Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Working Hypotheses
     … Not only the teachings on karma and rebirth, but also the teachings on the four noble truths. We don’t know for sure that they’re going to take us to awakening or to a safe place, but they make sense. You have to think about the position the Buddha was in as a teacher. As he said, he could see various paths, like … 
  3. Your Duty Lies Right Here
     … Appropriate is when you see things in terms of the four noble truths and their duties, or on a more basic level, seeing things in terms of whether they’re skillful actions or unskillful actions. Then, if they’re skillful, how can you develop them? If they’re unskillful, how can you abandon them? This gets further elaborated in the four noble truths, with … 
  4. A Message for the Universe
     … You have to ask yourself, “Maybe I’m perceiving things wrong?” Well, what would a more accurate way of perceiving things be? What would be a more useful way of perceiving things? What would be more conducive to getting the mind to settle down? Remember, we’re doing all of this in the context of the four noble truths, and the four noble truths … 
  5. Cheating the System
     … When the Buddha talks about ignorance as the cause of suffering, he identifies it as ignorance of the four noble truths. It’s not so much ignorance of the words of the truths. After all, we’ve all heard them, and we’re still suffering. Instead, he’s talking about not knowing what’s going on in terms of the four noble truths while … 
  6. The Buddha’s Basic Therapy
     … This is why, in most cases, when the Buddha taught the four noble truths he didn’t start out with the four noble truths. He started out with what’s called a graduated discourse, building on really basic things like generosity and virtue. And even these build on a foundation, which is what’s called mundane right view. The way it’s expressed in … 
  7. The Four Noble Truths from Within
     … But if you learn how to do it with knowledge, specifically knowledge of the four noble truths, you can take that process of fabrication and turn it into a path that leads to an experience totally unfabricated. That’s the part of the equation you have to take on faith. You haven’t reached awakening. You haven’t experienced anything that’s really unfabricated … 
  8. The Practice of Right View
     … Right view comes down to the four noble truths, and the four noble truths are based on one of the Buddha’s really categorical, across-the-board teachings: that you want to abandon unskillful behavior and engage only in skillful behavior. In other words, we’re working on a skill here. The things we intentionally do with our body, with our words, and with … 
  9. The World Does Not Endure
     … Is that really where you want to be? In the four noble truths, as the Buddha explains, the world is not the problem, and it’s not the solution to the problem. The problem is the suffering we have in our minds, and that, he says, comes from within. We hear the four noble truths so many times, over and over again, that we … 
  10. Fixing the Present
     … That’s what the four noble truths are all about: to figure out which mind states are causing the suffering and how to put an end to them. And you can do that only by experimenting. So when something comes up—you’re sitting here with the breath and all of a sudden an unpleasant emotion comes up—the first thing you do is … 
  11. The Dhamma Eye
     … In the Canon, there are some cases where people who already had a background as wandering ascetics are listening to the Buddha’s teachings, and it’s almost always in conjunction with the four noble truths that they would gain this particular insight. Other times, you see people who have no religious background at all. They listen to the Buddha’s teachings, where sometimes … 
  12. A Path of Aggregates
     … It’s very counterintuitive, which is why when he explained the four noble truths, he didn’t start out with the four noble truths. He would often prepare people by having them think about generosity, virtue, the rewards of virtue and generosity that can be found in heaven. But then the drawbacks: Even heavenly sensual pleasures have their drawbacks. Some of them can be … 
  13. Teaching Old Dogs New Selves
     … Especially when you hear the teachings of the four noble truths, that it is possible to put an end to suffering, to find a genuine happiness, and that the cause for suffering comes from inside. It’s one of the reasons why the Buddha taught not- self to the five brethren after he taught them the four noble truths. It’s from the perspective … 
  14. In the Context of the Path
     … that the noble eightfold path—starting with right view, which is the four noble truths—is the main framework for everything else. So whenever you read a teaching of the Buddha’s, ask yourself, “Where does it fit in the training? Where does it fit in this course of action?” There is a tendency, sometimes, to focus on the three characteristics as the Buddha … 
  15. Ignorance
     … It was from this basic distinction between skillful and unskillful that the Buddha drew out the four Noble Truths: skillful causes, the path; unskillful causes, craving; the results of skillful causes, i.e., the end of suffering; and the results of unskillful causes, i.e., continued suffering. Those are the four categories of the four Truths. And this, the Buddha said, is precisely what … 
  16. Appropriate Attention
     … Right there you’ve got the framework for the four noble truths. As the Buddha explains appropriate attention many, many times, that’s the framework that’s applied: the four noble truths and their duties. We chanted the *Dhamma-cakka, the Dhamma Wheel, *the other night. You notice the part that’s the wheel, which is the heart of the sutta where the Buddha … 
  17. To Comprehend Suffering
     … And right view, of course, is the four noble truths, focused on the issue of stress, suffering—dukkha is the Pāli term. In its ordinary, everyday meaning, dukkha means “pain.” Sometimes you hear it described etymologically. Du- means “bad”; kha- can mean either “the hub of a wheel” or “space,” the idea being, in the first case, that it’s like a hub that … 
  18. The Duty to Be Positive
     … Each of the four noble truths has a duty, and thinking about thoughts that wear you down—about what’s wrong with you, things you’ve done in the past that you feel ashamed of—is not one of your duties. Those sort of thoughts are not to be developed. What you should develop are factors of the path. And one of the factors … 
  19. Using What You’ve Got
     … That’s pain in terms of the four noble truths. This is why, when the Buddha uses the word dukkha in the three characteristics, it’s not quite the same as dukkha in the four noble truths. The three characteristics are just the way things are in and of themselves, but the suffering in the four noble truths is something that’s created by … 
  20. Guardian Meditations
     … It’s within this context that the four noble truths make sense. After all, suffering is a result of a particular mental action, or a series of mental actions — craving and ignorance being primary. If mental actions didn’t have an impact on your life, the four noble truths would be meaningless. This, of course, directs us to where we have to practice: We … 
  21. Conviction in the End of Suffering
    There are some people for whom the four noble truths seem to be like this: Things are inconstant—that’s the first one. Things are stressful—that’s the second. Things are not-self—that’s the third. And I can learn to be okay with that—that’s the fourth. Now, those are not the Buddha’s four noble truths. But it’s … 
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