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December 12, 2018 - August 19, 2020
The ocean of suffering is immense, but if you turn around, you can see the land.
Even while you have pain in your heart, you can enjoy the many wonders of life — the beautiful sunset, the smile of a child, the many flowers and trees.
Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you cannot get the peace and joy you deserve.
The Buddha called suffering a Holy Truth, because our suffering has the capacity of showing us the path to liberation. Embrace your suffering, and let it reveal to you the way to peace.
Discourse on Turning the Wheel of the Dharma (Dhamma Cakka Pavattana Sutta).
Our suffering is holy if we embrace it and look deeply into it. If we don’t, it isn’t holy at all. We just drown in the ocean of our suffering.
Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he had tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work.
I thought, Why don’t I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at
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If we touch the truth of suffering with our mindfulness, we will be able to recognize and identify our specific suffering, its specific causes, and the way to remove those causes and end our suffering.
We have to learn the art of stopping — stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.
We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand.
Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us.
The first function of meditation — shamatha — is to stop.
The Buddha taught many techniques to help us calm our body and mind and look deeply at them. They can be summarized in five stages:
Recognition
Acceptance
Embracing
Looking deeply
Insight
After calming, the third function of shamatha is resting.
To understand the Four Noble Truths, not just intellectually but experientially, we have to practice the twelve turnings of the wheel.
The first turning is called “Recognition.”
We stop running from our pain. With all our courage and tenderness, we recognize, acknowledge, and identify it.
The second turning of the wheel is called “Encouragement.”
The Twelve Turnings of the Wheel
The third turning of the wheel is called “Realization” and can be expressed as, “This suffering has been understood.”
We can now call our suffering by its specific name and identify all of its characteristics. This alone brings us happiness, joy “without setbacks” (anashrava).
The Five Mindfulness Trainings3
When we practice the first turning of the First Noble Truth, we recognize suffering as suffering. If we are in a difficult relationship, we recognize, “This is a difficult relationship.” Our practice is to be with our suffering and take good care of it.
When we practice the first turning of the Second Noble Truth, we look deeply into the nature of our suffering to see what kinds of nutriments we have been feeding it.
Just seeing the causes of your suffering lessens your burden.
In the second stage of the Second Noble Truth, “Encouragement,” we see clearly that real happiness is possible if we can stop ingesting the nutriments that cause us to suffer.
Only by a strong intention not to do things in the same way can we keep the wheel in motion.
the third turning of the wheel of the Second Noble Truth, “Realization,” we not only vow but we actually stop ingesting the nutriments that create our suffering.
At the third stage of the Second Noble Truth, you only have to be yourself. The form is not important. But be careful! First there has to be genuine insight, genuine freedom.
When you are suffering, look deeply at your situation and find the conditions for happiness that are already there, already available.
walking do we realize how wonderful it was to have two healthy legs. The first turning of the Third Noble Truth is the “Recognition” of the possibility of the absence of suffering and the presence of peace.
The second turning is to “Encourage” ourselves to find peace and joy.
Don’t run away from things that are unpleasant in order to embrace things that are pleasant. Put your hands in the earth. Face the difficulties and grow new happiness.
Buddhas and bodhisattvas suffer, too. The difference between them and us is that they know how to transform their suffering into joy and compassion.
the “Realization” that suffering and happiness are not two.
true joy. The Fourth Noble Truth is the way out of suffering.
Practicing the first turning of the wheel of the Fourth Noble Truth, we “Recognize” that the Eightfold Path — Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration — can lead us out of suffering, but we do not yet know how to practice it.
In the second turning, we “Encourage” ourselves to practice this path.
The third turning of the wheel of the Fourth Noble Truth is the “Realization” that we are practicing this path.
there are two extremes that a monk should avoid.
“The first is the devotion to sensual desire and the pleasure resulting from sensual desire. Such devotion is base, pedestrian, worldly, ignoble, and unbeneficial. The second is devotion to harsh austerity. Such devotion is painful, ignoble, and unbeneficial.
to grasp the Five Aggregates as though they constitute a self is suffering.
