Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Discipline
     … The way the Buddha explains it, self as a governing principle means that you remind yourself you came to this practice because you were suffering and you wanted to put an end to suffering. Have you changed your mind? Have you decided that suffering is okay? Do you agree with what one teacher called the third and a half noble truth, that suffering can … 
  3. Looking after Yourself with Ease
     … As the Buddha said, the problem is that we’re usually doing these forms of fabrication in ignorance, which is why we suffer. But if we can bring knowledge to the process, they become part of the path away from suffering. That’s what we’re doing now: We’re bringing knowledge to all three processes as we focus on the breath. Try to … 
  4. Mental Experiments
    Mental Experiments October 14, 2005 Meditation is like running a series of experiments in the mind, trying to see what happens when you focus it on one thing for long periods of time, trying to see what happens when you really take seriously the idea that the way you use your mind may be causing unnecessary suffering. So you want to see clearly what … 
  5. Appreciating the State of Peace
     … the ending of passion for our craving and, as a result, the end of suffering. This is where we aim if we’re “skilled in aims.” So there’s a lot more to be done than simply spreading thoughts of goodwill. Toward the end of the sutta, the Buddha says that you have to be determined on this mindfulness. In other words, you keep … 
  6. Arising & Passing Away
     … These are meant to be therapy for the ways the mind creates suffering for itself. Because addiction is a way it creates suffering, you want to be able to use these tools to get past your addictions: your old ways of clinging, the stories you create about the being inside and the situations outside that you stitch together out of sensations that—when you … 
  7. Saṃvega & Pasāda
     … One was saṁvega, which literally means terror—terror at the prospect of having to deal with samsara, that if you don’t do anything, if you just continue in your old ways, it’s an endless round that’s going to entail a lot of suffering. Then there’s pasāda, confidence—confidence that there is a way out. You reflect on the Buddha and … 
  8. Sort Things Out
     … It’s not going to change into anything else and it doesn’t cause any suffering to anyone else. Finding that kind of happiness is a rare thing. But it is possible. Human beings can do it. The Buddha could do it; he taught other people how to do it. It’s something we can do for ourselves. But first we have to get … 
  9. How We Cling
    You may remember that passage where the Buddha says that wisdom or discernment begins with two 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?” The wisdom lies in seeing that happiness and suffering come from your actions. Your actions are important because they … 
  10. Choose Your Battles
     … People who create a lot of suffering for themselves tend to lean a lot on other people. They’re constantly coming and saying, “Help me with this, help me with that, I’ve got this problem.” The unnecessary suffering you place on yourself has a domino effect. It begins to affect other people as well. But the less you make yourself suffer, the less … 
  11. Honoring the Noble Ones
     … And again, there were people who had gained knowledge like this who had set themselves up as teachers, but he realized that this knowledge, too, didn’t put an end to suffering. How could he use this knowledge to put an end to suffering? So he focused on the intentions. He focused on the views. What intentions, what views now would help put an … 
  12. Chopping Off Thoughts
     … Why is it that you say things and do things and think things that are harmful? Things that cause you suffering? Everybody wants happiness, and yet we do things that cause suffering: Why is that? This is where you’ve got to look. You’re not going to learn it by going to the other side of the mountain. So even though we have … 
  13. Samvega Transformed
     … The arrow here, of course, is the suffering caused by craving. Once the arrow is removed, then there’s no more suffering. The story that later built up around the Buddha’s leaving home was that he had never seen any old people, ill people, or dead people before he was well into his twenties. One day, though, he went out and rode around … 
  14. Look after Your Mind with Ease
     … This connects with that question I just mentioned: “Do you really love yourself?” You see that you’re suffering, and a lot of the suffering comes from you. In fact, all the unnecessary suffering comes from your actions. So when are you going to stop? If you put it off to some other lifetime or sometime later in this lifetime, it won’t get … 
  15. Choosing & Watching Your Choices
     … With the cause of suffering, you want to abandon it. And the cessation of suffering, when you actually do put an end to suffering, is when you see the abandoning of craving, which is the cause of suffering. So that’s a double duty right there. There’s the abandoning and seeing the abandoning, and that’s tricky. That’s a very subtle skill … 
  16. Raise Your Standards
     … And so you don’t want to cause people to do things that will make them suffer, and at the same time you don’t want to do anything that is going to make yourself suffer. It’s a pretty radical view of our relationships. We like to think that we can make other people happy by being nice to them, and there is … 
  17. Mindfulness of Death
     … Your suffering needs to be comprehended. Its cause needs to be abandoned. The cessation of suffering needs to be realized. And the path needs to be developed. There you are: four duties, work to be done. The Buddha never said to be in the present moment simply because it’s a pleasant place to be or a wonderful place to be. He didn’t … 
  18. Keep Your Options Open
     … As for the third noble truth, that the total end of suffering is possible: Some of the other teachers in the Buddha’s time would say, “Suffering will end, but there’s nothing you can do about it, you can’t speed up the process”—a very fatalistic teaching. Others were saying, “You do have choices, but your choices can’t get you to … 
  19. Training Heart & Mind
     … You realize that you don’t want to suffer; other people are just like you, they don’t want to suffer, so you don’t want to do anything that would cause them suffering. You look into your heart and try to see what’s the best you can do with your heart. And as you sit and meditate: The first meditation instructions the … 
  20. Beyond Inter-eating
     … And as the Buddha points out over and over again, to be in a position where you have to feed is to be in a position where you have to suffer. And not only are you suffering, but the people or whatever it is you’re feeding on suffers as well. We’ve got to keep this point in mind: that as long as … 
  21. Make Yourself Small
     … You have to realize that the food you eat comes through suffering—the suffering of animals, the suffering of farmers, the suffering of transport workers, the suffering of grocery workers all the way down the line. The same goes for clothing, shelter, and medicine. So you want to minimize the suffering that you cause, the weight that you place on others. In your dealings … 
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