Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Strength Training
     … After all, as the Buddha said, the four noble truths have four duties. The first one is to comprehend suffering. Then you let go of the cause of suffering, to realize the cessation of suffering, but to do that, you’ve got to develop the path. That takes work. So if you’re in this for the long haul, this means, one, that you … 
  3. Taking the Long View
     … That’s why the Buddha teaches you the four noble truths. Again, he’s not teaching you the one truth of being in the present moment. There are four truths because there are four activities you have to do, four duties you have to follow. Think of the four truths not so much as statements but as categories: If something comes up in the … 
  4. Relationships
     … There’s a reason he taught the four noble truths, saying that this is the best use of your powers of concentration: to learn to focus in on the issue of suffering that you create through your own craving and how you can put an end to it. This teaching is based on a wish for well-being: the desire not to create suffering … 
  5. Comprehending Pain
     … He talks about the four noble truths and how each of the noble truths has three types of knowledge related to it. The Dhamma wheel lists all twelve permutations of the four truths times the three levels of knowledge In the case of the first noble truth, the truth of stress, the first level of knowledge is simply that this is what stress is … 
  6. Mastery
     … Directed thought and evaluation, the categories of the four noble truths: These all involve thinking, analyzing, understanding. You may think you’d like to go to a state of pure peace and stillness, that you don’t want to be bothered with thinking at all, but if you don’t learn how to analyze things in this way, there are a lot of actions … 
  7. Accepting the Way Out
     … his teaching on this/that conditionality, the four noble truths, dependent co-arising. They can seem awfully technical and awfully far away. But they do have a compassionate purpose. And it’s important that you learn how to translate the abstractions into the immediacy of what you’re doing, so that you can see, “Oh yeah, there is a fabrication going on.” The breath … 
  8. Clinging-Aggregates in Context
    When the Buddha talks about the five clinging-aggregates, it’s always in the context of the four noble truths. In fact, it’s his definition of the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, or stress: Clinging to the five aggregates is stress. It’s important to keep that context in mind because sometimes you hear the five clinging-aggregates defined as the … 
  9. The Lightning Bolt
     … In other words, you try to look at it in terms of four noble truths and the duties of the four noble truths. Then you look at your own life and say, “Okay, what in my life needs to be changed? Which potentials in the mind should I develop and which potentials in the mind should I let go so that I can develop … 
  10. Worldly Narratives
     … The leaves in his hand are what he taught about the four noble truths. The reason he taught those truths was because they were useful for putting an end to suffering. So, as he said, he wasn’t the sort of person who would teach things just because other people believed them. He taught rebirth because it’s a really useful truth, in the … 
  11. Victory over Death
     … Your duties, of course, have to do with the duties of the four noble truths. We’re here to comprehend suffering, to abandon its cause, to realize its cessation of suffering by developing the path. The Buddha doesn’t impose those duties on us, but he does tell us, from his perspective as an expert, that these are the actions that will lead to … 
  12. Two Things to Keep in Mind
     … The big framework that we’re operating within, of course, the four noble truths. That’s how we overcome ignorance: by trying to keep that framework in mind. But then each of the truths has a duty. You want to remember that, too. And each of the sub-factors within those truths has its duty as well—a duty not in the sense that … 
  13. The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless
     … Then there’s transcendent right view, which is the four noble truths. That, too, is an explanation of action. Actions of craving lead to the result, which is suffering. Actions of the noble eightfold path lead to the result, which is the end of suffering. You have to understand that. In the beginning, you don’t really know it. You haven’t even had … 
  14. A Healthy Ego
     … On the one hand, in terms of the shoulds, the passage we chanted from the Dhammacakka just now, which was the actual wheel of the Dhamma, talked about the four noble truths and the three levels of knowledge for each truth. In the time of the Buddha, a wheel was like a table nowadays, where you have different sets of variables that you run … 
  15. A Poker Mind
     … And then there are the four noble truths, which apply their duties to what you’re doing right now. For instance, your main duty right now is to develop concentration because that’s part of the path. So in the beginning, we take the first three frames of reference—body, feeling, mind—and we try to bring them together. They may not fit quite … 
  16. Clearing a Space
     … So, your first line of defense is to try to figure out how the four noble truths apply to this issue? These are the Buddha’s basic terms of analysis for just about everything that comes into the mind. These are the terms of appropriate attention. When an issue comes up, try to figure out where it lies on that field. Is it an … 
  17. Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge
     … We learn about the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path and all the many lists that the Buddha taught. But when he boiled down the basic teachings, the ones he said were really important, he focused on the wings to awakening, which are lists of qualities of the mind that are going to be needed as you take on your battle with … 
  18. A Path Under the Trees
     … So as you protect your concentration, it becomes a way to develop more and more discernment in line with the four noble truths. In that way, you’re getting closer and closer to the state of the mind that the Buddha had on that night of his awakening. You’re sitting alone out under the trees, focused on your body as a whole, alert … 
  19. Desires Have Their Reasons
     … actions are going to make a difference. That’s also an important part of the discernment. Actions have their consequences. And you have your choice as to what to do. The four noble truths give even more guidance. They point out the kind of desires that are not worth following: desires for sensuality, desires for becoming; desires for non-becoming. For instance, with becoming … 
  20. Protection
     … What I had taught, the four noble truths, is like the leaves in my hand.” And here is someone who knows the truth 100%. Yet even then, he knows when to hold it back, because those other leaves would not be helpful in putting an end to suffering. So, you may know the truth, your opinions may be true, but how true are they … 
  21. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … You can see the same pattern in the four noble truths. The path to the end of suffering, the Buddha says, is the karma that leads to an end of karma. There are things you have to do in order to stop doing. You have to have a desire to act. You see this in right resolve. You set your mind on doing things … 
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