…a question that someone asked in one of the meditation workshops. She said she was noticing that as she grew older she tended to forget things; her mind is no longer so bright and clear. She asked, ‘How do you practise with this? I know that it’s not going to get any better; I can feel that my mind is going.’ After she had asked this question, there was an awesome hush in the room. I think quite…

We suffer largely because of the way we talk to ourselves. That’s what the message of the four noble truths is all about. It’s not that we suffer from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations. We suffer because of the commentary we apply to these things. And a lot of meditation is learning to talk to yourself in new ways. In fact, the whole practice is about talking to yourself in new…

The Brahma Vihāras nurture our hearts by giving rise to peacefulness and coolness. They function as an antidote for the mental defilements, their purpose being none other than to counteract the kilesas. If our heart is full of defilements, we will tend to be selfish and inconsiderate, thinking only of our own benefit. But if we cultivate mettā towards others, we will have an antidote for any feeli…

Reflect on the sense of ‘I am’. Notice how it is always associated with some state (I am tired) or notion (I am from Singapore) or action (I am going to New York in the summer). How does your particular ‘I am’ feel when it’s associated with a state, notion or activity? Sometimes positive, sometimes negative, sometimes confident and sometimes uncertain? In summary, it’s changeable. Can you have any…

In practicing the Dhamma, if you don’t foster a balance between concentration and discernment, you’ll end up going wild in your thinking. If there’s too much work at discernment, you’ll go wild in your thinking. If there’s too much concentration, it just stays still and undisturbed without coming to any knowledge either. So you have to keep them in balance. Stillness has to be paired with discernm…

What the Buddha tells us in the Fire Sermon [(SN 35:28)], that the eye is burning, form is burning, eye consciousness is burning, eye contact is burning, the feeling arising from eye contact is burning, is that it’s not a picnic, not something that we want to be seeking. It is not something to be delighting in, and it is not something to be averse to. It is something to wake up to, something to re…

Energy is the third of the Seven Factors of Awakening. It’s also one of the Five Faculties, one of the Five Powers and a factor of the Eightfold Path. So the Buddha was very emphatic about energy. Fundamentally this goes back to the principle of what’s called kamma in his teachings. ‘Kamma’ literally means ‘action’, and the Buddha defined it as intentional action which has the potential to produce…

Concepts lie at the essence of mental fabrication. The mind thinks of matters either past or future and then starts elaborating on them as good or bad, liking or disliking them. If we see them as good, we get pleased and taken with them: This is delusion. If we see them as bad, we get displeased, which clouds and defiles the mind, making it irritated, restless and annoyed: This is ill will. The th…

Compunction is rarely discussed in modern Buddhist circles, even though it appears in many of the Buddha’s lists of qualities to be developed along the path. He calls it a guardian of the world in that it keeps people from violating trust and behaving promiscuously. In a simile where the Buddha compares different qualities needed on the path to features of a frontier fortress, compunction is a hig…

I have found the contemplative life is better viewed as an artistic exercise. In the beginning we need to learn the skills involved in an art form, like playing a musical instrument. Inevitably, applying ourselves to these techniques can be boring; becoming adept calls for repetition. To play a violin we must learn how to move our fingers, how to hold the wrist. If we don’t hold the instrument cor…