Use the structure of mindfulness of breathing to develop this quality of knowing. There are sixteen steps in the Ānāpānasati Sutta (M 118) on mindfulness of breathing. The first two steps are: “Breathing in long, one knows one is breathing in long; breathing out long, one knows one is breathing out long. Breathing in short, one knows one is breathing in short; breathing out short, one knows one…

There are many layers to self-deception. The more you practice and investigate things, the less you feel like claiming to know. Instead, you’ll simply see the harm of your own many-faceted ignorance and foolishness. Your examination of the viruses in the mind gets more and more subtle. Before, you didn’t know, so you took your views to be knowledge — because you thought you knew. But actually thes…

All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do—every experience—comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are. Desire is how we take our place in the causal matrix of space and time. The only thing not rooted in desire is nibb…

The result we are looking for in contemplative enquiry is the understanding that actually resolves suffering. To arrive at such understanding requires skill in using the tools in our spiritual toolkit. It might also mean we need to acquire more tools. As with any task, if we don’t have the right equipment, we can’t do the work. If we don’t have access to modes of investigation any more subtle than…

…Ajahn Baen emphasized a question that is quite commonly asked in the Forest Tradition. It’s a very simple question that we should consider and contemplate in our practice: Am I supporting the defilements, or am I supporting the development of Dhamma? That very simple contemplation is critical, because our preferences and biases don’t tend to lead us to question in that way. We tend to have though…

The Buddha told his disciple Ananda to see impermanence, to see death with every breath. We must know death; we must die in order to live. What does this mean? To die is to come to the end of all our doubts, all our questions, and just be here with the present reality. You can never die tomorrow; you must die now. Can you do it? If you can do it, you will know the peace of no more questions. This…

One thing that I appreciate, of which I’ve become more aware during this week, is of the temple here at Amaravati. You could say it is the focus, the heart of the monastic life. You could say that externally, the heart of monastic life is really the meditation hall. That is the physical place where we remain connected with the heart of the path that we follow, the path of our inward practice. How…

In working with the Hindrances, one of the most helpful supporting qualities is faith or trust. This is two-fold: trust in ourselves and trust in the teachings. If we lack either of these, we don’t have the incentive to try to find a solution to the Hindrances. Trust is one of the spiritual powers (and faculties), together with mindfulness, energy, concentration and wisdom. The commentarial litera…

Live your life well in accord with the Way – avoid a life of distraction. A life well-lived leads to contentment, both now and in the future. V. 169 With a heart of contentment as our foundation, we can tackle the tasks that confront us. There are times when we need to be brave warriors battling with the forces of delusion to avoid their taking control of our hearts and minds. At other times we ne…

Consider how much of one’s thinking is about trying to establish permanence. How much of one’s planning sees a future with certainty? How many activities are supposed to sort things out so that we never have to deal with them again—and how much of our disappointment is because we thought we had something solid and then it changed? All that breeds an unwillingness to enter into something unknown, e…