Jātipi dukkhā. Birth is suffering. I heard someone recently explaining the Buddha’s list of the different forms of suffering. He came to this one and said, “Well, that’s behind us now.” The problem is that it’s not behind us. We have it behind us, but we also have it ahead of us if we’re not careful. Each time it happens, it’s like a throw of the dice. As they say, the opportunities that are open…

“If someone eats meat and attaches to its taste then that is craving. If someone who doesn’t eat meat sees someone else eating it and feels averse and angry, abuses or criticizes them, and takes [what they see as] their badness into their own heart, then that makes them more foolish than the person they’re angry with. They’re also following craving.” Luang Por said that monks were free to decide f…

Just as the willingness to both give and receive is a mark of any sound human relationship, the giving and receiving of alms ( free-will offering of material support) has always been a part of most cultures. It centres people around kindness and humility and reminds us that although we are all subject to the changeable fortune of the world, our values and relatedness can remain constant. For this…

Once we’ve abandoned doing evil, then even when we make merit only a bit at a time, there’s still hope that our perfections will grow full. Like a basin set upright out in the open: Even if rain falls only a drop at a time, there’s a chance that the basin will get full. But if we make merit without abandoning evil, it’s like putting a basin upside-down out in the open. When the rain falls, it stil…

The Buddha defined viriya as application to four things. The first is if an unwholesome state of mind arises, one recognizes it first, and then one strives to overcome it. For example, if anger arises, one recognizes “I am angry,” and then one strives to overcome that anger. The next aspect is if an unwholesome state of mind hasn’t yet arisen, then one strives to make sure that it doesn’t arise. I…

As we sit here during this retreat, we have to pay attention to things that are not at all interesting. They may even be unpleasant and painful. To endure things patiently rather than run off to find something interesting is a good discipline – to be able just to endure the boredom, the pain, the anger, the greed; all these things, instead of always running away from them. Patience is such an impo…

To lead your daily life by keeping constant supervision over the mind is a way of learning what life is for. It’s a way of learning how we can act so as to rid ourselves more and more of suffering and stress – because the suffering and stress caused by defilement, attachment, and craving are sure to take all sorts of forms. Only by being aware with true mindfulness and discernment can we comprehen…

There is a saying which expresses the relationship between wisdom and compassion: ‘Wisdom tells me I am nothing, compassion tells me I am everything, and in between my life flows.’ Wisdom teaches us about impermanence and the absence of self-hood. Compassion makes us aware that despite our impermanence and lack of a self, even though we are separate bodies, we are all interconnected and affect eac…

Why get married? Vows: this was about solemnizing, a strong binding. And that meant, as I commented in my address, stretching the softer aspects of love to include patience, compassion and a resolute act of faith in each other’s capacity to work through the challenges. An enjoyable partnership had just turned into a potentially deepening union. …in this life the value of a vow can be experienced e…

…In Western psychology, ego-development is impossible without assuming a clear sense of self. But in Buddhism, with its realization that there is no clear dividing line between your own true happiness and that of others, the underlying assumption of ego-development is a clear sense of cause and effect, seeing which actions lead to suffering, which ones lead to short-term happiness, which ones lead…