Search results for: "Suffering"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- The Power of Intention… As the Buddha points out, the extent to which the mind is suffering has very little to do with things outside and very much to do with how the mind is processing things outside. It is possible to live in difficult situations and not suffer. So the basis of that skill—learning how to stay in the present moment and look at what the …
- Values… Whatever underlies this particular cause of suffering is something I don’t really believe in, actually. Why do I let myself be overcome by it?” It’s this kind of cause of suffering that the technique of just watching or just being with something can overcome. But there are other kinds of causes of suffering that don’t go away when you just look …
- Loss… This is very central to the Buddha’s teachings on suffering. It’s one of the main causes for suffering. And it goes deep. Once King Pasenadi was talking to the Buddha and one of the aides from the palace came to him and whispered in his ear, saying that Queen Mallika had just died. The King broke down and cried, so the Buddha …
- Passion, Dispassion, Compassion… But otherwise, raga is something you’ve got to watch out for, because it’s a major cause of suffering. That means that an important stage of the practice, an important attainment, is the ability to develop viraga. First, there’s dispassion for sensual desires. We’re more in love with our sensual desires than we are with the actual pleasures. The pleasures come …
- The Ivory Intersection… the whole issue of which kind of suffering you can actually cure, which kind of suffering you can actually gain release from, and which kinds you can’t. There’s the suffering and stress from the three characteristics, just the fact that things change: You can’t stop that. But then there’s the suffering that comes from your craving and clinging, and that …
- Trust in Heedfulness… Because there’s one thing that’s not really culturally conditioned—and that’s your own experience of pain and suffering. There is an extent to which you learn how to put up with certain kinds of suffering as inevitable, and that’s culturally conditioned. And of course, the mind has its ways of lying to itself about where pleasure lies and where it …
- Equanimity & Power… After all, you’re learning about suffering, right? But remember, this is the path to the end of suffering. The path to the end of suffering involves right concentration, and right concentration has pleasure and rapture; more pleasure, more rapture; pleasure without rapture; and finally, equanimity, when the mind has been fed off of the pleasure of concentration. It’s like the equanimity that …
- Metacognition… You got started on this path because you saw that you were suffering, and you realized that a lot of that suffering came from inside. Because you basically loved yourself, you wanted to develop good things out of yourself and for yourself so that you could stop causing that suffering. Well, do you no longer love yourself? Do you no longer want to develop …
- The Fourth Frame of Reference… This in turn gives you a much better idea of what to do with them, instead of what you have been doing, which has been to cling to them and suffer. This is how you take apart this big mass of suffering in the mind. If you learn how to take it apart, you really see it’s not a solid mountain of rock …
- Turtle Mind… May those who are suffering be free from their suffering. May those who are happy not be deprived of their happiness.” There’s an attitude of tenderness to all beings in those thoughts. But then there’s the principle of equanimity: “All beings are the owners of their actions.” These are the basic facts, and you have to learn to be okay with the …
- The Use of the Present… We’re trying to take them apart to see what they’re made of, because we’ve been putting them together in all kinds of strange ways, ways that lead to suffering. They’re like raw materials. We’ve been creating weapons out of them: weapons that harm other people, weapons that harm ourselves. But they don’t have to be weapons. We can …
- The World of Conviction… You realize that your suffering is not caused by anything outside. There may be bad things happening outside, but the fact that the mind is suffering comes from your own actions, your own clingings and cravings. So you’re taking responsibility and learning to step back from the very things you cling to, you hold on to, and say, “I need to comprehend these …
- Expert’s Mind… The right question to ask is, what are you doing? In particular, what are you doing that’s causing suffering? What could you do to stop that suffering? All of his really basic teachings have to do with action, which is why kamma is so central to what he taught. Kamma consists of your intentions, and your intentions are shaped by your views. If …
- The Possibility of Letting Go… There’s the desire to be more skillful, the desire to cause less suffering—these are all commendable desires. They’re part of the path. So the desire to keep on getting better and better and better in the practice is good because it makes the mind more and more independent, less and less likely to cause suffering for itself—and, as a result …
- Construction Techniques… The problem is, they’re already done in ignorance, which is why we suffer. And denying that you’re doing them just adds more ignorance and more suffering on top. So you need a technique that allows you to be more sensitive to these fabrications, which is probably why the Buddha chose the breath as an ideal meditation topic. You focus directly on bodily …
- This Fathom-Long Body… All aspects of the four noble truths, starting with understanding suffering, stress, and pain, are things you do right here in the body. Understanding the causes of suffering and stress and pain: You can learn them if you keep careful watch over how the mind relates to the body. The path to the end of suffering is this body together with this mind. Use …
- Positive Right Speech… Right view is seeing that the causes of your suffering are inside, not outside. And you want to reflect that in your speech. Right resolve is that, given how suffering is caused, you want to resolve on renunciation, resolve on non-ill will—in other words, goodwill or equanimity—and harmlessness—compassion. You want *that *to be reflected in your speech as well. The …
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