Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Goodwill for Free
     … This being is suffering a lot and I don’t have to keep contributing to his further suffering. Goodwill in this case is a free gift. He didn’t owe goodwill, didn’t owe compassion to the first being, but he gave it. This is something we should keep in mind as well. It’s possible to go through life and think of all … 
  3. The Rivers of Karma
     … You learn how to take that ability to focus and ignore, and use it deliberately for the purpose of keeping the mind from suffering. This is a skill we learn as we meditate. At the same time, we learn how not to be overcome by pleasure. First there are sensual pleasures, which we tend to go running to as our main escape from pain … 
  4. Recollection of Hell
     … We want happiness, but we take whatever potentials we’ve got, and we turn them into suffering, we turn them into stress. We turn them into misery, all because of our ignorance. And then we gobble them down. Only when we learn how to look directly at this process of fabrication and do it with knowledge, understanding where there’s stress, what’s causing … 
  5. Determination
     … There are certain kinds of craving that lead to suffering. There are certain desires, in the factor of right effort in the path, that lead to the end of suffering. So the Buddha’s basically giving us guidance in how to sort through our desires. That guidance comes first in the path as right view. And when he talks about determination, discernment comes first … 
  6. To Understand the Path
     … If you look at the Buddha’s teachings and compare the third noble truth with the fourth—in other words, the cessation of suffering with the path to that cessation—you’ll notice that he doesn’t say much about cessation, doesn’t describe it in any great detail. In fact, two of the passages where he gives the most detail about it in … 
  7. The Mind in Good Shape
     … So who’s suffering? You’re the one who’s suffering from it. And again, where does it get you? Nowhere. If you’re sleepy, do what you can to wake yourself up. Sometimes this means breathing more heavily, changing the place where you’re focused. If you tend to focus on the stomach, it can make you sleepy. So if you’re feeling … 
  8. Appropriate Attention
     … This is what brought him to the present moment, to focus on what was happening in his mind right then and there—in particular, how his actions led to suffering and how other actions might lead to the end of suffering. That’s how he framed his approach to the present moment, by looking in terms of cause and result, skillful and unskillful. That … 
  9. A Much Better Place
     … As soon as you go stretching out to identify with something outside, you’re opening yourself up for all kinds of suffering. As the Buddha said, there are different kinds of people: those who can see the danger coming before it comes; and then there are those who have to be slapped in the face with a danger before they realize, “Yes, this is … 
  10. Imagine
     … to see how you put things together, how you can put things together in a way that creates suffering, or how you can get more skillful at putting things together in a way that creates less and less suffering until finally you reach a point where the whole thing gets taken apart and there’s no suffering left. But to get to that last … 
  11. The Wisdom of Ardency
     … You start out with right view, realizing that the causes of suffering lie inside. They come from what you do. So the wise thing to do with that teaching is to try to develop skillful qualities inside so that you’re not creating suffering. In this way, the simple fact of wanting to be ardent is wise in and of itself. Then, as you … 
  12. How to Be an Admirable Friend
     … With the words, we’re offering friendship, realizing that if our happiness depends on other people’s suffering, it’s not going to last. Either we’re not going to feel good about it, or else we’re going to go into denial about the fact that our happiness is causing suffering – neither of which is a healthy attitude. So we wish well to … 
  13. It’s What You Give
     … This is what you bring to sensory contact, and what you bring is going to make the difference between whether it’s going to be a cause for suffering or part of the path to the end of suffering. So this principle of the mind comes first goes from the simple act of giving a gift—putting some food in a monk’s bowl … 
  14. The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough
     … If your happiness requires that they suffer, they’re not going to stand for your happiness. It’s not going to last. So as we meditate, goodwill is one of the underlying motivations. We want to find a happiness of high quality, a happiness that doesn’t conflict with anyone else’s happiness. That’s a special motivation. That’s something that really should … 
  15. The Spider on the Web
     … That’s where the cause of suffering lies. That’s where the clinging lies—the suffering itself: That’s what you really want to comprehend.
  16. The Kamma of Meditation
     … Actions done under the influence of unskillful intentions, based on greed, aversion, and delusion, tend to lead to suffering. Actions done without the influence of greed, aversion and delusion tend to lead to happiness. Right there is where the Buddha’s teachings are important, different even from those who did teach kamma in the past. There were groups of people who said that your … 
  17. Beyond Inter-eating
     … What are they like? When you’re feeding on physical food you’re feeding on the suffering of others. Even if you’re vegetarian, you’re feeding off of the sweat of the brow of the people who have to work to get that food eventually to your plate. The food of sensory contact, he says, is like a constant barrage of insects on … 
  18. Strength of Persistence
    One of the lessons of the four noble truths is that we suffer largely because of the way we talk to ourselves, and we can learn not to suffer by learning to talk to ourselves in new ways. This point applies especially to the question of right effort or persistence. You look at what’s required by the path, and if all you can … 
  19. Bless Yourself
     … There are desires that can lead to suffering; there are desires that can lead to the end of suffering. The Buddha deals with the problem that you feel within—suffering—but he also says the cause of the problem is also within. And the ability to put an end the problem by attacking the causes: That comes from within, too. So his awakening was … 
  20. Not Resolved on Self
     … Heedful, in the sense that you see how important it is to act in skillful ways—that if your actions are unskillful, there’s going to be suffering. If you’re more skillful, you can avoid a lot of unnecessary suffering. You want to take that principle to heart. And it should inspire you to be ardent. This is basically related to right effort … 
  21. Doubt
     … that you do have choice in the present moment, and your choices will make the difference between whether you’re happy or you suffer, and there’s a pattern to all this that you can learn. If you really care for happiness, these are some of the things you’ve got to take on faith at the beginning. The Buddha can’t prove them … 
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