Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Steering the Raft
     … But, as Ajaan Mun said, you hold on up to the very end to the determination that you don’t want to come back and suffer again, because any attempt to live in a world where you’re trying to exert control over your environment so that you can stay within that environment, will inherently involve suffering. There’s one way out. The world … 
  3. Issues of Control
     … When things are not working, well, what can you change? After all, we’re here to put an end to our suffering, and if you just give up, you’re basically saying, “I’ll content myself with what someone once called the third and a half noble truth, which is where you don’t try to bring suffering to an end, but you try … 
  4. The Importance of Being Truthful
     … It’s a form of heedfulness, which is the beginning of all that’s skillful, realizing that if you keep on acting in unskillful ways, you’re going to suffer, the people around you are going to suffer. But keep it on that level: just the action. When you see these things as simply actions, there’s nothing inherently wrong with you, there’s … 
  5. Today Is Better than Yesterday
     … So instead of asking, “How much longer is it going to be before I’m through with these defilements?” the question should be: “How much longer do I want to suffer? How much longer do I want to keep on suffering, to keep crying those tears that have already exceeded the ocean?” Conviction is what reminds you that this is the way out, and … 
  6. Beyond Sound-bitten Dhamma
     … He taught suffering and the end of suffering. That’s two right there. And each of those teachings has a lot of ramifications—the analysis of what suffering is, that you can comprehend it and the whole path to the end of suffering. To take just one factor out of the path: The Buddha said that if there was some way he could live … 
  7. The Breathing Game
     … It wouldn’t be so bad if people weren’t really suffering from it. The problem is that the suffering is real. The good news, of course, is that you can unlearn your habits of creating suffering by being more mindful, by being more alert in a more all-around way. So make sure you get the basics down. Stay with the breath. Keep … 
  8. When the Mind Is Still
     … Instead, he wants you to use his teachings as tools to work on the problem, which is craving and clinging—the craving that causes suffering, the clinging that constitutes suffering—learning how to let go of the craving so that you can put an end to suffering. The end comes when you find that something not fabricated is actually there to be touched by … 
  9. Path & Goal
     … Our goal is to put an end to suffering. But we have to learn how to relate to that goal in the right way. There is the pain that the Buddha calls “renunciate pain,” where you realize that it is possible to put an end to suffering but you’re not there yet. Other people have done it, but you haven’t done it … 
  10. Heedfulness Is Auspicious
     … He realized that the problem was the craving in the mind that led to all these actions that caused suffering, but also that that craving could be ended through the factors of the noble eightfold path. So he carried out the duties with regard to those four noble truths and was able to reach the cessation of suffering. That larger perspective is helpful in … 
  11. Patience & Hope
     … One reason is that because learning how to accept things that you cannot change, when you take the long view, helps to relieve a lot of suffering. And learning to look at your actions as important and having long-term consequences also relieves a lot of suffering as well. So give these teachings a chance. See how they can help you bear with things … 
  12. Equanimity & Karma
     … And it turns out that if you can do that with skill, you don’t have to suffer, because the suffering that weighs down the mind is not what comes from past actions. It’s what’s coming from your actions right now. There may be pains in the body as a result of past actions, and a lot of tormenting thoughts may come … 
  13. Goodwill First & Last
     … How do view and intention operate in the present moment? Is there some way that this knowledge can be used to put an end to suffering? In the third watch of the night, that’s what he found. Looking at intentions as skillful and unskillful, looking at views as right and wrong, and applying those perspectives to the question of suffering, he discovered the … 
  14. People of Integrity
     … You search for someone to help: “Is there anyone who knows a way to put an end to this pain, this suffering?” This is why we reach out to other people. If we had no pain, we could be perfectly content to be by ourselves. It’s because of pain that we seek other people out. Basically, we look for somebody who knows. The … 
  15. Watch What You’re Doing
     … the system of conditionality, the system of suffering and stress. What that requires is a very clear ability to see what you’re doing. When the Buddha talks about ignorance, it’s precisely ignorance of this: We do things but we don’t see what we’re doing. That’s why we suffer. So, at the very least, when you’re meditating, if things … 
  16. Honest & Observant
     … After all, the causes of suffering are coming from within the mind. They’re basically activities we’re doing again and again and again without realizing that they’re causing suffering. So you have to learn how to observe that. As for the honesty, a lot of the things we do that cause suffering are things we like doing. Unless you’re honest, you … 
  17. Addictive Thinking
     … So remind yourself that this is part of the path to the end of suffering. And if you haven’t developed that resolve yet, this is where the Buddha has you develop a sense of conviction in the importance of training the mind, in the importance of your actions. Those two things are connected because your actions come out of your mind. The decisions … 
  18. Strength of Mind
     … They’ve caused a lot of unnecessary stress, unnecessary suffering. Why go with them? You’ve got something better here. Now, this is an acquired taste. Sometimes a sense of ease comes with the breathing. It doesn’t seem like all that much. We stick with it. Give it a chance to grow. As you get more and more used to these moments of … 
  19. Head & Heart
     … How do you skillfully sidestep them? How do you skillfully defeat them? Part of it lies in recognizing which thought patterns in the mind are unskillful, which ones really are your enemies, in the sense that they work toward your long-term suffering, your long-term harm. The problem is that they speak with your voice. It sounds like you in your brain, saying … 
  20. Reclaim Your Breath
    One of the little-known corners of dependent co-arising is an explanation of how, through the power of ignorance, the way you’re breathing can be a cause for suffering. This is one of the reasons why we focus on the breath: to bring knowledge to the process so that at the very least, even though we might not be at the total … 
  21. Long-Term Welfare
     … They start with the fact that there is suffering in life, and it lies in clinging. Sometimes the truths seem to be about nothing but suffering, but the third noble truth is the end of suffering. The fourth noble truth is the path to the end of the suffering. Part of that path, right concentration, includes pleasure and rapture: the pleasure and rapture that … 
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