Search results for: "Suffering"
- Page 91
- Active Truth… You become more and more skillful, create less and less suffering for yourself and others. That’s how the Buddha proves the principle of action, proves the principle of karma. He doesn’t cite his own memories of previous lifetimes or proof that someone can have a consciousness that goes from one life to the next and then remember what had happened in previous …
- Poison Your Fantasies… And the question is, why do that when you create a lot of suffering for yourself? This means that you have to look into the role that you’re playing as you create these things—and realize that you’re implicated in the suffering, that this dialogue in the mind is something you’ve got to watch out for. That’s a lot of …
- Pure Action… It’s when you can see that you can breathe in a different way, you can act in a different way, speak in a different way, think in a different way, and you suffer a lot less, and the people around you suffer a lot less: That’s when the teachings will have their impact. That’s when they really can make a difference …
- Freedom from Fear… As for right view, you realize that what causes the mind to suffer is its own actions. So again, if you hold on to right view, it’s not something that anyone else can take away from you. You’re not hoping to depend on somebody else to make you happy or for things to be a certain way. You try to develop the …
- At Ease with the Breath… What causes suffering? What is a path to the end of suffering? You can explain this in terms of definitions and formal doctrine, and sometimes that makes it intimidating. But if you get right down to the whole question of how you like to breathe, then go ahead and breathe that way. After a while, you find that you don’t like breathing in …
- Chewed Up by Your Food… He talks about how suffering boils down to the five clinging-aggregates. You’ve got the form clinging-aggregate, the feeling clinging-aggregate, the perception clinging-aggregate, fabrications and consciousness clinging-aggregates. The word for “clinging,” upadana, can also mean sustenance. We try to feed off of these things. Particularly, we try to feed off the pleasure that these things have to offer. We …
- The Power of Perception… He did talk, though, about how to understand suffering so that you can put an end to it. And he offered a training: That’s what we’re doing: It’s a training. Essentially, the training is our ability to learn how to stick with the perception of breath, keep that label of breath in mind, keep the breath going comfortably, in all kinds …
- Alone at Death, but Not Lonely… So we focus on the breath, we focus on our mind in the present moment, because this is the starting point of so much of our suffering. We want to understand why: what’s causing us to act in ways in the present moment that are causing suffering now and on into the future. After all, it’s our intentions that shape our life …
- Creativity & Play… the fact that you’re causing yourself suffering right here and now. This means, one, being able to imagine yourself not causing suffering and, two, imagining approaches that might get you to that goal. Experimenting with different ways of breathing, different ways of conceiving the breathing, different ways of focusing the mind, different ways of asking questions: There’s a lot to play with …
- Perfection in an Imperfect World… We tend to forget all the suffering—or if we see the suffering, we say, “Well, that’s part of life. You have to put up with it.” But the Buddha is saying No, you don’t have to put up with that. There’s something better. I know there are people who don’t like being held to this standard. They’d rather …
- Determined on Goodwill… At the very least, with the pursuit of the end of suffering, it is a wise goal. But you’ll find as you work on the path that your concept of where you’re going, and how you’re going to go there, will have to grow and develop. So this element of truthfulness is not only just a matter of sticking to your …
- Truth Without Air Quotes… These are the processes that lead to suffering. If you want an end to suffering, this is what you’ve got to do. It’s interesting that with dependent co-arising, in later centuries, the question arose: Is dependent co-arising happening in the context of the world at large or inside the mind? There was a good reason why that question was left …
- The Wisdom of Self-regulation… And we need direction on how to shape it wisely, because we suffer when we shape our experience of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas in unskillful ways. We relate to the world as a whole in unskillful ways, both in figuring out what we want out of the world and how to go about it. So because the mind is active …
- An Auspicious Day… Instead of identifying with it and seeing that you’re made to suffer by it, you can ask yourself, “How am I making myself suffer around the pain?” That’s a useful approach to the pain. The same with feelings of equanimity. Even equanimity can be unskilful at times, so you have to be alert to when it should be developed and when it …
- Ups & Downs… It makes sense that the amount of suffering people have in their lives has a lot to do with the state of the mind, and here’s a way of getting your mind in shape. So if you gave up, would you really be loving yourself? That’s a skillful use of the concept of self. So bring it out to use when you …
- When You Care… You don’t want to do anything that would cause you to suffer down the line. You think of all the good things you have in life right now, and they’re all there because you cared enough in the past to act in skillful ways—even when it was difficult. Now that you’ve got those good things, do you want to throw …
- Stepping Out of Yourself… It’s not that things come in to make us suffer. We go out and we grab hold of them. And then we’re trapped. The image he gives is of a fire. Back in those days, they believed that fire clung to its fuel. When it went out, it went out because it let go. And when it let go, it was released …
- Ekaggata… As a result, they end up causing themselves a lot of suffering—and a lot of suffering for people around them as well. So a basic part of the training in terms of generosity, virtue, meditation, is becoming more sensitive to your own actions. It’s interesting to note that when the Buddha starts out talking about the principle of action, he does it …
- Right & Right… It works all the way in the sense of leading all the way to the end of suffering. Zero suffering in the moment. Total release. That was the proof of how you can be right and right at the same time, i.e., you have the right knowledge and you’ve applied in the right way. So this is a process that requires maturity …
- Even Common Animals Can Be Trained… You can’t move us away.” When you see that they’re unskillful, that they cause you suffering and harm, you can learn how to stop engaging in them. This ability to step back from our habits is what makes us human beings really different from animals. Animals are very instinctive. I was reading a while back about some baby beavers who’d been …
- Load next page...
