Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. The Duties of Happiness
     … When the Buddha set forth his main teaching, the four noble truths, each of the truths entailed a duty. The duty in each case was designed to lead you to true happiness. In other words, you can take on the duties or not, as you want. The Buddha is saying, though, that if you want true happiness, then this is what you have to … 
  3. The Third Noble Truth
    The Third Noble Truth February 22, 2015 Of the four noble truths, the third—the cessation of suffering and stress—is the one we talk about the least, the reason being that it’s the result of the practice. Focus on the causes, and the results will take care of themselves. So most of our emphasis is on the path. But it’s good … 
  4. Working at Home
     … stress, and not-self to the five clinging-aggregates, you’re learning to take a problem-solving approach to issues in your life, which is precisely the Buddha’s approach. The four noble truths are a problem-solving approach, focused on the problem of stress and suffering as a whole, and offering a solution to the problem. As you first start applying this approach … 
  5. Doing the Right Thing
     … The other is the four noble truths, and the two teachings are connected. You look in the mind to see what you’re doing that’s creating suffering. You realize that it’s the craving and ignorance that you’re doing. We don’t think of these as actions, but they are. We tend to think of them as qualities that kind of hover … 
  6. Commit, Reflect, Discern
     … You’re not skilled in the duties of the four noble truths: You don’t know how to comprehend suffering well, you don’t know how to abandon its cause well, you don’t know how to develop the path well, so there’s no way you’re going to realize the cessation of suffering at all. You’ve got to learn how to … 
  7. The Dhamma Eye
     … These were what he called the four noble truths: suffering, its cause, the cessation of suffering, and the path to its cessation. When he clearly saw those noble truths, he saw further than that each truth had a duty. When you experience suffering, the duty is to try to comprehend it, to understand it, to figure out what it is and why it’s … 
  8. Justice vs. Skillfulness
     … The Buddha set out duties only in terms of the four noble truths. As for the issue of helping other people, he didn’t place a duty on anyone. He pointed out the advantages of being generous, but he didn’t try to force anyone in that direction. He simply pointed out that certain things are skillful and certain things are unskillful in your … 
  9. Becoming
     … As he said, only when he had gained knowledge of things as they have come to be — in terms of the four noble truths, and the three levels of knowledge about each truth — did he claim full Awakening. That’s the kind of knowledge we’re working our way down to. And the only way you can get down to that level of unintended … 
  10. Safety
     … There’s a school of thought that says we should be wide open to everything, and not allow even the four noble truths to restrict us. That’s basically saying that wide open experience, accepting experience, is as good as it gets. You might as well accept that. But the Buddha says there’s something better, and it comes from being focused on what … 
  11. Look at Yourself
     … As we noted today, when the Buddha describes the four noble truths, he talks about suffering and the cause of suffering, but he doesn’t talk about the cause of the end of suffering. He talks about the path you follow to get there. You can’t cause the deathless, but you can practice in a way that arrives there. It’s your activity … 
  12. Enlightenment is Not a Hot Dog
     … For others, it’s related to the four noble truths. For others, it’s related to the six sense media. And you find that as you focus on these things, they overlap more and more, so they’re not really separate topics. You start with one particular topic and you work in on it, and you discover the other topics are related. So it … 
  13. Question Your Defilements
     … I believe or don’t believe, but in terms of what actually happens as a result of following a particular thought, following a particular idea?” That question led him to the four noble truths, led him to see things in terms of dependent co-arising—in other words, processes just arising and passing in the mind without thinking about “This is me, this is … 
  14. Fear of Death
     … The deconstruction is the four noble truths, just looking at things in terms of stress, the cause of stress, what you’re doing to put an end to that cause. And the actual end of stress comes as you get more and more precise, more and more skillful at following the path. Your precision and skill lead you to detect even more and more … 
  15. Unskillful Habits
     … But that’s what the four noble truths are pointing us to: the suffering we create for ourselves. That’s the issue. The suffering coming from outside was not the main issue. It is an issue, but because we pile on our own suffering inside, we make it more and more difficult to deal properly with the outside stuff. So straightening out our own … 
  16. Selves with Skills
     … The main issue is actually in the four noble truths, starting with the fact that we suffer in our clinging, we cling because of craving, and we crave because of ignorance. However, it is possible to put an end to that ignorance, put an end to that craving, by following the path. These are truths that carry duties: The suffering is to be comprehended … 
  17. The Choice Not to Suffer
     … This is why the Buddha puts the cessation of stress third there in the four noble truths. Some people wonder: Why didn’t the Buddha put the path as the third truth, and then the cessation of stress as the fourth truth? Well, to have energy to follow the path, you have to be convinced that it is possible to get beyond the stress … 
  18. Fire Escapes
     … That’s what the four noble truths are all about. They’re not just four interesting statements about suffering. They’re an announcement that this is the big problem in life and here’s the solution. So it’s up to you how much you want to benefit from that teaching, how much you want to benefit from that announcement. But if you are … 
  19. Sensitivity & Strength
     … You work both on the intentional technique in the concentration practice, and on the questions that come up in the course of the practice, because concentration gets more solid when you learn how to ask questions in terms of the four noble truths when any distraction comes up. You can start seeing through the distraction, seeing it for what it is, realizing what you … 
  20. Adjusting the Flame
     … After all, you’ve got this problem in the four noble truths. Suffering is caused by the craving that leads to becoming, and one of the forms of craving that leads to becoming is craving for non-becoming—in other words, craving to destroy whatever types of becoming you’ve already got. So how do you free yourself from becoming without craving non-becoming … 
  21. Fabricating Around Pain
     … You look at the four noble truths. It’s not the case that pains cause suffering. Craving and clinging cause suffering. In other words, the things coming out of the mind are causing suffering. But they’re not things that are there inevitably. If you bring knowledge to them, if you bring awareness to them, you can actually turn them into the path of … 
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