Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"
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- What You’re Bringing… one, noticing what’s going on; and then two, looking at it in terms of the four noble truths and their duties. In fact, that’s what ignorance is defined as: ignorance of the four noble truths and their duties. So knowledge would be bringing those four truths to bear on what’s happening to you right now. Like when we’re working with …
- Not Getting What You Want… This is an important part of understanding the four noble truths. The Buddha says you have a lot of power in your hands. You’re using it to create suffering, but you don’t have to. You can use it to create a path to the end of suffering, and he’s showing you the way. So, it’s not just a path of …
- Character… In this way, your outside duties help with the duties of the four noble truths. The perfection of renunciation, when you learn to give up certain pleasures for more solid pleasures, more solid forms of well-being: This is going to be really helpful in the duty of abandoning the cause for suffering. We crave the things we like, so to abandon our craving …
- When Things Aren’t Going Well… 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 have little bits and pieces of knowledge, that’s all it is: little bits and pieces. Nothing continuous. You need to develop mindfulness and alertness so that your knowledge becomes more continuous, and the bits and …
- The Buddha Defines Wisdom… That’s what the Buddha tells us the four noble truths do. They’re categories for assigning duties, so learn to use them in that way. And even if you don’t get all the way to the ending of the effluents, at least you’ve got the mind in the right problem-solving mode. Because that’s what the four noble truths are …
- Indecision… The talk that he would give to get people ready to hear the four noble truths starts with generosity. Here in the West when we learn about Buddhism, one of the first things we learn is the four noble truths. But the question is, are we ready to hear about them? The Buddha would first get people ready. He said it was like taking …
- Nibbana Is Better than You Think… Then, from there, the Buddha would teach the four noble truths. Given your new perspective, you see that it’d be a good thing if the mind could find a happiness that doesn’t involve harming anyone at all, a happiness that has no drawbacks. That’s what the four noble truths are about. One of the big ironies of Buddhism coming to the …
- Even Animals Can Be Trained… He’s got the four noble truths, and one of the truths is the truth of the path: the noble eightfold path. But then you look at the noble eightfold path and one of the eight factors in the path is the four noble truths, under right view. Which means that those two teachings contain each other. And the fact that they contain each …
- Not Resolved on Self… It was awakening to the four noble truths. The four noble truths are all about skill: the skill of abandoning craving, the skill of developing the path. The same with his first listeners, the five monks: His first teaching to them was the four noble truths about skillful action, about how to abandon craving and to develop the factors of the path. He didn …
- The Duties of Compassion… So when you’re spreading those thoughts of goodwill, that’s the thought you’re spreading: “May all beings act on skillful intentions.” And skillful intentions are informed by right views, so: “May all beings have right views.” This is why, when the Buddha taught the four noble truths, it was an act of compassion: to help beings—anyone who was willing to listen …
- A Clear Agenda… Think about the four noble truths. They’re truths with a purpose: to help you end suffering. Where in the four noble truths is your purpose today? When you see the Buddha’s definition of ignorance, it doesn’t mean having preconceived notions. It doesn’t mean trying to change things. Ignorance means not seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. For …
- Discernment in Concentration… One passage in the Canon equates it with knowing in terms of the four noble truths. The four noble truths may seem awfully far away, but basically they are the Buddha’s problem-solving approach: pointing out that the big problem in life is the fact that we cause ourselves suffering, and offering a solution to that problem. If you’re going to solve …
- Attention with an Agenda… This framework, with time, mutates into the four noble truths. Here again, you have truths with duties. You’re not just passively watching. You realize there’s something to do. Suffering is to be comprehended. Its cause is to be abandoned. Its cessation is to be realized, and the path to that cessation is to be developed. You realize there’re tasks to be …
- The Regularity of the Dhamma… Ignorance means not seeing things in terms of the four noble truths — in other words, applying inappropriate attention. When you look at things in an inappropriate way, you frame issues in an inappropriate way, which means that your fabrications are going to lead to suffering. All the other elements of name and form and consciousness will tend toward suffering and stress as well. But …
- A Basis in Well-being… Many times when we hear the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths— you know, stress, suffering, pain—it sounds like Buddhism is very pessimistic. But the four noble truths start from a deeper motivation, the desire for true happiness. Coming from that desire—and also learning how to use what basis you already have inside yourself for well-being, for pleasure, for …
- Facing Pain Straight On… He’s saying that we’re not skilled in the four noble truths, not skilled in seeing things in terms of four noble truths, we’re not skilled in performing the duties or tasks that are appropriate for the four noble truths. So the insights come in the same way that you gain insights as you’re mastering a skill. Bit by bit. You …
- Skills of the Dhamma Wheel… It’s got twelve spokes, which symbolize one of the passages in the sutta where the Buddha goes through the four noble truths and the three types of knowledge for each truth: knowing the truth, knowing the duty appropriate to that truth, and then knowing that you’ve completed that duty. Four truths, three levels of knowledge, three times four is twelve: That’s …
- Always Observe Your Mind… Everything the Buddha teaches us, as he says, is contained in the four noble truths. The message of the four noble truths is again and again and again: The causes for suffering are in the mind. The path to the end of suffering starts in the mind, and starts with right view. So the Buddha keeps pointing you back: Observe your mind. Observe your …
- Truths Noble in the Heart… Where are the four nobles truths right now? At the very least, where is the stress? Where is the cause? What are you doing to develop the factors that are going to help put an end to the cause? So every morning, when you wake up, ask yourself: Where are the four noble truths right now? And what are you doing with regard to …
- 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 …
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