Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. To Certify Yourself
     … Or if we are suffering from that, we’re suffering from the wrong thing. The real thing we’re suffering from is that we’re clinging to things that are going to disappoint us. Although there may be lots of other things outside that we say are causing us to suffer, the suffering is really coming from within. So you’ve to learn how … 
  3. Understanding Happiness
     … In the Buddha’s analysis of suffering, he says that if you breathe in ignorance, it’s one of the causes for suffering. If you think in ignorance, if you label your perceptions, label your experiences in ignorance, it all leads to suffering. So here’s an opportunity to do all of this with awareness. You breathe with awareness, think about the breath with … 
  4. Reflect
     … In particular, he said suffering—the noble truth of suffering—is that suffering is clinging, clinging to the five aggregates, and that clinging is something you do. And this is nothing obvious. We tend to think that we suffer because of things outside, the actions of other people or pains in the body. But the Buddha’s saying, “No, the real suffering that weighs … 
  5. No Extra Arrows
     … That second arrow stands for the suffering covered in the four noble truths. That’s the suffering we can do something about. That’s the suffering that weighs down the mind. Without that suffering, the pain comes, the pain goes, but the mind doesn’t suffer. After all, the Buddha had backaches, he endured other pains, but he didn’t suffer. He just had … 
  6. Working from the Inside
    The Buddha once said that all he taught was suffering or stress—the Pali word is dukkha—and the end of suffering and stress. Now, where do we experience that? It’s in a part of us that no one else can touch, no one else can experience. Each of us has our own sufferings. We can see other people suffering and that can … 
  7. A Passion for the Path
     … He said that you comprehend suffering to the point of dispassion. That’s what it means to comprehend it: You develop dispassion for it. It sounds strange: dispassion for suffering. We don’t usually think that we’re passionate about suffering, but as he pointed out, we suffer because of five clinging aggregates, and there’s passion right there in the clinging. We cling … 
  8. Habits of Perception
     … the imperative to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize its cessation, and develop the path leading to its cessation. These imperatives, unlike those of the world, are liberating, which is why you want to take them on. The first one is to comprehend suffering so that you can begin to see what you’re doing to give rise to the suffering. This is what … 
  9. Life’s First Question
     … the principle of cause and effect, but here focusing specifically on suffering and lack of suffering, which are still very immediate sorts of things. In fact, your awareness of suffering predates your awareness of even who you are, any concept of world or self or soul. As you came out of your mother’s womb, there was a lot of suffering right there. Nobody … 
  10. Over-informed
     … Which doctrine? The doctrine of putting an end to suffering and stress. His criticism of other paths was that they didn’t lead to the end of suffering, whereas the noble eightfold path did lead to the end of suffering. It led to awakening. It led to knowledge. Then he plunged right in to teach the path. He didn’t tell them they could … 
  11. Choosing Freedom
     … We focus on the important issue in life, which is that we’re causing unnecessary suffering to ourselves. Even around pleasures, we can create suffering. You want to learn the skills that, no matter what happens—good, bad, indifferent—you don’t have to suffer from it. You know where to focus your attention. You know what to do. If you want to put … 
  12. The Same but Different, but the Same
     … If it weren’t for that stress and suffering, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t need to practice. So that’s what we have in common to begin with. But the individual sufferings we have and the different tactics we have for creating suffering—we don’t think of them as tactics for creating suffering but that’s what they are; we … 
  13. The Power of the Mind
     … One of the basic principles of the four noble truths, that power of the mind, is that we have the power to make ourselves suffer or we have the power to get out of that suffering. Things may be good or bad outside, but the suffering we feel, the suffering that weighs the mind down, is the suffering that comes from within. So try … 
  14. To Comprehend Suffering
    That phrase in the chant just now—“those who don’t discern suffering”— sounds very strange. After all, we see suffering all around us. Someone would have to be very anesthetized not to see it. But even though we see it and feel it, we don’t really know it. In other words, we don’t understand it. It hounds our lives. And we … 
  15. Suffering Comes from Those You Love
     … If you deny that there’s any loss, then it’s as if you deny your own suffering. If you deny your own suffering, then you deny the suffering of others. And if you were to live in a world where you were denying the fact of suffering, you’d be a sociopath. So it’s good that we stop to take time to … 
  16. The Problem of Suffering
    The Buddha once said that all he taught was suffering and the end of suffering, or stress and the end of stress. A problem and its solution, that’s all. All the teachings in the Canon, all 84,000 sections of the Dhamma, focus on this one problem and its solution. You don’t have to do the problem. The problem is already there … 
  17. An Inside Job
     … that if you don’t master the skills, you’re going to suffer. If you do master the skills, you can avoid that suffering. And if you don’t work on those skills, do you really love yourself? Do you love the people around you? If you consciously do something you know is going to give you a little bit of pleasure right now … 
  18. Things Don’t Have to Be This Way
    The Buddha’s teachings focus on the main problem in life, which is that there’s suffering. And he says that there’s something we can do about it. We don’t have to just sit there and wallow in the suffering, or accept it, or pretend that it’s okay. The mind has the power to put an end to suffering. That’s … 
  19. Ending Suffering
     … This is what underlies the practice for trying to put an end to suffering. If we didn’t feel goodwill for ourselves, why would we care whether there was suffering or not? It wouldn’t be the issue that it is. But it’s a big issue in life. From the very beginning, we come out of our mothers’ wombs crying, and there’s … 
  20. A Victory that Matters
     … That’s your experience of suffering. We each suffer; however, we can’t feel another person’s suffering. We can sometimes sense that they’re suffering, although we can’t actually feel their pain. We only can feel ours. It’s the subjective experience. The Buddha points out that the suffering that really weighs down on the mind is not the suffering that comes … 
  21. Karma for Freedom
     … After all, the Buddha’s teachings are about how to free you from suffering. His teachings on karma are designed to free you from suffering. They explain how and why it can be done. If you had to suffer from the past, then Buddha wouldn’t be able to help you. It’s because you don’t have to suffer, and the fact that … 
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