Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. How to Change
    How to Change November 30, 2021 When the Buddha describes the steps in dependent co-arising, on the one hand he’s describing how suffering happens, the psychology that goes into how we shape the present moment in a way that leads to suffering. But he’s also describing the psychology of his listeners as they’re listening to him, the rhetorical situation he … 
  3. The Image of the Raft
     … If you hold on to an activity simply for the sake of holding on, there’s going to be suffering. The Buddha identifies suffering as clinging to the five aggregates—form, feeling, perceptions, thought-fabrications, consciousness. And there are four ways of clinging. You can cling in terms of sensual pleasure, sensual desire; you can cling in terms of your views; you can cling … 
  4. Mindfulness as a Goad
     … As the Buddha said, if everything we experienced right now were totally dependent on past actions or somebody else’s design for the world, there’d be no way to put an end to suffering. But the fact that we’re putting our experience together here right now means we can change that, and that open the path to the end of suffering. As … 
  5. Love for the Dhamma
     … Otherwise, think of all the eons of endless sufferings involved in repeatedly coming back again and again. He said that when you attained Awakening as a result of that deal, you wouldn’t even think that you had attained it with pain and suffering. It would have come with joy. So, when you run into hardships in your daily life, compare them to the … 
  6. Keep It Simple
     … There’s suffering. And when there’s a problem, you want to know where to focus your attention so you can most effectively deal with it. The Buddha points out the pattern: There’s suffering, but there’s a cause of suffering—and it’s in the mind. The way to uproot the cause is to work on developing the factors of the path … 
  7. Genuine Satisfaction
     … We can do that in a way that causes less suffering. And when we do the shaping with awareness, then it all becomes part of the path. Right view is what makes a difference between actions that form a wrong path and those that form a right path for the end of suffering. So try to get in touch with your hungers. It was … 
  8. Fear & Uncertainty
     … Now her husband is dead, her children are gone, and she’s suffering. Why? We don’t understand. This is why we fear.” It was because their tradition didn’t give them something to rely on, that they could really depend on. They communicated with spirits, but the spirits basically told them where the good hunting might be. Little things like that. But the … 
  9. What Focus? What Breath?
     … But the stress that’s really important, the suffering that’s really important, is the suffering that comes from craving, and that’s an activity. In fact, there’s a sutta where the Buddha talks about craving as a path of practice, an unskillful path of practice, but a path of practice that most of us live by. Until you can begin to see … 
  10. Merit: Actively Happy
    For years, it was believed that Buddhism was pessimistic, that the Buddha talked about nothing but suffering, suffering, suffering. Fortunately, people now realize that actually he was talking about happiness. But still, the common view of the Buddha’s take on happiness is still pretty pessimistic: Causes and conditions are outside of our control, and we simply have to learn how to accept things … 
  11. The Power of Truth
     … You have to remember that you’re holding on for the purpose of getting past suffering. That’s what the four noble truths all keep pointing to, simply laying things out: There’s suffering and there is its cause. There’s a cessation of suffering and there is a path to its cessation. The cessation is obviously where you want to go. In that … 
  12. The Fourth Noble Truth
     … When the Buddha sets out the four noble truths, pay attention to how he talks about the relationship between the first and the second, i.e., suffering and its cause. For the cause, he uses the word samudaya, which means something that arises together. It’s what you look for when stress or suffering comes. You want to look at what arises together in … 
  13. Delighting the Mind
     … See them in those impersonal terms, so that you can get out of the narratives of “me, me, me, and my problems.” Remember that even though the Buddha said the causes of suffering are in the mind, he doesn’t have you say, “Well, what’s wrong with me that I’m causing suffering?” It’s simply: “What events in the mind, what actions … 
  14. Learning by Doing
     … It’s what’s going on in the mind prior to sensory contact that determines whether you’re going to suffer from it or not. It’s because of what’s going on in the mind that you can suffer from really negative things, and even from really positive things that come into the senses. But when you get more sensitive to what’s … 
  15. A Refuge Bigger than the World
     … But you have to have that attitude—“It’s already broken.” That way you can live with it and not suffer from it. The world is like that. Everybody who’s born is going to have to suffer aging, illness, and death. These things have already happened, and they’re going to keep on happening. Never mind how much they try to work at … 
  16. The Humane Quality of the Path
     … You realize that you’ve got habits that cause suffering and you don’t want to continue suffering. So how do you deal with them? On the one hand, you have to develop the right attitude, realizing that this is where we all come from. Everybody starts out with a mix of good habits and bad habits, or as the Buddha prefers to say … 
  17. Sensitivity & Strength
     … Where is there stress and suffering? What is it that arises together with the stress and suffering? What is it that passes away and causes stress and suffering to pass away? And what qualities of mind can we develop so that we can understand this better, so that we can put an end to suffering for good? You learn to look at your experience … 
  18. The Reality of Your Thoughts
     … And the best way to judge thinking is to ask, “Where does it lead? What kind of thinking is helpful, what kind of thinking is harmful? What kind of thinking creates more suffering and stress, and what kind of thinking relieves suffering and stress—totally.” When you pose those questions and look at your thoughts and emotions as processes—fabrications, creations—that right there … 
  19. Adjusting the Flame
     … So remind yourself that what you’re looking for—in terms of understanding the suffering you’re causing yourself and understanding what the suffering is—is all happening right here. Just that it’s on a very subtle level. So there’s plenty to see here, plenty to observe. But all too often our powers of observation are too coarse, not refined enough. It … 
  20. A Good Foundation
     … Remember that we don’t suffer simply from our random likes and dislikes. We suffer from our ideas about what we have to do in order to function. Again, it’s good to have a good solid basis for the breath, so that these realizations don’t become disorienting. I was talking to a vipassanā teacher one time, and he asked me “What do … 
  21. Freedom from Beliefs
     … It’s good to step back from your beliefs and say, “Okay, what am I here for?” How about the issue of, “Why am I causing suffering, how can I put an end to that? Why am I causing stress, how I can put an end to that?” How about just looking at this one issue? After all, this is the issue that really … 
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