Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. To Comprehend Suffering
     … So these are a few beginning directions in how to comprehend suffering, the suffering that comes from our craving and clinging and ignorance. Because that’s the only suffering that’s really a problem. You find that as you start along in this direction you’ll gain your own insights into precisely how you’ve been feeding, precisely how you’ve been trying to … 
  3. Homage Through the Practice
     … Some people complain that the teaching sounds very narrow—just focusing on suffering when there are so many other bigger issues in life—but the question is, are the big issues really the big issues? We’re driven so much by suffering in our lives. As the Buddha said, the main reaction to suffering is bewilderment. We’re so bewildered by the suffering in … 
  4. A Connoisseur of Happiness
    A Connoisseur of Happiness January 5, 2010 A couple of years back, I got a phone call from a friend who had attended a Dhamma talk where the teacher had said that “life is suffering” is the second noble truth. The friend called up to scoff at the teacher, saying that, of course, everyone knows that that’s not the second noble truth, that … 
  5. The Brightness of Life
     … His very first sermon went straight to the point: “This is going to all be about suffering and the end of suffering.” His first noble truth, which is often misrepresented as, “Life is suffering,” actually says simply, “There is suffering” and identifies what it is: the act of clinging. Wherever there’s clinging, there’s suffering. And what causes the clinging? Craving. Which is … 
  6. The True Cause of Suffering
     … To do that, we also have to understand what suffering is: why we suffer. We don’t suffer because we don’t have enough money; we don’t suffer because we don’t have enough friends. That’s not the true cause of suffering. The true cause of suffering is that we’re looking for happiness in the wrong places. What are the right … 
  7. Noble Priorities
     … The body may grow ill, old, die, but that’s not the essence of the suffering. As Ajaan Lee says, those things are the shadows of suffering. The real suffering is clinging to the aggregates: form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness. The clinging is the big problem. That’s the suffering. What causes it? The three kinds of craving, which are things that you … 
  8. Wisdom & Compassion
     … After all, the suffering that we encounter in the course of our lives is not just from things come from outside. It’s mainly from how the mind processes these things, how it reacts to them—the worlds of suffering it builds inside. And it turns out that those worlds are the most oppressive, the most burdensome. That’s both one of the major … 
  9. Suffering is an Addiction
    The Buddha defines suffering as clinging to the aggregates, which makes it sound like we’re holding on to things, but we’re actually holding on to actions—in other words, certain ways of doing things, certain ways of thinking that we just keep repeating over and over again even though they cause suffering. It’s like an addiction. You hang on in spite … 
  10. Unskillful Voices
     … That was the third knowledge, when his knowledge of kamma was able to stop causing suffering and to bring him awakening, to take him to the deathless. The teaching he gave after his awakening revolves around these issues: What is the power of human action to cause suffering? What is the power of human action to put an end to suffering? A large part … 
  11. The Buddha’s Investment Strategy
     … Because suffering is real – but the end of suffering is also real. That’s why the time spent investing in understanding these things, mastering the skills for putting an end to suffering, is time well spent. You suffer less. The people around you suffer less as well. As you go through the process of aging, illness, and death, if you can manage your mind … 
  12. You’ve Got Friends
    The Buddha focused his whole teaching career on dealing with the problem of suffering. As he one time said, that’s all he taught: suffering and the end of suffering. Suffering here is primarily mental suffering, the mental pain we feel. The word dukkha in Pali, in its everyday meaning, is just pain. Here the Buddha’s talking mainly about the mental pain we … 
  13. A Refuge Inside
     … Then you use that concentration to develop discernment to see how exactly the mind creates suffering. When the Buddha talks about suffering, there are basically two kinds. There’s the suffering of the three characteristics. As he says, Sabbe sankhara dukkha: All fabricated things are suffering. But then there’s also the suffering of the four noble truths, what he calls the five clinging … 
  14. An End to Suffering
    The Buddha once said that all he taught was dukkha and the end of dukkha, stress and the end of stress, suffering and the end of suffering. That’s it. And his main teaching on suffering is that the causes for suffering lie within the mind: ignorance and craving. If you’re going to put an end to suffering, you’ve got to look … 
  15. Is the Buddha’s Wisdom Selfish?
    Wisdom begins, the Buddha said, with the questions, “What when I do it will lead to my long-term harm and suffering? What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” And wisdom finds its highest expression in the four noble truths, which are also concerned with suffering. You might ask, “This focus on your happiness and your suffering … 
  16. The Buddha’s Letter
     … Where does suffering come from? It comes from within the mind. It’s an action in the mind that leads to suffering. So again, the dangers from outside are not nearly as bad as the dangers coming from inside. You’re the one who’s causing yourself to suffer. I’ve been reading several people saying that the Buddha wanted to get rid of … 
  17. To Certify Yourself
     … Or if we are suffering from that, we’re suffering from the wrong thing. The real thing we’re suffering from is that we’re clinging to things that are going to disappoint us. Although there may be lots of other things outside that we say are causing us to suffer, the suffering is really coming from within. So you’ve to learn how … 
  18. Understanding Happiness
     … In the Buddha’s analysis of suffering, he says that if you breathe in ignorance, it’s one of the causes for suffering. If you think in ignorance, if you label your perceptions, label your experiences in ignorance, it all leads to suffering. So here’s an opportunity to do all of this with awareness. You breathe with awareness, think about the breath with … 
  19. Reflect
     … In particular, he said suffering—the noble truth of suffering—is that suffering is clinging, clinging to the five aggregates, and that clinging is something you do. And this is nothing obvious. We tend to think that we suffer because of things outside, the actions of other people or pains in the body. But the Buddha’s saying, “No, the real suffering that weighs … 
  20. Working from the Inside
    The Buddha once said that all he taught was suffering or stress—the Pali word is dukkha—and the end of suffering and stress. Now, where do we experience that? It’s in a part of us that no one else can touch, no one else can experience. Each of us has our own sufferings. We can see other people suffering and that can … 
  21. A Passion for the Path
     … He said that you comprehend suffering to the point of dispassion. That’s what it means to comprehend it: You develop dispassion for it. It sounds strange: dispassion for suffering. We don’t usually think that we’re passionate about suffering, but as he pointed out, we suffer because of five clinging aggregates, and there’s passion right there in the clinging. We cling … 
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