Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Inconstancy
     … That helps you see the connection between anicca and dukkha, or stress and suffering. It’s because things are unreliable that you can’t trust them. You can’t really find any true happiness there. So you have to make yourself more reliable. Years back, when I was with Ajaan Fuang, there was a person in Singapore who had received a copy of one … 
  3. Kind & Happy
     … People sometimes complain that the Buddha’s teachings on suffering—the four noble truths, the very first teachings he presented—are pessimistic because they focus on the issue of suffering. “Where is the happiness?” they say. Well, if you poke around in the four noble truths, you find happiness there in the fourth truth, which is the path to the end of suffering. That … 
  4. Food, Shelter & Work
     … So now that you’re fed, sheltered, do the good work of seeing where the mind creates suffering for itself and doesn’t have to. The less suffering you create for yourself, the less of a burden you’ll be for yourself and for others. So it’s good work all around.
  5. The Unity of the Path
     … They’re actually preparations for the state of mind you need in order to practice and to accept the fact that the four noble truths, which are the heart of right view, really do focus on the main issue in life, which is that we’re causing suffering and yet we don’t have to. There’s a way in which we can stop … 
  6. High-Level Dhamma
     … It’s our ability to see what the mind is actually doing to cause itself suffering: That’s where the real Dhamma lies. That’s the first noble truth right there, combined with the second noble truth. If you don’t look at that, there’s no way that the third and fourth noble truths can do their work. So whatever gets served up … 
  7. The Battle of Your Selves
     … Because when you first read the Buddha’s analysis of suffering, the five clinging-aggregates, first he starts talking about the suffering of birth, aging, illness and death, being separated from what you love, having to be with things you don’t like, not getting what you want. It all sounds very familiar. And he says the five clinging-aggregates are what lie at … 
  8. Strength of Conviction: 2
     … that he really was able, through his own efforts, to attain the end of suffering, and that the Dhamma he taught was well-taught. In other words, he knew what he was talking about. He was a reliable person, honest and observant—and with very high standards. As he once said, the secret to his awakening was, one, an unwillingness to rest content with … 
  9. Determined on Awakening
     … But then you suffer the consequences, because your actions do make a difference. That’s the Buddha’s basic teaching. Sometimes you hear that the Buddha didn’t go in for metaphysical truths, yet one metaphysical truth he did go for was the fact that action is real, and you are responsible for your actions. Actions do have consequences, and you can learn from … 
  10. Goodness
     … We don’t want our happiness to depend on anyone else’s suffering. We start our meditation every day with the chants on goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, to remind us of our motivation for practicing. We want a happiness that’s special, something that’s lasting, something that’s blameless, and at the same time can be a gift to others. Because … 
  11. The Balance of Power
     … Some of them make their money off genuine suffering of other people. And some of them actually find that war is to their best interest. If you try to imagine a world order in which everybody could live together peacefully, it seems sensible, why can’t we live together peacefully? Why can’t people not cause harm to one another? But there are interests … 
  12. Practical Wisdom
     … This keeps the cycle going around and around in directions that tend to lead to suffering. The greater the defilement, then the greater the suffering—because when your mind is clouded, it’s hard to make the right decision about what to do. Often the decisions go underground. That’s the main thing that we’re deluded about. So you want to learn how … 
  13. Choosing Your Allies
     … So even though the Buddha talks a lot about suffering, it’s not because he’s focusing on nothing but suffering. He wants you to realize that there is suffering in the world and you have to admit that. If you try to deny it, then the mind is lying to itself. And part of it knows that it’s lying to itself, which … 
  14. Lessons of Distraction
     … As the Buddha said, the craving that leads to becoming is the cause of suffering. So you want to look for the craving that goes into distraction, because that right there is the craving that causes suffering. The best way to watch it is, one, to create a really good state of becoming, which is what concentration is: something you develop, you bring into … 
  15. Mistakes
     … When he taught the end of suffering, he didn’t ask you first, “Are you suffering because you deserve to or not?” Whether the suffering is “deserved” or not, this is the way out. After all, he himself came from mistakes. He realized that getting down on yourself, being really remorseful about the mistake, is not going to undo it, and it can often … 
  16. Protective Meditations
     … As we know, if we develop the right attitude toward the present moment, sometimes it can help us to not suffer from past karma. So you want to focus on what you can do right now, here with your mind, to protect yourself from the biggest danger, which is that you might act on unskillful intentions. The list of guardian meditations is four: recollection … 
  17. Reading & Meditating
     … Suddenly he realized he’d been doing everything he could to get rid of the pain, whereas the Buddha taught that pain, suffering, was something to be comprehended. So he changed his approach. He tried to comprehend exactly what was the suffering. He said he was able to attain something he’d never attained before in his meditation that night. The important point here … 
  18. The Uses of Concentration
     … We spend so much of our life suffering from the intentions of other people—or focusing on how much we suffer from the intentions of other people—that we neglect to look at our own intentions to see how much suffering they cause. A part of the mind resists this, a very strong part of the mind. We like to think that our intentions … 
  19. Understanding Aggregates
    In the Buddha’s first sermon, he defines suffering—or stress, the word dukkha—as the five clinging-aggregates. He states that our duty with regard to those five clinging-aggregates is to comprehend them. Elsewhere, he says that comprehension means getting rid of all passion, aversion, and delusion around them. In his second sermon, he shows how to do that. He talks about … 
  20. Teaching Old Dogs New Selves
     … Especially when you hear the teachings of the four noble truths, that it is possible to put an end to suffering, to find a genuine happiness, and that the cause for suffering comes from inside. It’s one of the reasons why the Buddha taught not- self to the five brethren after he taught them the four noble truths. It’s from the perspective … 
  21. Generosity of Spirit
     … We talk to ourselves in ways that magnify our sufferings, magnify the mistreatment that has been done to us. We hold in mind perceptions that are harmful. We focus on feelings inside that sap our strength, sap our energy. Even with people who meditate and learn how to fabricate skillfully while they’re sitting with their eyes closed or doing walking meditation, sometimes their … 
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