During the recent Western Monastic Conference, I raised a question with the Christian monks who were there, regarding an orthodox belief. I asked, “What happens to an unbaptized baby who dies in childbirth or an aborted fetus? Is it going to heaven or not?” One of the monks answered, “Well, technically it’s not going to heaven, because it wasn’t baptized.” It’s easy to think that’s an outrageous b…

Take a few deep, long in-and-out breaths and think of the breath energy filling the body. When we talk of the breath energy being full, it’s not a matter of having your lungs stuffed with air. It’s more that the energy channels throughout the body are open and they feel saturated with comfortable energy. So try to notice where in the body you have that sense of fullness right now. Protect that spo…

Form is like a glob of foam; feeling, a bubble; perception, a mirage; fabrications, a banana tree; consciousness, a magic trick — this has been taught by the Kinsman of the Sun. However you observe them, appropriately examine them, they’re empty, void to whoever sees them appropriately. Beginning with the body as taught by the One with profound discernment: when abandoned by three things — life, w…

We can learn to use the structures and the limits of a retreat, a monastic life or those that are part of lay life…to look at the mind’s habit of chasing after a desire or an aversion. We can make an effort to not follow the craving but to know: ‘This is a feeling; this is a very potent feeling perhaps, it’s very strong, but it is just a feeling.’ The mind might make a strong case: ‘I can’t stand…

When the mind gets caught in the feeling of pleasure, there is the tendency to want more of it. Or, when the mind experiences an unpleasant, painful feeling, it wants to get away from it. This is what is called the bridge between ‘feeling’ and ‘craving’. This is the key point in the addictive process because this is where the trouble really starts: where the feeling of ‘like’ transforms into ‘I wa…

What’s interesting is that the Buddha says all this inconstancy, stress and not-self is rooted in desire. And yet because of the desire, we’re never satisfied. It’s through our lack of satisfaction that we want this and want that, and yet the things that we create in order to fill up that lack never really give satisfaction. So we desire more. We create more. The process keeps feeding on itself, b…

Yesterday, four senior monks from Abhayagiri participated in the ordination at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. The preceptor was Reverend Heng Sure. As he was instructing the candidates, he kept using a certain refrain: “There is inferior resolve, medium resolve, and superior resolve.” The examples he gave of inferior and medium resolve were humorous, so as to encourage the prospective monks to…

Today is Beth’s birthday. We were talking a few minutes ago about how quickly it all happens, how fast the time passes, particularly as one gets older. Time tends to telescope and move much faster with age. Beth mentioned her mother was recently looking in a shop and saw a reflection in the window. Her first thought was, Who is that old lady? Then she realized that it was herself! I remember a tim…

When we are in a queue we think: ‘When are we going to get to the desk?’ That is the ‘becoming’ urge, bhava-tanha. We think to ourselves, ‘How long is the line?’ ‘Are we nearly at the table?’ ‘Are we nearly there?’ This is not the same as simply waiting for the line to move. It is ‘becoming’ and, naturally, there is the suffering that arises from becoming. But let go of that urge and then you happ…

Suppose a dog, overcome with weakness & hunger, were to come across a slaughterhouse, and there a dexterous butcher or butcher’s apprentice were to fling him a chain of bones — thoroughly scraped, without any flesh, smeared with blood. What do you think: Would the dog, gnawing on that chain of bones — thoroughly scraped, without any flesh, smeared with blood — appease its weakness & hunger? No, lo…