Search results for: "The Four Noble Truths"

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  2. Stop Squirming
     … There’s suffering in the four noble truths and also suffering or stress in the three characteristics. The stress of the three characteristics is something that’s simply everywhere. It’s part of the fact that everything is conditioned by causes, maintained in being only for a little while, only to change. That kind of tenuous existence is inherently stressful. But fortunately, that’s … 
  3. Perceptions of Self & Not-Self
     … The other is the four noble truths. The first truth is the truth of suffering, which is clinging to the five aggregates of form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness. There’s a duty with regard to that truth, which is to comprehend it—in other words, to understand it to the point of having no more passion, aversion, or delusion around suffering. The second … 
  4. The Right Medicine
     … Simply knowing the four noble truths in the sense of having heard them or read about them is a good place to start on the practice, but it can’t be the end of practice in and of itself. You’ve got to take those four categories and apply them to what’s actually happening. Each of those categories has a duty. You want … 
  5. What’s Worth Doing?
     … The three characteristics are used in the context of the four noble truths, to help you see clearly when you’re doing something that’s not really in your best interest, and then you can stop. You can let go. But as for the parts of the path that you still have to develop, you still need to have clinging and even some conceit … 
  6. Questions in the Practice
     … The questions that the Buddha recommends focus on the Four Noble Truths, which are simply an extension of the questions on skill and lack of skill. In other words when you start asking the question of skill, it implies cause and effect: actions have results. It also implies that some actions are preferable to others because they give better results. Once you’ve got … 
  7. Some Assembly Required
     … If it didn’t make a difference, there wouldn’t be the four noble truths, or, if someone did talk about the four noble truths, they wouldn’t make any difference. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha said that if you believe that everything you experience is caused by the past, you’re left unprotected and bewildered. Bewildered in the sense … 
  8. Intelligent about Change
     … You try to develop and maintain these things—because, after all, that’s one of the duties of the four noble truths: to develop and maintain the factors of the path. All too often, people talk about the three characteristics—or the three perceptions—totally without reference to the four noble truths. The four noble truths carry four different duties, and one of those … 
  9. Craving & Clinging
    Luang Puu Dune had an interesting way of explaining the four noble truths. Sending the mind outside, he said, was the cause of suffering. Suffering was the result of sending the mind outside. The mind seeing the mind is the path, and the result of the mind seeing itself was the cessation of suffering. His explanation fits in with a theme that you see … 
  10. The Fourth Frame of Reference
     … Each of the four noble truths entails a duty, but nibbana is something beyond the four noble truths, something outside of the framework of the four frames of reference and their attendant duties. It’s not an activity in any way. So it’s helpful to look at this fourth frame of reference as a series of guidelines. When a problem comes up, figure … 
  11. Turtle Mind
     … This leads to a second way to develop turtle mind, which is more connected with the four noble truths. The Buddha says we suffer in the fact that we cling. The word for clinging,* upadana,* can also mean to take sustenance, to feed. For most of us, this is our relationship to the world: We’re trying to feed on what the world has … 
  12. Right View about Right View
     … The other principle is the four noble truths. Now, you notice that the three characteristics are not on that list. In fact, the word “three characteristics” is never applied by the Buddha to the teachings on inconstancy, stress, and not-self. He calls them perceptions. In a couple of cases, they’re also called contemplations, which means that they’re ways of looking at … 
  13. Learning from What You Do
     … This is what the four noble truths are all about. What kind of desires lead to suffering? What kind of desires are actually part of the path to the end of suffering? You’re not going to find out unless you test them. Fortunately, you don’t have to reinvent the Dhamma wheel every time you make a decision. The Buddha gives you some … 
  14. Brahmaviharas & Noble Truths
     … And although the book was wrong, there was one way in which it was right, which is that the four noble truths are very closely related to the four brahmavihāras. There was another book that came out decades ago, What the Buddha Taught, which was organized around the four noble truths, but the author couldn’t figure out how to fit the brahmavihāras under … 
  15. Imagine
     … That’s what the four noble truths are all about. That’s how the Buddha came up with the four noble truths. He was trying to figure out the problem of suffering, tracking down the cause to see if there was some way of attacking the cause so that he could bring suffering to an end. And just the way the questions were framed … 
  16. Right Next to Ignorance
     … The formal definition is ignorance of the four noble truths. But you can hear the four noble truths, learn about them, memorize them, and still be ignorant. The definition could be translated in another way: We don’t see things in terms of the four noble truths. That’s getting closer. In other words, knowledge means that you look at your experience—what’s … 
  17. Happily on the Path
     … When the Buddha would explain the four noble truths to lay people, he wouldn’t jump right into the four truths. He’d start out with what was called a graduated discourse, or step-by-step discourse, and the first two topics in that discourse were generosity and virtue. Notice: He didn’t start with abstractions. He started with activities that people were already … 
  18. Change Your Perceptions
     … When the mind is in concentration, then you can apply the four noble truths. Ask the questions of the four noble truths: “Where is the suffering right now? What am I doing that’s causing the suffering, and how can I stop? How can I abandon that cause?” When you ask those questions, you bring appropriate attention to the breath, because the breath is … 
  19. True Happiness Starts with Giving
     … When he gave the graduated discourse, which basically takes you from mundane right view and prepares the mind so it’s ready for the transcendent right view of the four noble truths, that, too, starts with giving. The Buddha would talk about the joy that comes with giving because, after all, it’s a quality of the mind. The virtue of giving doesn’t … 
  20. Be Precise
     … That’s how the perfection of concentration leads to discernment, moving it into the four noble truths. But you don’t have to think in terms of the four noble truths. Just think, “What is this disturbance right here? And how can I stop it?” Try to be very precise in how you observe these things. We had a question this afternoon about what … 
  21. Comprehending Suffering
    When the Buddha taught the four noble truths, he taught that one of them has a duty. The first noble truth, the truth of stress and suffering, is to be comprehended; the second, the cause of suffering, is to be abandoned; the third, the cessation of suffering, is to be realized; and the fourth, the path to the cessation of suffering, is to be … 
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