Top Highlights

• On the contrary, the Buddha taught that we can find our freedom only through embracing the conditions that trouble us.
• “When you no longer resist a powerful emotion like fear,” he continued, “you're free to channel that energy in a more constructive direction. When you hire your problems as bodyguards, they show you how powerful your mind is. Their very fierceness makes you aware of how strong you are.”
• This is, perhaps, the essential message of the First Noble Truth: Life has a way of interrupting, presenting even the most contented among us with momentous surprises. Such surprises—along with subtler, less noticeable experiences like the aches and pains that come with age, the frustration of waiting in line at the grocery store, or simply running...
• The Suffering of Change stems, more accurately, from the attachment to the pleasure derived from getting what we want: be it a relationship, a job, a good grade on an exam, or a shiny new car.
• Seeking satisfaction in others or in external objects or events reinforces a deep and often unacknowledged belief that we, as we are, are not entirely complete; that we need something beyond ourselves in order to experience a sense of wholeness or security or stability. The Suffering of Change is perhaps best summed up as a conditional view of ours...