Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. Protection
     … When we’re with someone who’s going through problems in life, someone who’s suffering, we tend to open up wide and absorb everything they’re putting out, thinking that somehow we’re being helpful. Well, we aren’t helping them at all, and at the same time, we are leaving ourselves defenseless. So try to keep your awareness filling your body as … 
  3. Well-being Despite It All
     … You can also begin to question the compulsion to need to go with the pain and suffering, as if you owe it to someone else. Say you’re suffering over what’s happened to somebody else and yet it feels selfish not to suffer with them. That’s not the case at all. When you’re in a good position, you’re in a … 
  4. Mindfulness: Get with the Program
     … Because you remember, as the Buddha analyzed the causes of suffering in dependent co-arising, even before there’s contact at the senses, there’s a lot of stuff going on in the mind. How you approach that contact because of that stuff is going to make the difference between whether you suffer from it or not. So you have to remember, what are … 
  5. An Hour of Bliss
     … mindfulness and alertness, motivated by the desire not to cause suffering. The motivation is important, so it’s good to think about it each time you meditate. You think about all the suffering in the world that comes from people acting on greed, people acting on aversion, people acting on delusion—and here you’ve got a mind that’s perfectly capable of acting … 
  6. The Practice of Right View
     … But the Buddha didn’t get involved in those issues, didn’t answer any questions that would drag him into those issues, because he saw that they weren’t helpful in putting an end to suffering. Many people got frustrated with him because they couldn’t get a clear answer out of him on what they thought were the really important questions. They mentioned … 
  7. Look at Yourself
     … When the Buddha talks about the cause of suffering, he doesn’t talk about the economy. He doesn’t talk about the weather. He talks about your craving, your ignorance. Where do these things happen? Right here. It’s easy to learn about the words, but it’s a lot more difficult to see exactly how craving arises, how it takes over, why you … 
  8. The Buddha’s Encouragement
     … I might as well think about some sensual pleasures.” Or you start thinking about somebody who you really don’t like, and you’d like to see them suffer—that’s ill will. Or the mind gets drowsy, and you’re willing to drift into either sleep or delusion concentration, where it’s very quiet inside the mind but not very clear. You come … 
  9. Lighter & Stronger
     … Even though it’s a useful tool, it can bring a lot of suffering if you’re attached to it. And you’re better off not being attached. Again, these perceptions have to be used together with all four of the noble truths. The truths teach you to get the mind into concentration, and one of the things you’ll learn as you begin … 
  10. Strength of Discernment
     … She has a job where she actually can continue working, and she wasn’t thinking too much about all the people out there in the world who are suffering from the quarantine right now, so she wondered if she was in denial. So I asked her, “What can you do for the people who are out there suffering? If there’s something you can … 
  11. Oppressed by Old Kamma
     … They’re certainly not going to take you to the end of suffering. They just keep pulling you into the old patterns you’ve been following for who knows how long. Is that where you want to go? Sometimes you say Yes because it’s familiar territory. But then familiar territory is full of what? It’s full of suffering, full of disappointment, full … 
  12. The Rewards of Stream Entry
     … You’re trying to comprehend stress and suffering to see what it is and where it comes from. When you see where it comes from, you see the different types of craving that lead to that stress, and you can abandon them. You do that by developing the path. The one noble truth where you don’t have to do much is to realize … 
  13. Wise Choices
     … As the Buddha once said, wisdom begins by asking that question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” It’s wise because you realize that the question of happiness and suffering is the big issue in life, that happiness depends on your actions, and that you have the choice to cultivate happiness or not. Not only that … 
  14. Your Sketches vs. the Buddha’s
     … So as a way of prying yourself loose from your old way of looking at things, the Buddha first has you look at the fact that it’s causing you to suffer. Then he has you do something called guarding the truth, where you ask yourself, “Where did I get these ideas? Where did they come from? Why did I adopt them? What purpose … 
  15. Hindrances to the Heightened Mind
     … You can think of some really awful people out there, get yourself all worked up and, yes, “They really do deserve my ill will.” Well, they may be awful, but what business do you have trying to add suffering to theirs? They’re already suffering enough, creating the causes for suffering for themselves. Why do you need to add anything on top of it … 
  16. Self-Hatred
    We meditate to put an end to suffering, and specifically to the suffering caused by our minds—craving, ignorance, things that come up from within. Which means that you have to keep watch within, on what’s going on inside. One of the purposes of meditation is to put you in a good place to watch, so that what you see is undistorted. You … 
  17. Protection Through the Practice
     … And from that you can suffer for a long time. They can rob you, abuse you, or even kill you, but the results of that last only one lifetime. But if you do something really bad, it becomes your karma, and the suffering from that can last for many lifetimes. So you have to train your mind to free it from the greed, aversion … 
  18. Guardian Meditations
     … What would you gain from anybody’s misery? What would you gain from anyone’s suffering? Most of the evil in the world comes from the fact that people are suffering and miserable, and they want to spread their misery around. So think these things through. In other words, you don’t engage just in directed thought, but you also engage in evaluation: contemplating … 
  19. The Search for Happiness
    Ajaan Suwat once commented on how there are people who don’t like the Buddha’s emphasis on suffering and stress. They complain that it’s pessimistic. But, he went on to say, look at people’s behavior: Everybody’s looking for happiness, which shows that they’re suffering. So the Buddha’s providing us with something we need and are already looking for … 
  20. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … The path to the end of suffering, the Buddha says, is the karma that leads to an end of karma. There are things you have to do in order to stop doing. You have to have a desire to act. You see this in right resolve. You set your mind on doing things that are going to be skillful, and then with right effort … 
  21. Unchanged by Loss
     … You’re not being singled out for unfair suffering. Everybody suffers this. Then the Buddha tells the king that we should express our grief to whatever extent we find useful but then we have to realize that we’ve got to get on with life. There’s work to be done both outside and especially inside. As long as grief is in charge, it … 
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