Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Stay
     … Why is there suffering? Why do the craving and clinging keep leading to becoming? Why do our actions always keep leading to suffering, even when we don’t intend to do things for the sake of suffering? These are the questions you can answer only when the mind gets really still and can learn how to stay still. So try to make that part … 
  3. Mental Balance
     … Where’s the stress and suffering? What is the action that’s causing the stress and suffering? When you see it, you stop it. The more meticulously you can watch this one topic, the better the results are going to be. The more you’re acquainted with your own mind, the better the results are going to be. So everything focuses here. All your … 
  4. The Need for Evaluation
     … The second purpose is to be able to watch the mind, to see what’s going on in the body, to see what’s going on in the mind, so that you can understand how you’re giving rise to suffering and how you can put an end to it. So we’re here both for well-being and for knowledge. And it’s … 
  5. A Becoming Critic
     … As the Buddha said, any craving that gives rise to becoming is going to give rise to suffering, too. So it’s important to understand, in our quest to put an end to suffering, how we create these worlds of becoming. If you simply try to destroy them, you take on a new identity as the destroyer. That leads to more becoming. The Buddha … 
  6. Mind Control
     … He’s not the sort of teacher who says, “Just be mindful,” or, “Just be fully present, and everything else will take care of itself.” You’ve got to look for where the suffering is, where there’s a cause of suffering, what events in the mind actually have the potential to become the path to the end of suffering. These are things you … 
  7. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … But as the Buddha said, the pain of that was minor compared to what Angulimala would have suffered if he hadn’t gained awakening. So wishing karmic retribution on people is not the Buddha’s way of doing things. That’s the way the world is, but his way was against the way of the world. No matter how much you may “deserve to … 
  8. Hedgehog Knowledge
     … At this point it’s hard to call dukkha suffering. It’s more like a sense of stress. Even in this state of concentration, you find that there’s some stress. So, what are you doing to keep that stress going? What can you do to let it stop? And you notice, if you’re sensitive, that it comes and goes, comes and goes … 
  9. Three Levels of Refuge
     … There are no more defilements; there’s nothing in your mind that can create suffering anymore. You realize that the only suffering that really weighed the mind down was the suffering the mind created for itself. When you reach that point, that’s the ultimate level of refuge. You reached it through your own actions, but you trained your actions through the example and … 
  10. Sensuality
     … The properties also provide a useful basis for understanding suffering, this tendency we have, when there’s a physical pain in the body, to glom everything together. It’s our ability to separate these things out, see the pain as one thing, and the physical properties as something else, that helps us to comprehend suffering. So this is a very useful exercise. It helps … 
  11. Inconstancy
     … The causes of suffering are to be abandoned, so that the cessation of suffering can be realized. So for the time being, you use the principle of inconstancy to figure out what are the causes for the path, and how you keep them going, even though they are inconstant. It’s only when you get to the end of the path that the duties … 
  12. Wild Horses
    When the Buddha identified the cause of suffering, he didn’t define it as a blanket craving for things to be different from what they are. After all, the desire to develop skillful qualities, the desire to prevent unskillful qualities from arising, the desire to get rid of unskillful qualities that are there: Those are good desires. Those are actually part of the path … 
  13. Interconnectedness
     … They can be interconnected in a way that leads to suffering or in a way that leads to happiness, to freedom. It all depends on how we use those interconnections. So whether interconnectedness is going to be a good thing or a bad thing is up to us. As we meditate, we’re given the tools to make those connections a good thing so … 
  14. Alternative Conceptions
     … Some of the choices lead to suffering. Some of the choices lead to the end of suffering. It’s up to you. You want to have the imagination to realize that there are other choices. Think of Prince Siddhartha. When he wanted to leave home, his friends all said, “Oh it’s impossible, this idea of a happiness that’s not based on conditions … 
  15. Messaging Your Mind
     … This then becomes your laboratory for watching the mind, because after all, the big problem in life is that we want happiness, but we do things that cause suffering. Even though we think we’re doing things that will lead to happiness, they end up causing suffering all too many times. You want to be able to see that in action so that you … 
  16. What Should I Do?
     … So now, while you’re strong and have the opportunity, develop the qualities of mind you’ll need so that when things break down, you don’t have to suffer. When you’re not suffering, you’re in a much better position to see, in the present moment, what needs to be done. You’re much better at picking up the pieces when you … 
  17. The Not-Self Discourse
     … They can suffer dis-ease: There’s dis-ease in the body, dis-ease in your feelings, in your perceptions, in your thought fabrications, even in your consciousness. If these aggregates really were you or yours, you could totally control them. Now, this doesn’t mean you have no control at all. As the Buddha admitted in other places, the aggregates do offer some … 
  18. Up for the Challenge
     … You’re identifying with things, which means that there will be suffering, but it’s possible to let that go.” This is a big challenge, letting go of this tendency we have in the mind to want to identify with something. We hope for happiness and think one of the ways of finding happiness is to identify what will be happy and what we … 
  19. Buddhist Engineering
     … Both teachings, he said, would leave no possibility for there to be a path to the end of suffering. If you had no choice, you couldn’t choose the path. You’d just have to wait for suffering to end on its own—if it would. You’d have no way of knowing whether it would. As for randomness, there’d be nothing you … 
  20. Dependable Friends
     … After all, as the Buddha said with regard to the four noble truths, suffering is something you want to comprehend, the cause of suffering is something you want to let go or abandon. Cessation is something you want to realize, to verify it for yourself. And then the path to the end of suffering is something you want to develop. So you have to … 
  21. Practice in Dying Well
     … The Buddha taught about how the suffering that weighs the mind down is the unnecessary suffering we add to things. How are you going to know that? By watching the mind and seeing what you’re doing that’s weighing the mind down. So even though we’re focused on the breath, we’re here at the breath so that we can see our … 
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