Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Skills of the Dhamma Wheel
     … Stress or suffering, he said, is something that you have to comprehend. To comprehend means to know it so thoroughly that you develop dispassion for it. We usually don’t think that we’re passionate for stress and suffering, but we really are. The things we generally are passionate about carry a lot of stress with them, but we just choose to ignore that … 
  3. Like a River Full of Water
     … You think of how the suffering of others doesn’t benefit you in any way, so why would you wish suffering on others? If you see other people suffering, the automatic development of goodwill is that it turns into compassion. If there’s something can do to help those people, you try to help them. If you see that people are already happy, goodwill … 
  4. Clinging-Aggregates in Context
     … Does that mean that there’s nobody there to be unbound? Is it a total wipe out? When the Buddha was asked that kind of question, he kept saying that all he taught was suffering and the end of suffering—the point being that there are questions he didn’t answer, that were not worth answering. But the question about what do you do … 
  5. Ready for the Truth
     … All too often, when we think about suffering, we think that we’re suffering because of this situation outside or that person outside. The Buddha wants you to see that it’s not those outside things making you suffer. You’re using those outside things to make yourself suffer, through your clinging, through your craving. He wants to point your attention here. You’re … 
  6. Over the Pass
    When the Buddha set out the four noble truths, he made it very clear that the purpose of the path was to attack the problem of suffering at its cause. In other words, you don’t attack the suffering, you attack the craving. And the attack has two forms: One is developing, and the other is abandoning, restraining. It’s interesting that in the … 
  7. A Blameless Happiness
     … The problem is that many of the things we do in our search for happiness actually cause suffering. This is the big problem in life. This was the problem that the Buddha wanted to solve. It took him a while to figure out how to solve it. There was a period when he actually thought the best way to find true well-being was … 
  8. Self-Bypassing
     … We suffer because of our actions, but we can find the end of suffering by understanding our actions—the actions that lead to suffering, and then the actions of the path to the end of suffering. That understanding is what opens the way. The Buddha’s autobiography shows the lessons he learned about action in the course of his awakening, and he tells his … 
  9. Develop Your Inner Observer
     … But in the meantime, work on developing this skill, because it helps you sort out a lot of things in the mind—in terms of comprehending suffering, abandoning its cause, developing the path so that you can realize the cessation of suffering. All the duties of the noble truths are contained right here. Or they should be contained right here. I mean, you can … 
  10. The Walls of Ignorance
     … This is why he focuses the Four Noble Truths on the suffering that comes from craving and ignorance. There’s a natural stress in the fact that things change, but our real problem is that we create extra suffering through our craving and ignorance. As long as we have the habit of putting up walls in the mind, we’re in a position where … 
  11. The Path Requires Effort
    One of the basic principles of the practice is that it’s through effort that you overcome suffering and stress. We don’t like to hear that. We prefer that all you do is just let go, let go, relax, and that’s the end of it. But it doesn’t work that way. The path, as the Buddha describes it, as one of … 
  12. Victory over Death
     … For instance, to comprehend suffering: What are you doing that is the suffering? That’s interesting. It’s not just that you’re doing something that causes suffering. You’re doing the suffering. You’re doing clinging: passion and desire for the different aggregates. As you create your sensual fantasies, as you create your views about the world, your sense of what should and … 
  13. The Noble Truth about Craving
     … Our desires create suffering, because craving creates these states of becoming. We have a desire, but it turns out that the desire has implications an consequences. And we’re ignorant of them. Now, the Buddha doesn’t condemn all desire. As he said, “All dhammas are rooted in desire,” and that term, “all dhammas,” includes the path, includes both skillful and unskillful dhammas. But … 
  14. Healing Awareness
     … We focus on it, it becomes the location of our interest, and so we create suffering. The Buddha didn’t say that everything is suffering. I don’t know how many times you see this again and again and again. People keep writing about it: “All is suffering.” No, it’s not. There’s a lot that’s not. But we’re the ones … 
  15. The Dhamma Mirror
     … All those things are inconstant, but what does that tell us about us and what we’re doing? The four noble truths, on the other hand, point out the fact that the reason we’re suffering is because of something we’re doing. We’re not suffering because things outside are permanent or impermanent. If they were the cause, even arahants would suffer. It … 
  16. Present-Moment Intelligence
     … If you were doing a good job, you wouldn’t be suffering, so you’re doing something here that’s adding unnecessary suffering in the mind. Learn how to notice that, learn how to drop whatever it is that’s causing it, and the mind will go to deeper and deeper stages of concentration. That’s what emptiness meant in the very beginning of … 
  17. The Flood of Views
     … There are a lot of views that will sweep us down the river, to more and more becoming, which means more and more suffering. We need to focus on the views that will get us across: such as the view that skillful actions need to be developed, that unskillful actions need to be abandoned. Suffering and stress should be comprehended, their cause should be … 
  18. To Be Debt Free
     … After all, why is this skill going to be required? You need a sense of goodwill, a sense of stability for the mind to accept its insights into why it’s been creating suffering for itself. It’s all too easy to blame your sufferings on the situation around you. There are people saying that the Buddha didn’t really appreciate the suffering that … 
  19. A Healthy Ego
     … So when suffering comes up, you don’t just push it away. You try to strengthen the mind enough to comprehend it—in other words you develop the path to give it that strength to see: What is the suffering? Why do you keep going for it? Because it is something we go for. The cause for suffering is not something outside, it’s … 
  20. Battling the Hindrances
     … So chandam janeti, try to generate that desire that you really do want to put an end to suffering. You’ve had enough of the sufferings of the world. How much more do you want to suffer? Ask yourself. It’s when you ask yourself that question that you start getting good answers. Then use whatever technique you can think of to hold out … 
  21. New Feeding Habits
     … So they got one of the forest ajaans to get up, and he talked about how the Buddha’s teachings were all about suffering, suffering, suffering. Then, when he had finished, the monk from Bangkok arrived. So they invited him to get up and give another talk. His theme was the Buddha’s teachings were all about happiness, happiness, happiness. They were both right … 
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