I remember a woman telling me that it was hard for her to come into her body. As we spoke, I noticed that she was sitting in a way that was collapsed just below the ribs and that her shoulders were hunched forward. All her energy was in her head, thinking about how she couldn’t be in her body. I invited her to lie down on the floor and breathe deeply into her belly. I encouraged her to let her che…

Another way of peacefully abiding in the present moment is to go to the heart and listen from there. So often our focus is on trying to analyze life’s complexities or resolve various issues using the brain. As an alternative to this rather stressful way of living, one can instead bring attention directly to the center of the chest—or what is sometimes known as the “heart chakra”—and allow the sens…

Our ultimate refuge in Buddhist practice we can call “the one who knows.” Sati-Paññā is the Pāli term, mindfulness and wisdom. In Buddhist terms, this is the ultimate cure for suffering, the end of suffering. Mindfulness and wisdom together, not just mindfulness but wise mindfulness, the right kind of mindfulness, not just awareness in the present, but the right kind of awareness in the present, h…

You can also change your perception of the breath. When you breathe in, exactly what’s happening? What’s moving? And what’s moving what? Often we have cartoon ideas about the process, and those ideas determine which muscles we’re going to expand, which ones we’re going to contract, which sensations we believe have to be part of the in-breath, which sensations have to be part of the out-breath. But…

As long as you conceive of yourself as someone who has to do something in order to become something else, you will get caught in being a ‘self’ and never understand anything properly. No matter how many years you meditate, you will never really understand the teaching; it will always be slightly off the mark. The direct way of seeing things – that whatever arises, passes away – doesn’t mean that y…

Sīla can also be called an awareness of the dangers and drawbacks in one’s actions and the intention or feeling that one doesn’t want to commit anything that is not good any more. Possessing such intentions – a sense of concern regarding actions that cause enmity and danger – we need to develop and improve our capacity to resist. Bodily resistance depends on factors like food, the weather and our…

When sitting in meditation, just think of all the wholesome qualities you’re cultivating. You’re certainly developing the capacity to be conscious of inner movement. And when sitting is difficult, you’re learning to acknowledge that you don’t want to be there. Whatever’s going on, you’re fostering this lovely strength to be awake to the experience of the meditation session. This doesn’t mean that…

Today I have brought nothing of material substance to offer you, only the Dhamma, the teachings of the Lord Buddha. You should understand that even the Buddha himself, with his great store of accumulated virtue, could not avoid physical death. When he reached old age, he ceded his body and let go of the heavy burden. Now you too must learn to be satisfied with the many years you’ve already depende…

From time to time we come to a stuck place in our dhamma practice, sometimes for long periods. This happens to everybody because it is a stuck place in our life process, a place of holding on based on false assumptions of how the mind is supported and how it is released. That is, we tend to come from the mode of self-orientation, in which we determine, struggle, learn, adapt and get results. This…

The world needs more true people—those who are accountable and compassionate in their actions. Human society, to be livable, has to be based on trust, and people true in this way are the only ones really worthy of trust. The Buddha offers a way to train people to be true, starting with their experience of pain. Pain, he once noted, sparks two reactions: The first is bewilderment—we don’t understan…