At the same time, I began noticing discussions on the topic of questions in non-Buddhist sources as well. Two passages in particular underlined its importance. One was a story told by a man born in New York whose parents had been immigrants from Eastern Europe. They had placed great importance on his education, and his mother would ask him every day after school, not what he had learned that day,…

In Buddhist meditation circles conceptual thought tends to get the same rap as the ego. It is perceived as something bad, something that we don’t want or that needs to be eliminated. And it’s no wonder. Thinking can feel like a great burden. In our efforts to meditate we see how unruly the mind can be. It charges off here and there and everywhere chattering away insanely – all day and night. And b…

When we don’t have enough clarity and calm, we easily fall prey to misperceiving that which is in front of us. We attempt to find security within that which is insecure. We try to find stability within that which is unstable. On one occasion early in my monastic training, when I was caught up even more than usual in doubt and despair, I went to see Ajahn Chah, hoping he might help relieve me of my…

Any discussion of the way the Buddha used the term nibbāna must begin with the distinction that there are two levels of nibbāna (or, to use the original terminology, two nibbāna properties). The first is the nibbāna experienced by a person who has attained the goal and is still alive. This is described metaphorically as the extinguishing of passion, aversion, & delusion. The second is the nibbāna…

In learning to know our inner world, we can start with the practice of naming things. For example, if I’m engaged in a physical chore and I’m rushing to get it done, I can inwardly name that mind-state by using the word “rushing.” This labeling of mental states is a very simple exercise, but it helps to make me conscious of my inner life. As soon as I label a particular state of mind, it has alrea…

There are three sorts of Dhamma: the Dhamma of theory, the Dhamma of practice, and the Dhamma of attainment. The Dhamma of theory refers to the teachings of the Buddha: the discourses, the discipline, the Abhidhamma, all 84,000 sections of the Pali Canon. This sort of Dhamma is everyone’s common property. As for practice and attainment, they’re the individual property of those who do them. For exa…

And just as we feed off physical food without assuming that it’s going to be permanent, clinging to things doesn’t necessarily mean that we assume them to be permanent. We cling whenever we sense that the effort of clinging is repaid by some sort of satisfaction, permanent or not. We cling because there’s some pleasure in the things to which we cling (SN 22:60). When we can’t find what we’d like t…

On another occasion, a visitor, seeing all the foreign bhikkhus, asked Ajahn Chah whether he spoke English or French or German or Japanese, to which, in every case, Ajahn Chah replied that no, he could not. The questioner looked confused: how did the foreign bhikkhus learn anything then? Ajahn Chah replied, characteristically, with a question: “At your home do you keep any animals? Have you got ca…

People are always looking outwards at people and things. They look at this hall, for example, and say, “Oh, it’s so big!” Actually it’s not big at all. Whether or not it seems big, depends on your perception of it. In fact this hall is just the size it is, neither big nor small. But people run after their feelings all the time. They are so busy looking around and having opinions about what they se…

Although delusion (moha) is at the root of your troubles, I think you should take a very good look at sensuality, that is, craving for sensuality and sensual expression, largely in terms of feeling and an impatience with a state of calm in which nothing in particular is happening. You really must try to keep rooted in normality and ordinariness and avoid fantasy and thinking of your own subjective…