Search results for: "Suffering"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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