dukkha: *He asks the king, “When you’re sick, even though you’re a king, can you order the people in your court to share out the pain of your illness so that you will experience less pain? Or do you have to bear it alone?” “I have to bear it alone. There’s no protection from things like … 
  15. Respect for Suffering
     … Because there are two kinds of dukkha or suffering. One is just the natural ways things are. You’ve got a body and there’s going to be pain in your body, there’s going to be aging, illness, death someday. Those are things you can’t prevent. But there’s another kind of suffering that you cause through your own craving. You have … 
  16. There’s Work to Be Done
     … where you can fight against the perception of inconstancy by creating a sense of constant well-being and a constant focus; how you can fight against the perception of dukkha, stress, pain, by creating a sense of well-being, and allowing it to spread throughout the body. And you’re fighting against the perception of not-self. You ask yourself, “Well, what can I … 
  17. Hedgehog Knowledge
     … At this point it’s hard to call dukkha suffering. It’s more like a sense of stress. Even in this state of concentration, you find that there’s some stress. So, what are you doing to keep that stress going? What can you do to let it stop? And you notice, if you’re sensitive, that it comes and goes, comes and goes … 
  18. Conviction & Persistence
     … stress or suffering—dukkha is the Pali word—and the end of stress. That was it. All the many teachings we find in the Canon are simply elaborations on those two topics. So it’s so good to reflect on why this is so important. It comes down to the importance of our actions. Our actions really do make a difference. We can interpret … 
  19. The Challenge of Right View
     … When he talked about inconstancy, stress, and not-self—anicca, dukkha, anattā—he called them perceptions. You apply the perception of inconstancy. You apply the perception of stress. You apply the perception of not-self, first to any of the distractions that would pull you away from concentration and ultimately to the state of concentration itself. And in applying those perceptions, you find that … 
  20. Concentration & Insight
     … The Buddha’s use of the word dukkha covers both suffering and stress, because there is stress even in the states of concentration, and that is what you’ll have to focus on to get past the concentration. But first you want to focus on the grosser forms of suffering. This is how insight develops: You start working at things that are really obvious … 
  21. The Dhamma Wheel
     … The four noble truths, of course, are the truth of suffering or stress—the Pali word is dukkha—the origination of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to its cessation. In the case of the first truth, suffering is basically boiled down to clinging to the five aggregates. The Buddha never said that life is suffering. That’s one of those fake … 
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