ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the Buddhist views about the problem of suffering, its psychological causes and the methods for ending suffering. Buddhist traditions employ a range of methods intended to remove the harmful, stubborn dispositions which cause suffering. Many of these techniques are forms of meditation or ethical practice, which work on the mind to root out these entrenched harmful psychological tendencies. The primary solution to suffering prescribed for the greedy temperament is 'calming' meditation, which quietens the mind through developing a highly concentrated and absorbed state of consciousness. The various meditation and ethical techniques that Buddhist traditions employ for overcoming craving and ignorance are largely cognitive and behavioural in orientation. A serious concern is that the equanimous existence that Buddhist traditions often advocate as an ideal may entail sacrificing many of the desires and emotions that make life worth living.
