Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Pro-self, Pro-help
     … When the Buddha talks about suffering and the possibility of ending suffering in right view, the wise response is to resolve not to do anything that’ll cause suffering. In other words, you realize that your actions make a difference. And you have to be careful, because some of the ways you can act can cause a lot of suffering both for yourself and … 
  3. The Buddha Aimed High
     … We suffer from these things because of our craving, and only when we deal with our craving will we get anywhere. So that’s the focus of the teachings. It’s the kernel of the four noble truths. You solve the problem of suffering not by solving suffering, but by solving the cause. You’ve got to abandon the cause. We want to abandon … 
  4. Everything You Need
     … Approach the present moment looking for where is the suffering? In other words, where is the clinging right now and where is the craving that’s causing the suffering? That’s what appropriate attention means. You look at the present moment and you apply the four noble truths to every present moment that comes. What can you develop right now that will be in … 
  5. To Sustain Your Practice
     … The fourth thing to look for is for someone who’s wise and discerning, and particularly who really discerns why we suffer and how we can put an end to that suffering. Now, obviously, these characteristics are found best in someone who’s gained the first taste of awakening. Their conviction in the Buddha has been confirmed. Their discernment into the problem of suffering … 
  6. The Wrong Uses of Right
     … But if you’re holding on to your rightness and it’s causing you to suffer, you say, “Okay, something’s wrong here.” That’s not what right actions, right views or right whatever are right for. They’re right for the purpose of abandoning the cause of suffering. But if you’re using them to create causes of suffering, something’s wrong. Ajaan … 
  7. Dispassion
     … And you realize that all of this clinging and holding on is suffering. So you feel dispassion for the objects you’ve been clinging to, and for the clinging itself. Similarly with the second noble truth—the origination of suffering, which is any one of three types of craving: for sensuality, for becoming, and for non-becoming. You try to develop dispassion for these … 
  8. Right Livelihood
     … When you reflect on these things, you also reflect on the fact that they come to you through a fair amount of suffering. Sometimes a lot of suffering—on the part of the people who provide the food, sometimes for the animals whose meat is used. Even if you’re vegetarian, there’s just a lot of suffering for the farmers, a lot of … 
  9. Skillful Desire
    When the Buddha describes suffering and stress, he starts with some things that we’re all used to, we’re all very familiar with: aging, illness, death, separation, not getting what you want. His explanation of the last point is interesting. He says that, as people who are born in this world, we don’t want aging, we don’t want illness, we don … 
  10. Two Guardian Meditations
     … When he taught people about the path to the end of suffering, he didn’t first say, “Only those who deserve not to suffer can listen to this.” Everybody has karma in their background that could cause them to suffer. The whole point of the teaching is that not everything you experience is shaped by past karma. There’s your independent present karma right … 
  11. What’s Worth Doing?
     … Is it worth causing suffering for yourself? And the answer is that in some cases it is—if the suffering is the suffering involved with the path. After all, everything that’s fabricated involves some stress. And every state of becoming, where you take on an identity in a particular world of experience, is going to involve some stress and suffering, too. Now, you … 
  12. Lessons for New Monks
     … You start thinking about how all your suffering is based on the fact that there’s this person here or that situation here—and things are not perfect. The Buddha keeps reminding you: What is right view? Suffering comes from your craving. It doesn’t come from conditions outside. If you want to put an end to that suffering—the clinging to the aggregates … 
  13. Ups & Downs
     … That, plus the determination that you really do want to put an end to suffering. You can fuel that determination by reminding yourself of all the sufferings you’ve been through, those that you can remember. Think also of the sufferings the Buddha tells you about that you can’t remember: all the times you’ve had your head cut off, all the times … 
  14. Questioning & Acceptance
     … If you say that the prime reason why we suffer is because we can’t accept things for what they are, you’re saying that we suffer because we’re neurotic. But the Buddha’s analysis of suffering was not that we’re neurotic. He saw it more as coming from the fact that we’re not paying careful enough attention to what we … 
  15. Feeding Off the Future
    The reason we’re meditating, training the mind, is because the suffering that stabs at the mind is the suffering we create for ourselves by the attitude we bring to things. Now this doesn’t mean that the world outside is all perfectly okay and that the only problem is that our minds are poorly trained. The world outside can be pretty miserable. People … 
  16. A World Apart
     … But the actual skill with which you deal with these things—the extent to which you suffer or don’t suffer—depends totally on you. And this is an issue that should take high priority in your life. This means that meditation is not simply something you stick into a few free moments. It’s a matter of life and death: the life of … 
  17. Gratitude for Birth
     … In any case, birth is suffering. There’s the suffering of being in the womb, the suffering of being pushed out of the womb. Many babies die right then. Many mothers die at the same time. Of course, there’s the pain and suffering for the mother: nine months of carrying this weight around in her belly. There’s that story in the Canon … 
  18. Feeding Frenzy: Dependent Co-arising
     … The focus of your attention should be to understand: “What is the cause of suffering? What are the causes for the end of suffering? If I see myself doing something that leads to suffering, how can I stop? If I see that there are states of mind that lead to an end to suffering, how can I encourage them? How can I develop them … 
  19. Mundane Right View
     … In other words, instead of worrying about whether it’s me or not me, or whether things really exist out there or don’t really exist, you just look at your experience in terms of where there are sufferings, what you’re doing to cause the sufferings. Again, it’s the principle of action and its result, in that case unskillful action. There’s … 
  20. The Power of Human Effort
     … As the Buddha said, we suffer because we fabricate our experience—but not out of whole cloth. We fabricate it out of potentials that come from our past karma, yet our present actions play a huge role in shaping the way we experience things. Most often, we do it out of ignorance, which is why we suffer. But if you bring knowledge to these … 
  21. Admirable Friendship
     … The fourth quality is discernment, noticing where you’re causing unnecessary suffering and seeing how it’s related to your actions. You learn how to stop doing the things that cause unnecessary suffering and to develop the qualities that lead to the end of suffering instead. So when you find people outside who have these qualities, you should associate with them and emulate them … 
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