Many Buddhists will be familiar with the Eightfold Noble Path, but this is just one example of the Path, one that was given to those whose minds were already prepared through training. For those who had no previous training and weren’t committed to his teaching, the Buddha presented something of a more general relevance: a way of turning the heart towards its values and strengths. Through taking u…

At the end of the Buddha’s life, when he was at Kusinara and he was about to realize Parinibbāna, at that time many Devata and Brahma gods gathered together. The sal trees in the forest came out into bloom; they flowered even though it was not the season for their blossoming. The heavenly musicians, the gandhabbas were playing their divine music, filling the air with sublime sounds. Celestial flow…

Impermanence pulls the carpet out from under our feet, but at the same time transforms our values, the qualities which we seek out as valuable in our experiences. If we don’t understand the change, it causes confusion, followed by doubt. Even though we might know what we should be doing, we get stuck in the sense of doubt and meaninglessness, and we can’t even begin. Why do you get up in the morni…

Luang Por Waen calls the present ‘correct Dhamma’. He refers to the past and future as ‘drunken Dhamma’. That conveys the right message. We are lost if we are not in the present moment because the present moment is mindfulness; mindfulness is present moment awareness. Past and future exist only through our thoughts, which remember the past and project the future. The Forest Masters are very creati…

The Buddha said that those who abandon foolish actions and devote themselves to the path of wisdom and compassion illumine the world like the full moon emerging from behind a cloud. Showing others through our life the human capacity to make real and positive changes is a wonderful gift that everyone of us can share with the world. This reflection by Ajahn Jayasaro is from the book, Food for the He…

The Buddha’s instructions on how best to approach aging, illness, and death apply to everyone: not only in the sense that we all face these facts of life, but also in the sense that we will be called upon—even before we face these facts ourselves—to give care to those who are facing them in the present. The Canon doesn’t depict a deva messenger who conveys this message. Caregivers do play—literall…

I say, friend, that where one is not born, does not age or die, or pass from one state to another, or arise again — that ‘world’s end’ is not to be known, seen or reached by travelling. Yet I say that there is no end of dukkha without reaching world’s end. Rather, it is in this fathom-long body, endowed with perception and mind, that I make known the world, the arising of the world, the cessation…

I would like to consider the application of these brahmaviharas. Buddhist practice is sometimes criticized as being ineffectual and quiescent—that basically the Buddha’s teaching is to sit in a quiet meditation room and placidly think thoughts of loving-kindness. But that’s not at all the Buddha’s teaching nor indeed his example. The cultivation of the brahmaviharas conditions action, as the inten…

(sent to Luang Por [Sumedho] from Thailand in June 2007) When the one who knows still listens Like a still jewel that glistens Turning the light of awareness back within It fills the present full to the brim With richest, silent meaning Past and future are no more Virtue steps to the fore And suckling turns to weaning For craving’s children They will try to drive us on Or pull us back Until we tak…

So learn how to gain some control over your feelings. Now this may sound strange. How can you control your feelings? Sometimes we have the sense that our feelings are who we really are and that they’re a given. But that’s not how the Buddha explains them. He says that in every feeling there’s an element of fabrication, i.e., an element of intention. This applies to physical feelings as well as to…