Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. In Tune
     … There’s that statement that “The Great Way is not hard for those with no preferences.” Now, of course we prefer the end of suffering to suffering itself. But the Way does demand that we put our preferences aside as to what has to be done, what should be done. We live as a group because we can learn from one another, and hopefully … 
  3. A Point of Balance
     … We all know that craving is the cause of suffering, and most of us think primarily of sensual craving: craving for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations. But that’s not the only kind of craving there is. There’s also craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming. In both cases, it’s a push into the future. In fact, in all three … 
  4. Emotion
     … This is one the reasons why the breath is such an important meditation topic, because it comes in right early in the Buddha’s description of how suffering arises. If you breathe in an ignorant way, you can cause suffering. If you look at your emotions carefully, you realize that the way you breathe has an impact on the emotion, and the emotion has … 
  5. To Get Ourselves
     … When you’re trying to get other people, there’s always the question: “Well, why do you want other people? What do you want out of them?” But when you’re trying to get yourself, you look at the fact that you’re suffering, and someplace in the mind is that desire to stop suffering. When you’re honest with yourself, you realize that … 
  6. Framing the Body
     … At the end of each lifetime, he had a strong feeling of, “What suffering! What suffering!” Yet, in spite of the suffering, we keep coming back. Think of King Koravya in conversation with the monk Ven. Ratthapala. Ratthapala’s pointing out to him the truths of aging, illness and death. When he was young, he was strong. But now he’s old. He means … 
  7. Guarding Against Trouble
     … What is suffering? What leads to suffering? What can be done to put an end to suffering? Those questions are useful. So right now as you’re meditating, what are you going to do to help put an end to suffering? Well, you develop concentration, you develop mindfulness. What you’re doing is developing the path. And so you pay attention to this: What … 
  8. Get Real
     … There’d be a lot less suffering. In fact, you could ultimately get to the point where you put no suffering into your experience at all. That’s how far the skill can go. It requires that you be true in your observation, both admitting what you’re doing to yourself and admitting the results that come, at the same time using your ingenuity … 
  9. What You Sense Directly
     … It doesn’t even end in the three characteristics, it ends with the four noble truths—cause and effect around stress and suffering, and the path to the end of suffering: in other words, looking directly at what you’re doing right here, right now. That’s where these questions get answered. That’s the framework that helps you to answer them. So look … 
  10. Take Heart
     … You realize that you’ve suffered a lot. In fact, how much you’ve been suffering is actually beyond your comprehension, but there’s an awful lot. And you want to get out. That desire is to be encouraged. I don’t know how many times you hear people say, “The desire to change things is craving, and craving is a cause for suffering … 
  11. A Good Purpose in Life
     … It goes around and around, creates all kinds of suffering, leaving a lot of suffering in its wake. It’s very wasteful. But our minds are different. We live with our purposes. When people say there’s no purpose in their life, they don’t want to live anymore. The question is, what kind of purpose do you want? What kind of purpose will … 
  12. The Brahmaviharas Are Not a Complete Practice
     … Actively look to see where you do have ill will for somebody, where you want to see them suffer, and then stop and think about it: What would you gain from their suffering? What would you gain from your own suffering? Very little. There’s a peculiar pleasure sometimes that comes from suffering or seeing somebody else suffer. But it’s not good for … 
  13. Songkran
     … The Buddha set forth the Dhamma wheel as to why we’re suffering, how we can stop suffering. He laid out the duties very clearly. It’s good to reflect on that: What good lessons can you derive from the past? That’s what mindfulness is all about: remembering those good lessons and trying to apply them as you go forward. So, we look … 
  14. Protection in all Directions
     … What this means is that you don’t want to see anybody suffer, and you don’t want to cause anybody suffering. There’s an interesting passage where the Buddha shows ways in which you can express goodwill. It’s not just, “May all beings be happy,” but also, “May no one deceive or despise anyone, anywhere.” In other words, not only may people … 
  15. A Committed Relationship
     … That’s why you’re suffering. So that’s a case where you just can’t be equanimous about everything. This doesn’t mean that when situations aren’t going well outside that the other person may not be at fault. But the question is, do you want to suffer? And if you don’t want to suffer, you’ve got to turn around … 
  16. The Karma Snake
     … Because, as he said, none of these questions are conducive to the path to the end of suffering. But the path to the end of suffering is a path of action. And if the Buddha’s going to teach us how our actions can lead to the end of suffering, he’s got to explain action. Is it real? Do you actually have choices … 
  17. A Legacy of Strengths
     … You have a very clear idea of how you create suffering for yourself and how it’s unnecessary. All too often, we don’t even see that suffering, all we’re concerned about is the suffering caused by situations around us. But it was the Buddha’s discovery—it was an important part of his awakening—that the mind doesn’t have to suffer … 
  18. Solid Inside
     … You see other people who are suffering, you want to help. Or you can start with compassion inside. Wherever inside the mind is causing itself to suffer, you realize you don’t really have to make yourself suffer, you know. It’s all unnecessary. It’s simply because you’re not observant, you’re not watching the mind carefully enough to see where it … 
  19. The Adventure in the Present
     … What are you doing that’s causing suffering? In other words, you don’t look at yourself in terms of what you are or think you are, you just look at what you’re doing. Then you learn from what you’re doing. Notice your intentions; notice the action on that intention; notice the results. Wherever there’s any harm or suffering in that … 
  20. The Power of Your Actions
     … The insights he gained were not so much into the way things are, but more into the way things function, and particularly about how the power of human action functions—how we can create a lot of suffering for ourselves through our actions, but how we can also act in ways that put an end to suffering. He wanted to teach that to other … 
  21. A Total Training
     … The desire to master the path is not a cause of suffering. It’s what’s needed to stay with the path. Sometimes you think about the goal at the end of the path and how good it would be to be totally free of suffering as a way of giving yourself motivation to stick with the path. But then you realize, “If I … 
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