Virtue, meditation, and wisdom are the tools we use in training ourselves in how to relate to the world around us. This training will help us to see the qualities that bring true benefit to our society – the qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. These are the Brahma viharas, or divine abodes. In a way, these can be considered a goal of social action: creating a…

The Buddha said there are only two things that manifest in the mind: the arising of suffering and the ending of suffering. A pretty miserable programme if you don’t see it from the right perspective of non-grasping. Where’s the joy and happiness in that? Well, there is joy and happiness, but it’s not the joy and happiness that comes from a deluded view. True joy and happiness come from the freedom…

Do things that honour and support a good heart, and live up to that in yourself. We can begin to see more clearly and intimately the difference between good and bad, wholesome and unwholesome, not from an abstract judgmental way. Feel the difference. Whatever makes you feel whole is wholesome. Whatever makes you feel bitter, regretful, unsettled, is unwholesome. No matter what people are doing to…

Suffering isn’t simply something you passively endure. It’s an activity, the activity of clinging, in which the mind feeds off the things to which it clings. Its cause is also something you’re doing: You crave either to fantasize about sensual pleasures, to take on an identity in a particular world of experience, or to see your identity in a world of experience destroyed. The cessation of sufferin…

Mudita is translated as gladness in the Divine Abidings chant, but the term commonly used is sympathetic joy. Mudita is characterized as a gladdening at others’ success, a delighting in the success, the goodness, and the well being of others. Its function is being unenvious, not being jealous of the good fortune of others. Most of us, I think, find loving- kindness and compassion beneficial and go…

Inner turmoil and negativity are by-products of our reactions to the worldly assaults on our six senses. Pierced by the arrow of craving and poisoned by ignorance, we stand defenceless against Mara’s band of rogues that tempt us and crowd our thoughts in their many guises. Beguiled and believing in their promises, we fall in line. Our chronic clinging to and grasping after the delights of the mate…

We go around with cravings as our companions. These aren’t old companionships that you’d like to get a nice closure on. You can just stop them. And the way to do it is to focus on the present moment. You notice in the Buddha’s teachings there are no grand narratives about how the world came into being and where the world is going. The Buddha taught more how to get to know the present moment, how t…

[Ajahn Chah] compared practice with paying attention to the food you eat. Some foods will upset your stomach; some foods will give you energy, while some foods will make you sluggish. Some food might taste good but may not be good for you, or might not taste good but be nourishing for you. In the same way that you have to pay attention to the result of the food that you eat, you have to pay attent…

One of the Thai women meditating here had an insight into the quickness of the mind. Even meditating with the wholesome desire to bring the mind to a place of peace, tranquility, and clarity, she could see the mind go out to the sound of a dog barking. Then there was some other sound or distraction and the mind went out to that. The mind doesn’t stay still, even when we have the intention to train…

I would like to offer some thoughts on the cultivation of asubha kammaṭṭhāna or ‘Reflection on The Unattractive’. We have a standard practice in the monastery of regularly reciting the asubha chant. This is recommended particularly for all samanas, all renunciates, but I would encourage everyone to consider it…Like any practice, however, it requires repeated application of effort to be effectiv…