Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. To Escape the Prison of Time
     … That’s where we’ll find what makes a difference between a course of action that leads to suffering and a course of action that leads away from suffering. Finally, from the third knowledge, there’s the principle that if we focus on the problem of suffering and its cause, and if we learn the path of action that can put an end to … 
  3. Kindfulness
     … suffering or stress, and the end of suffering or stress. To get to the end involves understanding the principle of action: what you’re doing, where it’s skillful, where it’s not, what you can learn from where it’s skillful and where it’s not. That way, you can ultimately reach the dimension where suffering ends, or as the Buddha says, you … 
  4. May I Look After Myself with Ease
     … In other words, the practice helps sharpen your discernment as to when the mind is actually creating suffering for itself. We complain that the world is making us suffer, but we’re the ones who pick up on the things from the world and bring them into our inner home and weigh ourselves down. Yet if you don’t go out there picking up … 
  5. The Core of Experience
     … In fact, the clinging will be suffering. But you can turn them into a path, which switches their role as part of the first noble truth, about suffering, to part of the fourth: the path to the end of suffering. Like you’re doing right now: You’ve got your body sitting here, which is form. You’re holding onto the perception of the … 
  6. A Producer Mentality
     … right view about what’s going to cause suffering, what’s not going to cause suffering, what’s going to take you away from suffering, and then the resolve to do what needs to be done to get into right concentration. But then there are steps between right resolve and the actual concentration. One of the steps is in right resolve itself: being resolved … 
  7. Friends Inside & Out
     … Without that training, the mind can just go blissfully on, thinking that it’s good and yet complaining about all the suffering—and not being willing to see where there’s the connection between what the mind is doing itself and the suffering that it’s undergoing. It’s when you finally realize that the problem isn’t outside, the problem is inside: That … 
  8. A Path of Skills
     … Then we apply that same meditative sensitivity to the problem of suffering. Why is there suffering in the mind? Well, observe it as it’s trying to do something good and you’ll see that even with its best intentions, there are still things that need to be improved. You get more sensitive to how a state of concentration is put together and you … 
  9. Keeping Your Values Alive
    The Buddha once said there are two factors that are primary in gaining awakening, putting an end to suffering. The primary external factor is having admirable friends, people who are good examples, because you learn not only what they have to say, but also you look at their actions and try to emulate them. You can pick up a lot that way, too. Their … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. Vitakka & Vicara
     … This is where the Buddha gets into what he calls the fabrications of exertion, which, in some cases, have to be used to overcome the causes of suffering. As he notes, some of the causes of suffering in the mind require nothing more than that you look at them and see that they’re really not worth going for. As a result, they simply … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. Therapeutic Seclusion
     … You hold on to things that are making you suffer. The first noble truth is that you’re doing things that make you suffer. After all, the aggregates are activities. Form keeps changing. Feelings feel. Perceptions perceive. Thought fabrications fabricate. Consciousness cognizes. These are activities we’re doing all the time. We’re addicted to doing them in ways that make us suffer, and … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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