Defiance with Noah Levine

Suffering is a part of existence for everyone, but it doesn't have to be. The dharma is for those of us who say, “I'd rather not suffer. I'd rather not be normal. I'd like to rebel against the normal status quo of human suffering. I'd like to, take this radical path of actually freeing myself from suffering. I defy the causes of suffering.”

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Acceptance with Noah Levine

The core of what I'm gonna talk about is acceptance. I ask you to reflect for a moment about what are some of the difficult things for you to accept about reality? What do you find hard to accept?

I believe it's part of our practice to see clearly and accept the world as it is. Right now, it’s like this, the world is like this. In no way does acceptance mean complacency. It means to see clearly what's happening in you and around you.

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The Five Hindrances with Noah Levine

The promise of Buddhism is that it is possible to not suffer about the pain and difficulties in our life. What hinders your ability to not suffer?

The buddha gave a list of the 5 hindrances:

1. Craving for pleasure

2. Aversion to pain

3. Restlessness, anxiousness, and impatience

4. Laziness and procrastination

5. Self-doubt and unworthiness

Mindfulness allows us to slow down and name these hindrances without allowing them to overtake us and cause us suffering.

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A Wise Response to Suffering with Noah Levine

Suffering is normal, suffering is the reality of this world. But how do we take that suffering and learn to have a wise relationship to it?

Buddhism offers us a wise response to living on this planet. Compassion and equanimity are the solutions to suffering and through meditation we can access that loving, compassionate heart and that is our true nature.

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Ethics and karma with Noah Levine

The importance of ethics comes back to karma and the truth that we are totally responsible for our actions. Karma means action and for every action there is a reaction.

When we are harmful or unethical we create suffering for ourselves and others. If you want to free yourself from suffering, Buddhism is how you can achieve that.

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Mindfulness is the Foundation with Noah Levine

Mindfulness is the core technique that leads to freedom from suffering. All of the suffering in our life is a lack of mindfulness. Mindfulness gives us a choice.

Mindfulness is the practice of present time, non-judgmental, investigative, kind awareness.

There's a quality of mindfulness, which is contemplating and investigating and using your mind to look at what's happening. What is this? What does this feel like?

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Your Personality with Noah Levine

What kind of personality do you have? The Buddha broke personalities down into three categories - greed, hatred, and delusion.

It is through mindfulness meditation that we will become more aware of our personality tendencies and begin to change our relationship to the ways that our personality tendencies create unnecessary suffering for us.

This path is about looking at the causes of suffering and how we can suffer less.

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The Mind with Noah Levine

The Mind & Our Relationship to Our Mind

The reality is that most of our suffering is created in our own mind. The Buddhist path has the goal of ending suffering by radically changing our relationship to our minds.

Reflect on this question - How much of the time do you believe your mind? How often do you feel it's telling the truth? The more we meditate the more trustworthy our minds become.

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Becoming Intimate with Death with Noah Levine

How do you feel about death - Your own death and the death of those you love?

The Buddha encourages us to become intimate with death and to turn towards it rather than denying it and avoiding it. Becoming intimately connected with the impermanence of my own body and the impermanence of everyone that I love.

One of the most central teachings in Buddhism is the truth of impermanence and becoming aware of how much of the negative experience we create for ourselves by clinging to impermanence.

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Forgiving Yourself with Noah Levine

Who do you need to forgive? Do you include yourself on that list?

What would it be like if you forgave your own mind for all the times that it’s unskillful, unkind, unloving, unforgiving, critical, judgmental, and insecure?

In this practice it’s important to work on forgiving those who have caused us suffering, but it’s equally important to forgive ourselves and more specifically, to forgive our own mind.

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