Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana
     … This is why we suffer. We’re hungry for form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, and consciousness. We suffer because we cling to these things. The word for “clinging”— upadana—also means to take sustenance from something. You feed on things, and it’s because you feed that you suffer. The Buddha’s solution is not simply to say, “Well, just stop feeding because there … 
  3. What Made the Buddha Exclaim
     … on the one hand, seeing how meaningless life can be and how if we’re not careful we can create a lot of suffering for ourselves; and then, on the other hand, realizing that through the practice of the Dhamma something really amazing can be attained: a state of mind where the happiness is totally unshakable. There’s a whole series of verses where … 
  4. Just One Person
     … We’re here to figure out why we’re suffering—and it comes from our actions. Other people can do really bad things, but the fact that we’re suffering from their bad things comes from our own lack of skill. This is why, when we meditate, we close our eyes. We’re not out there looking at the world. We’re looking into … 
  5. Delight in Conviction
     … This is why we meditate, bringing the mind into the present moment where we can see it in action and figure out where we’re causing ourselves suffering—and where we can find the strength inside so that we don’t have to suffer. One of those strengths is conviction in the Buddha’s awakening—not just that it was a good event for … 
  6. Contemplation of the Body
     … Otherwise we stay attached to the suffering the body is going to bring us. As we all know, it grows old, gets sick and then dies. If you don’t think that’s going to be suffering, then go spend some time with some very old people, some very sick people, with dying people. See how much they suffer. When I was back at … 
  7. Generosity First
     … Dependent co-arising teaches the connectedness of ignorance to suffering, the connectedness of craving to suffering. That’s a connectedness within the mind, and it’s a connectedness that we need to cut, because it keeps suffering going on and on and on, over and over again, in many, many cycles. But there’s another kind of connectedness, an intentional connectedness, that comes through … 
  8. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
    The Buddha treats the problem of suffering and stress very much like an eating disorder. After all, he defines suffering as clinging, and the Pali word for clinging, upadana, can also refer to the act of taking sustenance, the way you eat things. And, of course, he’s not talking only about physical food. He’s talking about mental and emotional food as well … 
  9. Caring Enough to Doubt
     … You realize that you started the practice because you really did want to put an end to suffering. If you give up, what does that say about your desire to put an end to suffering? If you really love yourself, you devote yourself to the practice because the practice simply makes sense. The stronger you can make your concentration, the stronger your mindfulness, then … 
  10. Reliable Action
     … People who are suffering have to take any news about total happiness on faith. But it’s not an unsupported faith. As the Buddha said, you can find out for yourself, and in the course of finding out for yourself whether you can rely on the Buddha, you have to turn yourself into a reliable person. Only when you can rely yourself can you … 
  11. There’s Work to Be Done
     … You’re not suffering because of the sound of the crickets, the temperature of the air. Whatever suffering is going on in the mind is coming from the mind itself, from its actions. So you want to watch what you’re doing. At the moment, the suffering is very subtle. In fact, it’s so subtle that it doesn’t feel like suffering at … 
  12. A Centered but Broad Awareness
     … Most of us, however, try to put out the smoke, in other words, we try to let go of the suffering. And no wonder the pain keeps coming. Suffering is something you can’t let go. You have to comprehend it. The you let go of the cause. Once you can make that distinction, things get cleared up. But you have to put the … 
  13. The Form of the Body
     … That’s what will enable you to know all the lessons you want to learn about the suffering in the mind, how the mind causes suffering, how it can put an end to suffering. You need to give it some space so that you can see these things. And right here in the sense of the form of body, that’s where the space … 
  14. The Web of Pain
     … So much of the suffering we cause ourselves comes from this. It’s not that you’re totally free to experience the present in any way you want. There are things coming from your past karma. When there’s a disease in the body, you can’t simply wish it away. But you can learn to relate to it in a very different way … 
  15. Concentration as a Skill
     … But have a strong sense that this really does make a difference, not only in providing a comfortable place to stay right now, but also in training the mind in qualities it’s going to need in order to keep itself from creating unnecessary suffering for itself, unnecessary suffering for people around you. The breath may be something very ordinary, but working with it … 
  16. An Auspicious Night
     … We know that to comprehend suffering, you try to overcome any passion, aversion, and delusion around the suffering. Abandoning craving requires that you develop dispassion for craving. The cessation of suffering is dispassion in and of itself. But then the path requires passion; it requires desire. To solve that paradox, learn how to think strategically. Notice where the passages in the Canon seem to … 
  17. All-around Alertness
     … The cause for suffering is right here. The path to the end of suffering as we chanted just now, is composed of qualities that we develop right here. So you don’t have to go anywhere else. You might think that, having lived this long in your life, you know everything that could go on right here. Well, you don’t. If you did … 
  18. Conviction & Persistence
     … You may say, “Well, let me suffer more before I come back.” Well, No. Why? Why would you want to suffer more?” The mind plays all kinds of tricks on itself to pull itself off the path. A better way of seeing it is as different members of the mind’s committee. Some of them are with the path and others would like to … 
  19. Faith in Karma
     … It’s pretty easy to look at life and think that it’s fairly random—who dies, who doesn’t die, who suffers a lot, who suffers only a little As the Buddha said, you have to have a long, long, long understanding of rebirth and karma to see that, yes, the results of the action really do come out in line with the … 
  20. Write It Down in Your Heart
     … So you do want to take the instructions to heart, and you want to attend appropriately: “How does this talk apply to me? How does this talk apply to the question of suffering? What am I doing that’s causing suffering that I didn’t notice before, but now the talk is pointing out? Or how might I perfect the path in ways that … 
  21. Infinity
     … What kind of intentions, what kind of actions right now, what kind of views right now, would lead to the way out? As the answer to that question came, he saw that the way out was to see things in terms of the four noble truths, to understand what suffering is, and what he was doing right now to cause suffering right now. He … 
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