Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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