Search results for: "Suffering"
- Page 97
- Steps in Concentration… That’s probably because, as he was first working with this method, he was suffering heart problems. When you suffer from heart problems, there’s a lot of tension in the back of the neck. If you can create a good sensation there, that helps to alleviate a lot of the pressure, a lot of the tension. Then you can think of it spreading …
- The Governing Principle… Your duty with regard to the four noble truths is to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize its cessation, and develop the path. To “develop” means that you give rise to it; and once it’s there, you keep it going. That’s the function of desire and right effort as well: the desire to abandon unskillful qualities, to develop qualities that are skillful …
- Death World… May all living beings be happy, may all beings be freed from their suffering, may all beings not be deprived of the good fortune they have attained. Those first three branhmaviharas are wishes. But what are those wishes based on? The fact that all beings are the owners of their actions. So you wish that beings will behave in a way that will lead …
- Four Virtues… That right there is suffering. And of course there are the people you depend on for emotional support, and there’s a kind of stress and strain that goes there as well. So you have to be careful. When you look at things and listen to things, what do you bring into the mind? Often you bring in greed, anger, and delusion, because those …
- Read the Breath… In his case, it was the problem of suffering at large. But as for your particular sufferings, the same pattern applies. So we’re sitting here focusing on the breath not simply because the breath can become a comfortable place to stay—although it is a good place to hang out, with a sense of ease in the present moment. The Buddha said that …
- Lessons from Generosity & Virtue… This is one of the reasons why the Buddha talks so much about the purpose of this practice being to put an end to suffering, to put an end to stress. Everybody in the mind wants to put an end to suffering, it’s just that they have different ideas about what that would be and how to go about it. The differences are …
- An Island of Certainty… He realized that any craving that led to becoming was going to lead to suffering. But craving for non-becoming—in other words, to destroy a state of becoming that’s already there, or to see it destroyed—would lead to becoming, too. What is becoming? It’s the act of taking on an identity in a world of experience. So there was this …
- Count Yourself Lucky… There are beings that have so much suffering that they can’t. There are other beings that have so much pleasure that they can’t. They’re too carried away with their pleasure, enjoying it too much, taking the pleasure as an end in and of itself, and that gets in the way of the practice. So think about that when things don’t …
- Truthful & Observant… After all, we suffer from our own lack of skill, and we have to develop skill through our own powers of observation. As the Buddha said, “Let someone who is truthful and observant come, someone who’s no deceiver, and I’ll teach that person the Dhamma.” Those are the two requisites. One the one hand, you’re truthful and not deceptive. It means …
- The Strength of Conviction… This was why, when the Buddha listed the five strengths with the fifth being discernment—the discernment that leads to the end of suffering—the first item in the list is conviction: conviction that your actions do matter and ultimately, of course, that there is a way out. Having this conviction helps you get around problems in your meditation. If the mind has trouble …
- At Home with the Breath… You’re doing it because you suffer. You lack a sense of home, and you want to provide a home for yourself. Well, this is the place to do it, and this is the time to do it. Just learn to have the patience to be observant. When the Buddha was teaching Rahula breath meditation, even though breath meditation involves a lot of training …
- Path & Raft… Any of these ways of relating to the aggregates, he calls self-identity, and this is where we suffer. This is why we keep coming back again and again and again, because we take on these identities. We want to get over to the other shore, which is unbinding—total liberation. But to get over to the other shore, we have to cross the …
- The Path to the Top… What would you do?” And the prince said, “I would hold his head with one hand and then I would make a hook with my finger on my other hand and stick it in his mouth and try to get it out, and even if it meant drawing blood, so that he wouldn’t swallow it and suffer something worse.” The Buddha then said …
- Generating Desire… And you don’t just suffer when you fall. You take out your suffering on others, which will make you fall even further. Seeing the danger in that, he said, “I’ve got to find something else.” So when you look at your own desires of what you want in life, ask yourself: Do you see danger in what you desire? This evening I …
- Mindfulness of Death & the Deathless… It’s one of the better sensual levels, yet look at all the suffering all around us. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha says if someone is on their deathbed, you try to get them to let go of human sensuality, to see the drawbacks of human sensuality, and at the very least focus on deva sensuality—something better. Of course …
- The Wisdom of Restraint… What we’re doing right now is leading to suffering. We can change our ways, act in different ways that can lead to the end of suffering. All the factors of the noble eightfold path are telling you: This is how you change your habits. So we’re not here to be true to our feelings. We’re here to be true to our …
- Pull Yourself Up by Your Fetters… We know that it’s the cause of suffering and that someday we’re going to have to abandon all forms of craving. But, as he points out, if you don’t have any desire—and the words craving and desire basically cover the same thing in Pali—if you don’t have the desire, you don’t have the craving to practice, the …
- Your Gyroscope… When you find the mind suffering from pain, you ask yourself, “Where is the cause of that suffering?” It’s not so much in the physical pain. It’s in the clinging and craving within the mind. That’s where you want to look. When you adjust your understanding in this way, then when these waves of the world go up and down, you …
- Skillful Desire… After all, he said the three kinds of craving were the cause of suffering. But those three kinds of craving don’t cover every kind of desire. In fact, he says all phenomena, all experience, come from desire. That includes skillful and unskillful qualities in the mind. The only thing that doesn’t come from desire is nibbana. That’s not based on desire …
- Trading Up… You realize that suffering comes from things that you’re doing, and many times they’re things you like, so you realize you have to give up some of the things you like if you want to stop suffering. That comes hard. We like to think that awakening is something you can simply add on to all the pleasures of life—that it somehow …
- Load next page...
