Search results for: "Suffering"

  1. Page 46
  2. A Path Under the Trees
     … What angle can you take on that problem of aging, illness, and death that would actually get you to something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die? He finally realized that by focusing on the problem of suffering—what is suffering, what causes suffering: That was the way out. The teachings of other teachers of that time all talk about … 
  3. The Buddha’s Safe Space
     … And then for the suffering you’re having now and the suffering that other people are having, or the things that you’re doing that are causing suffering now or that other people are doing: You learn how to have some compassion for yourself and others, realizing that we’re going through this world acting on ignorance. We all want happiness, we all want … 
  4. Why Limit Yourself?
     … Similarly with the belief in the cessation of becoming, which is a synonym for the cessation of suffering, or for nibbana. If you don’t believe that it’s possible, you’re not going to do anything to find it. But if you *do believe it’s possible, then you leave open the possiblity that you might make the effort to find the cessation … 
  5. Contemplating the World You Create
     … This is why we suffer, and then that suffering spills out onto other people. As you learn how to understand your mind, you do begin to understand more about the world outside, but that’s secondary. The big problem is that each of us is creating suffering, creating stress, and then we try to live in it, and we find that it’s not … 
  6. Mindfulness Aims at Concentration
     … Which is why another standard expression for the arising in the Dhamma-eye is seeing, “This is suffering,” “this is the origination of suffering,” “this is the cessation of suffering,” “this is the path of practice leading to the cessation of suffering”—seeing things in terms of the four noble truths, cause and effect. So there’s a lot more going on here than … 
  7. How to Leave Meditation
     … What would you get out of their suffering, especially if you’re coming from a position of well-being? Most of the time, if we want to see other people suffer, it’s because we’re suffering. “As long as I’m suffering, let’s see everybody else suffer as well”: That attitude simply leads to more suffering. Focus on whatever sense of ease … 
  8. Smart vs. Wise
     … The beginning of wisdom, he said, is, one, you go to a contemplative— someone who’s found the end of suffering, who knows something about the deathless; in other words, you go to the right people—and then two, you ask them, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What is blameless? What is skillful?” And then … 
  9. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … We, too, can put an end to suffering. We live in a world where that possibility is open. So we don’t want to close off the door by saying, “Well, I’m not going to try,” or “I don’t believe in it,” or “I don’t think it’ll work.” Look at yourself and ask yourself, “Have you suffered enough? How much … 
  10. Focus on the Doing
     … When the Buddha talks about four noble truths, they sound very negative, all about suffering, but only the first two truths are actually negative. The last two—the end of suffering and the path to the end of suffering—are positive. The path to the end of suffering includes right concentration, which includes rapture, pleasure, both physical pleasure and mental pleasure, along with strong … 
  11. Sensitive to Fabrication
     … You’re putting up with a lot of pain and suffering that you don’t have to.” This is why he encourages us to look at the suffering inherent in these things—everything that’s intended. “Wherever there’s change,” he said, “look for the element of stress there.” Because, when you look there, you can see there’s fabrication—you realize you’re … 
  12. Training Your Selves
    When the Buddha lists examples of suffering or stress in the first noble truth, one of them is not getting what you want: frustrated desire. He gives an example: You’re a being subject to aging, but you don’t want to age. That desire can’t be fulfilled simply through the desire. It’s not something to be gained just by wanting. You … 
  13. In Control
     … In other words, the breath becomes your path to the end of suffering, the body becomes part of your path to the end of suffering, your thoughts all become devoted to the end of suffering. You can make that choice and you don’t want anybody else to come and unmake it. You don’t want any random emotions or old habits to come … 
  14. As They’ve Come to Be
    The Buddha said we suffer from the craving that leads to becoming. So, that’s what we have to focus on: What is becoming? What is that craving? And how do we get out of that situation? He says it’s a special problem because the craving that leads to becoming includes craving for sensuality, craving for becoming—which makes sense—and then also … 
  15. Potentials for Good
     … Which means that when you see somebody suffering, or see somebody doing something that could lead to suffering, you don’t just say, “Well, that’s their past karma,” and leave it at that. The same when you look at yourself: You don’t say, “All I’ve got is the karma I see right now.” If we’re born as human beings, we … 
  16. To See What You’re Doing
     … So, what is your mind doing right now? Some of the actions you do can lead to suffering, and others can lead to the end of suffering. That was the basic message of his first talk: that it is possible, through your actions, to put an end to suffering. So you want to pay careful attention to your actions, having a strong sense that … 
  17. Values of the Noble Ones
     … How do you “comprehend suffering”? What does that mean? Suffering is basically clinging. Clinging is kind of an addiction. We do something over and over again, and it’s causing suffering, but we feel compelled to keep on doing it: We’re feeding on things that we know are going to be bad for us, but we feel compelled to keep feeding. Part of … 
  18. Meaning & Becoming
     … This is why the Buddha says the best possibility is to get out, because otherwise as he says, the craving that leads to these processes of becoming is also the cause for suffering. For becoming to exist, there has to be a kind of clinging. And everywhere there’s clinging, there’s going to be suffering. You’re either clinging to the idea of … 
  19. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … how to abandon them; how to take them apart; how to take apart the suffering that goes along with them. You notice when the Buddha talks about suffering or stress, he starts out with lots of examples that we can identify with in the narratives of our lives: illness, aging, death, being separated from those you love, having to stay with those you don … 
  20. Doing, Maintaining, Using
     … We see that the suffering that really matters in life is the suffering that we create unnecessarily through our greed, through our anger, through our delusion. Once we to stop creating that kind of suffering, there’s nothing that touches the mind at all. It experiences the world but with a sense of being disjoined. In other words, you’re not suffering from the … 
  21. Close to What You Know
     … What are you doing and what results are you getting? In particular, what are you doing that’s causing suffering? What can you do to put an end to suffering? Those are his basic building blocks. As for other issues that come up in the practice, they should all be related back to those building blocks. Like the whole question of self: We’re … 
  22. Load next page...