Seeing With The Body - Thanissaro Bhikkhu

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• published: 18 Dec 2014
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A great Dhamma talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu on how we cling to our suffering. One of the Buddha's essential insights was the suffering that really weighs down the mind. Its a suffering that we create and that its unnecessary and even though we create it and suffer from it, we cling to it. This has some unexpected implications. One, for a lot of us if we didn't suffer we'd be lost, or the idea of not suffering, we'd feel lost. Sometimes our strongest sense of who we are comes from being treated unjustly and that's how we define ourselves, by our suffering, by being treating unjustly and if we were to deny ourselves that perverse pleasure, we'd feel lost. So when other people aren't treating us unjustly, we start treating ourselves unjustly. If other people aren't criticizing us unfairly, we'd start criticizing ourselves unfairly, because we'd feel lost without that criticism. So to work around this problem the Buddha has us simply focus on the problem of suffering without asking who's causing this, or who you are or what you have to do to yourself sense of self to make it better. He just says look at the suffering, in and of itself. That's the important thing, the in and of itself. That helps you get out of all the entanglements that come around from on the one hand suffering but on the other hand clinging to your suffering. When you can look at it simply on its own terms, see it simply as a pattern of cause and effect, without asking yourself how you are involved in it. When you can see thats its unnecessary and you can see the fact of suffering as its caused, when you see the connection and that you don't have to do that, it helps loosen up your attachment to the suffering. You're clinging to the things that cause you to suffering and that's what defines you and yet you don't have to worry about being annihilated if you stop the suffering. ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu May all beings learn how to be truly happy.