I don’t know how many of you have ever travelled. It’s a strange experience when you’re in an entirely foreign country with an unfamiliar culture and people who speak a different language. Yet there’s always something to share. One of my fondest memories was when I was in Ethiopia hitching down to Kenya. It was night and there weren’t any cars, only a man walking in the same direction along the ro…

We may feel there exists a paradox or inconsistency having to do with some of the teachings that guide our spiritual practice and how we conduct our daily lives. First we’re told it’s important to have a sense of urgency, and then we’re told to relax, let go, and cultivate a feeling of spaciousness. On one side, the Buddha encourages us to cultivate the quality of saṃvega, which is usually transla…

The term ‘Majjhimā’, or suitability, refers to the application of the Dhamma weapon to encounter and overwhelm any kind of kilesa that might appear. When the strength of this Dhamma weapon matches the strength of the kilesas, then we can withstand them. But there is still the possibility of the kilesas overwhelming and defeating us. But if we are tough and a lot more forceful than the kilesas, the…

If our education system were really designed for people, the core curriculum would teach how to live, how to die — how to deal with the big issues in life: pain, aging, illness, death, separation — because these are the things that plague people. The skills for dealing with them are the most important skills people can develop in life. But one of the problems with our society is that everything is…

In truth, we cannot really grasp anything properly, because as soon as we catch hold of it, it’s gone. We want to somehow make things belong to us and become part of us. But our attempt to grasp these things is based on a false premise. Say we buy an object and call it ours. What in that object has changed by the mere act of purchasing it? Nothing. It is the same after we bought it as it was befor…

…just this kind of gathering, a regular daily gathering to do the morning chanting, the evening chanting, doing walking meditation at the same time, sitting meditation at the same time, is that a good thing? Yes, it’s good. It helps encourage a peaceful mind… In fact, you just see what it’s like, the difference when you do something as a group. You get such encouragement from it. When you’re alone…

It’s worthwhile to watch the habits of desire and craving that keep creeping into the mind. Really notice and pay attention to desire, because it’s insidious. This isn’t meant as a commentary on anyone’s inability to recognize or understand desire or to work with it, but simply to say that it takes our concerted attention and a willingness to investigate to see how desire keeps creeping in. Most i…

Looking at experience in terms of the five aggregates helps us to focus our attention on what the Buddha says is our fundamental activity as beings: beings have to eat. This is how they continue to be. Without taking in food—physical, mental, and emotional—we couldn’t maintain our identity as beings. Now the Buddha wants us to perceive this feeding as suffering, because only when we get past this…

When there’s a conflict or a disagreement, we often just bounce off each other with our emotional reactions. Mostly we immediately pick up the other person’s emotional state, whether they’re afraid, aggressive or judgmental, for example. Often this doesn’t allow us to hear what that person has to say, even if it’s actually quite sensible. Before the argument even enters the rational part of our mi…

The practices that I have maintained all these years are not easy to do — they are extremely difficult. I have endured many hardships to test my determination and my stamina along the path. I have gone without food for many days. I have refused to lie down to sleep for many nights. Endurance became the food to nourish my heart and diligence became the pillow to rest my head. Try it for yourself. T…