The Method of Cessation of Suffering

Practicing the contemplation of the skeleton (white bones) and the contemplation of impurity can extinguish suffering. If one contemplates the thirty-six bodily components on one's own body, wherever the contemplation reaches, that place will relax. This is because attachment to the object being contemplated becomes fainter; when the mind does not cling, it relaxes. So problems of the body are, in the end, problems of the mind. If the mind is dealt with well and the mind becomes empty, many problems are resolved. If a Buddhist practitioner goes along with conditions in daily life without deliberately pursuing things, without being picky, without grasping, life will be easy and at ease—anything goes, it doesn't matter. When everything is left to conditions and the mind is single-pointedly on the Path, what suffering could there be to speak of? Why is it that those who have attained the Way have no suffering in their minds no matter how their lives are? It is precisely because they know the world of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) to be empty, do not grasp at it, and use things according to conditions—using them when they are available, and being indifferent when they are not. 

The suffering we feel in body and mind all arises from the grasping (upādāna) of the manas. If there is no grasping, there is no feeling of suffering. The knots and bonds in the mind are all produced by grasping; knots and bonds are like ropes—where there are knots and bonds, there is obstruction and blockage. Without grasping, the mind and its states are open, spacious, and unobstructed—ascending to heaven or descending into the earth, all according to my will. When experiencing a feeling of suffering, one should reflect: what have I grasped at in the past that has produced such suffering? All suffering has a cause; only by finding the cause and resolving the cause is there a way to extinguish the fruit of suffering.