Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. The Quest for Inner Happiness
     … We want true happiness, a happiness that doesn’t cause any suffering, any harm to anybody else—which, of course, is a happiness that has to be found inside. With external happiness—depending on food, clothing, shelter, and medicine—there’s only so much to go around. And even when we try to keep our needs minimal, it still places a burden on other … 
  3. Beyond Duality
     … There’s a passage where the Buddha goes through the different factors of dependent co-arising, and pairs each one up with suffering or stress. For example, mental fabrication: You contemplate mental fabrication paired up with stress to see the connection between them, to see how the process of fabrication does lead to more stress, and then to see what you can do to … 
  4. Getting Your Head Around the Goal
     … Instead, the Buddha says, “Try to focus on comprehending your suffering.” Again, it may seem like a diversion or a distraction. But if you exercise your mind through developing powers of concentration and mindfulness, and then turn them on understanding how it is that the mind creates suffering for itself—suffering around physical pain, suffering around mental pain—you can see a lot of … 
  5. Imagine
     … He was trying to figure out the problem of suffering, tracking down the cause to see if there was some way of attacking the cause so that he could bring suffering to an end. And just the way the questions were framed got him into the four noble truths. Think about how his whole quest was driven by his imagination. He imagined the possibility … 
  6. Factors for Stream Entry
     … You want to comprehend what’s going on as you’re doing it, because all too often when we’re suffering in one area or another, we’re not looking at things in terms of the aggregates. We’re just moaning about how much we’re suffering. All we can think about is how we want to get rid of it. As the Buddha … 
  7. The Power of Intention
     … If we do them with ignorance, they create suffering. But if we bring knowledge to them as we do them, we can come to the end of suffering. So your intentions are powerful. They make the difference between whether you’re going to suffer or not. We work on concentration so that we can see the mind more clearly. Why do we want to … 
  8. Self View & Conceit
     … Basically, what you’re doing is asking yourself the questions of the four noble truths: “Where’s the suffering? Where’s the stress?” In this case, it’s very subtle. It’s hard to call it suffering, but it is stress. It is a disturbance. When you notice it, the next questions are: “What action is causing it?” and “What can you do to … 
  9. Goodwill & Gratitude
     … But what contains the four noble truths? The fact that someone on awakening would focus on the problem of suffering, teaching other people how they could stop suffering. Where does that come from if not from goodwill? The fact that someone would go around northern India for 45 years, teachings these truths to people—everyone who was willing to listen and able to practice … 
  10. Between You and Your Eyes
     … When we suffer, we think we know suffering, but we don’t really. When we have a desire, we think we know our desires, but we don’t really. Out attention is mainly focused someplace else—on our plans for the future, issues from the past—so that what’s immediately present is simply used as a means to something else. As a result … 
  11. New Feeding Habits for the Mind
     … And we want to be happy in a way that doesn’t cause suffering to anybody else, either. This—if the mind is constantly weighed down with aging, illness, death, and separation—is very difficult. Most cruel actions come from people who are suffering. When you see a cruel action, it’s usually coming from the person’s feeling weak, feeling threatened, at his … 
  12. Restraint
     … Now, there may still be a part of the mind that says, “Can’t we see them suffer a little bit first?” You have to ask yourself: Do you want to have that childish part of your mind take over? And what good would be done by their suffering? There are a lot of people who, the more they suffer, the more they insist … 
  13. A Sense of Yourself
     … How discerning are you on the ways in which the mind creates suffering for itself, stress for itself? You can look at it as you meditate right here, right now. The Buddha talks about the disturbances in your mind. How good are you at seeing through them and seeing that you can drop them? The important point of discernment is seeing that the suffering … 
  14. Off the Continuum
     … The use of pain, of course, is learning how to gain insight into the truth of suffering, the truth of stress. And the use of pleasure is gaining nourishment from the pleasure of concentration. Some people complain, when the Buddha starts off with the four noble truths, that there’s a lot about suffering and very little about pleasure or happiness. Well, it’s … 
  15. Do, Maintain, Use
     … But what the Buddha’s asking you to do is to bring that whole process up into the light of day through right mindfulness and right concentration, and then to inform it with right view—the right view that there are things you do that lead to suffering and things you can do that can lead to the total end of suffering. That broadens … 
  16. Totally Secure
     … You’ve gone through all that trouble, created all that suffering for yourself, often suffering for other people, and yet you have nothing to show for it. This is why the Buddha pointed out that one of the major factors in the practice is to understand this process of fabrication. One of the definitions of discernment or wisdom is all-around knowing of this … 
  17. Always Observe Your Mind
     … The causes for suffering are in the mind. The path to the end of suffering starts in the mind, and starts with right view. So the Buddha keeps pointing you back: Observe your mind. Observe your mind. That’s how you grow in the Dhamma.
  18. Instructions for a New Monk
     … He found a way and attained the deathless element inside, the release from all suffering—and also release from what they call the effluents. These are qualities that come bubbling up in the mind and lead you to flow along with them and create more suffering and stress as you keep coming back and back and back. He was able to end all of … 
  19. More Wisdom for Dummies
     … The duty with regard to suffering and stress is to comprehend it. For the cause of suffering, the duty is to abandon it. The cessation of suffering is something you should realize. And the path to that cessation is something you should want to develop. Notice: You want that because of your goodwill, so you try to maintain that attitude as you look at … 
  20. Be Precise
     … We’re doing something in the mind that’s giving rise to suffering, and we’re suffering because of our ignorance of what we’re doing. We also have the potential to do something that puts an end to suffering. To see the difference, you have to focus on what you’re doing. You have to learn how to see your actions in the … 
  21. Everybody Suffers
    Everybody Suffers March 27, 2005 One of my English teachers in high school once said that a sign of a great mind, a great person, is the ability to look past the particulars of your own experience and see the general principles that apply to everyone. Say you’re disappointed in love: You see it in general terms. You’re not the only person … 
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