Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Food Insecurity
    When the Buddha says that suffering is clinging, he’s basically saying that suffering is feeding. Now, for a lot of people that’s very counterintuitive. They would agree that if you’re being fed upon—in other words, if you’re the food—there would be suffering. But for a lot of us, feeding is the big pleasure in life. They say that … 
  3. Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources
     … As Ajaan Fuang once said, equanimity is there so that the others don’t turn into suffering. You try to develop goodwill for all beings but you see that there are a lot of people out there who are suffering. A lot of people are doing the things that are going to cause suffering down the line. And you can’t stop them. You … 
  4. Developing Discernment
     … As the Buddha said, we suffer because of our actions, but we can also learn how to not suffer through our actions. So it’s a matter of choosing which actions we want to follow, which ones are really in our interest, and which ones we want to put aside. You have to realize that the act of choosing is going to be an … 
  5. The Karma of Pleasure
     … Particularly, you want to understand the issue of suffering. You want to comprehend it. That’s the duty the Buddha says we have with regard to suffering and stress: You want to comprehend it. You comprehend it by knowing it so thoroughly that you become dispassionate toward it. Ordinarily you might not think that we have passion for suffering, but we do. So many … 
  6. True for What Purpose?
     … He’s pointing out that the problem of suffering is the big problem in life, and here he’s got the solution—and if you want to solve the problem, you have to be very careful about what you focus on, and what you don’t. You see this in his teaching on questions. Some questions are meant to be answered in a categorical … 
  7. Mindful & Grateful for Lessons in Freedom
     … We’re also free not to suffer. We begin to see, as we get the mind into concentration, that we’re getting pretty close to not suffering at all. But as it happens, the more you’re used to this level of ease in the mind, the more sensitive you become and the more demanding you become as to what really counts as well … 
  8. Less is More
     … How does your mind process things? That’s where the stress and suffering come from. The Buddha explains the causes of stress and suffering in a very elaborate sequence. It starts with ignorance and goes through many different factors. But one obvious point to notice is that many of the factors come prior to your sensory experience. In other words, the issue is all … 
  9. Elephant Training
     … If the mind isn’t trained, it causes itself a lot of suffering. It causes suffering for other people as well. In fact, the Buddha once said that this is the difference between a fool and a wise person: The fool doesn’t see the necessity for training the mind, whereas a wise person does. You realize that if the mind isn’t trained … 
  10. Interdependence
     … But this also means that survival is suffering—survival as beings is suffering. Now, for a lot of people, the only alternative they can imagine would be non-existence, a total wipeout. But the Buddha found that there is another alternative: You can free yourself from having to be a being. You don’t have to be defined as a being or anything at … 
  11. Right Resolve, Right Concentration
     … The discernment lies in realizing that your actions can lead to suffering and so you want to make sure you don’t do anything that’s going to lead to suffering. And you have to look at your motivation to protect yourself from unskillful actions. So motivating yourself with thoughts of goodwill is a form of protection for yourself—another reason why it should … 
  12. Mature Happiness
     … One of the qualities of long-term happiness is that it not create suffering for other people. Because if it creates suffering for other people—after all they love themselves and they won’t be willing to give up their happiness so that you can have yours—it means they’ll probably try to destroy your happiness if it depends on harming them. So … 
  13. The Door of the Cage (2)
     … The self as a governing principle means you reflect on the fact that you started out on this practice because you wanted to put an end to suffering, the implication being that if you gave up on the practice, you’d be giving up on the idea that there could be an end of suffering. Is that an idea you’d like to give … 
  14. Determination
     … And their basic message is that if you want, you can put an end to suffering. If you want to suffer, you can continue to suffer. Which do you want? How are you going to look at your thoughts? How are you going to look at your attitudes? You have to look at them in terms of where they come from and where they … 
  15. The Anatomy of the Present
     … When he explains in dependent co-arising how suffering arises, the list of factors leading up to suffering is quite long. And halfway down the list is your experience of contact at the senses: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas. Sensory contact is where we tend to locate the present moment, but the Buddha is saying that this aspect of the present … 
  16. Expanded Possibilities
     … It’s not just suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering. Four separate truths, and there is that truth of the end of suffering. And the path, even though it takes a lot of work, is worth every bit of it. So as we face a world that’s been changed by this virus, in which a lot of our economic possibilities are going to be restricted … 
  17. The Best Work Around
     … There is a way out of all the sufferings that the mind suffers from, and all the stress and distress and despair and delusion and depression. All these other negative things in the mind: There is a way out of the them, and it’s one of the best things you can do in life. When you have that kind of attitude, the difficulties … 
  18. Encouragement
     … You can reason about it and you can argue about it, but it doesn’t really accomplish the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings, which is to get the mind beyond suffering. And in the course of gaining release from suffering, you gain release from a lot of problems. A lot of other issues get settled as well. So we’re working on a … 
  19. The Wisdom of Equanimity
     … Compassion is what goodwill feels when you see that people are suffering, or doing things that will lead to suffering. You want to help, if you can, overcome the suffering, or to help them stop doing the things that are going to lead to suffering. Empathetic joy is what goodwill feels when you see that people are happy or are doing things that would … 
  20. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … But in this case, it doesn’t matter—the suffering is not a person that you’re cheating. You want to get to know it really well, really intimately, so that you can figure out, “Okay, what is this? And what am I doing around it?” It’s not that your awareness of the suffering is one thing and the suffering is just coming … 
  21. Instruct, Urge, Rouse, & Encourage Yourself
     … You should try to comprehend suffering, you should try to abandon its cause, you should try to realize the cessation of suffering by doing what you really should do, which is to develop the path. That’s where you want to urge, rouse, and encourage yourself. Now again, the Buddha sets out those shoulds not to impose them on you. He simply says that … 
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