Search results for: "Suffering"
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- Quick on the Draw… That phrase, “generating desire” means creating the proper attitudes in the mind that you want to practice, that you want to be free of suffering. This, as Ajaan Mun used to say, is the one thing you really want to hold on to: the desire not to keep coming back and suffering again and again. Hold on to that desire, because it’s based …
- Your Quiet Corner… He has us look directly at the world of our experience, and focuses on the big problem in that world of experience, which is the suffering that comes from the way we engage with that world. Now, to deal with the suffering in this world we have here, we need to find a quiet corner. That’s what we try to create as we …
- Two Hands Washing… The noble truths are not just words about stress and suffering. You’re dealing with the actual sensations. The same holds true with the path: it’s not just thoughts about the path; it’s the actual experience of the mind in Right Concentration, learning to recognize what that is, getting a sense of when your energy is too much, when your energy is …
- Being Responsible… And as the Buddha taught, wisdom comes from finding answers to the question, “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” In other words, wisdom begins with the realization that your happiness and suffering depend on your actions, long-term happiness is possible, and it’s better than short term. These are all very basic principles, but they …
- Everyday Feeding Habits… the extent to which you’re causing yourself unnecessary suffering as you go hungering for things. You need some protection because sensory input comes in very strongly. But again, the real problem is the mind’s opening its mouth to take all these things in. So you want to be able to maintain your concentration because. After all, if you find yourself feeding on …
- Feelings Not of the Flesh… We’re here for the sake of learning how our mind puts things together, because the way it puts things together causes us suffering. As long as we don’t see clearly what we’re doing, as long as we do this in ignorance, there’s going to be suffering. If you learn how to do this with knowledge, you can turn it into …
- Evaluation: The Voice of Heedfulness… To put an end to suffering, to comprehend suffering, to abandon its cause, to realize its cessation by developing the path: Those are all duties in your favor, good duties to hold to, so those are the duties you want to take as your standard. Then you engage in feedback. Watching the mind, if it’s getting off course, you warn it about the …
- Gifts of Noble Wealth… They’re not just casual truths, four nice things that are useful to know about suffering among all the other things you can know. The Buddha’s basically saying that these are the most important issues that you need to focus on: the questions of what you’re doing to cause suffering and what you can do to put an end to it. If …
- Skillful Fear… We have power with our actions to determine our course, how much we will or will not suffer. So the Buddha actually recommends a certain kind of fear in this area. The Pali term is ottappa, which we translate as “compunction.” The Thais translate it as, “fear of doing evil.” You have the power with your actions to do good or to do evil …
- Perception… Now, perception does play a role in dependent co-arising, which means that if you do it with ignorance, it’s going to cause suffering. If you learn how to do it with knowledge, you can avoid suffering. You can actually use perception as part of the path, as when you’re getting the mind into right concentration. But you want to look carefully …
- Dedicating Merit… It is true that we recognize that we each are making ourselves suffer and we have to work on putting an end to that suffering ourselves. Each of us has his or her own karma. You can’t take your karma and give it to somebody else. So it looks like we’re just working on our own goodness, our own happiness, and forgetting …
- For Your Benefit Here & Now… Then there’s the realization that the present moment is where you’re creating suffering for the mind and you don’t have to. If you want to see that suffering—how you’re creating it so that you can put an end to it—you’ve got to stay right here. So that gives you even more motivation to stay here. And as …
- What Is Skillful?… If it all happens in ignorance, it’s going to lead to suffering of one kind or another. If you do it with knowledge, then it becomes part of the path. So here we are with the breath, right next to the place where intentions get launched. And we have some control over how we breathe, and we have some control over how we …
- Passion for Nostalgia… But you have to realize that this is all suffering. You’re clinging to these different aggregates. And what are you getting out of them? You’re placing ruts in the mind, or as the Buddha would say, you’re bending the mind. We would say they’re ruts. You get into the rut and it’s hard to get out. This is one …
- Shaping Your Life… And through the present moment you shape the future in a way that’s really skillful, causes less and less suffering for yourself, less and less suffering for the people around you—always mindful of the fact that the way you experience the present moment is a doing. There’s an effort that goes into it. It’s a skill that can be developed …
- Surveying the World… If you could pull that arrow out, then you’d be free from the suffering. So the problem is not with the world. The problem is in the heart. On the night of his awakening, when he surveyed the world again, he had already seen his previous births, going up and down on all sorts of levels. The question was: Was there a pattern …
- The Pursuit of Happiness & Goodness… But he didn’t say, “Well, because the world offers us a lot of suffering, we simply just have to suffer.” The wise person is one who can find a sense of well-being inside in spite of what’s going on in the world—and can find it in a way that doesn’t weigh on the world at all, and offers a …
- Mindful to Be Skillful… Right view is where skillfulness moves into the four noble truths, because you want to see things in terms of what you’re doing to cause stress and suffering, and what you need to do in order to abandon the cause. It’s in this way that these two teachings come together. But they’re not just things to memorize, not just little rules …
- Heightening the Mind… This is why the Buddha insisted that there are four noble truths, not just the truth of the cessation of suffering, but also the tasks of understanding suffering, abandoning its cause, and developing the path. These are all very important parts of the teaching. They’re all noble truths. The development of the path is largely two things. One, developing qualities that enhance the …
- The Fool & the Wise Person… How could such a broad-minded, enlightened person like the Buddha get caught up on the details? Well, it’s because of the details that we create suffering for ourselves. It’s the little things that we tend to overlook: those are the things that are causing us problems. Every little movement of the mind is either skillful or unskillful, so you have to …
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