Ajahn Chah would often give the following example: we can take a glass and call it kaew nam in Thai; in the Pāli language we would refer to it differently; in Chinese, in Hindi, in English it is called something different still. Because actually there is no glass. It’s just elements that humans have brought together in a certain way to produce this thing. If the elements are pulled apart again th…

Outside the walls they stand, & at crossroads. At door posts they stand, returning to their old homes. But when a meal with plentiful food & drink is served, no one remembers them: Such is the kamma of living beings. Thus those who feel sympathy for their dead relatives give timely donations of proper food & drink – exquisite, clean – [thinking:] “May this be for our relatives. May our relatives b…

It’s normal that when people practicing concentration start getting results, they can have their doubts about what they’ve experienced—for example, when they experience conflicting visions or start seeing parts of their own bodies. Many people came to Luang Pu, asking him to resolve their doubts or to give them advice on how to continue with their practice. And a lot of people would come to say th…

One of my favourite very short stories is of a seeker of some kind, coming across a wise man (in some versions it is a wise woman), and engaging him in conversation. At the end of their conversation the sage reveals from within a carefully folded piece of cloth a most incredible jewel. The young man, the young traveller or seeker, is absolutely dazzled by the jewel, and says, ‘Can I have this jewe…

Prince Siddhartha had a wife; He loved her like he loved life. She was fine, and she was fair, And when he said goodbye, he said to her. Yashodhara, look at where life leads; Yashodhara, I’m going to try to get free. I took a little trip into town, I learned that death will cut us down, I woke up by the city wall, Freedom to die is no freedom at all. Yashodhara, look at where life leads; Yashodhar…

The following was from an email that was sent by Tan Kovilo to Luang Por Pasanno on October 14, 2017. Tan Kovilo started by describing the setting: > Today is Kathina day at Wat Nanachat and Luang Por Liam made a surprise visit just before the meal. It was a blessing to see and pay respects to him as always…but especially so today as the first thing he brought up after the community had bowed to h…

Love tends to get intertwined with other emotions, making those who have never considered it closely mistake the emotions associated with love for a part of, or indeed expressions of, love itself. Usually, for example, rather than considering worries and jealousy to be impurities of love, we take them to be a proof of it, and thus gladly harbour such feelings. We tend to blind ourselves to love’s…

When we meditate, we let go of our present preoccupations. Normally the mind is always preoccupied with the various objects that the eye sees, the ear hears, the nose smells, the tongue tastes, and the body comes into contact with. But when we want peace of mind, we have to see these objects as coarse and gross. We try to let go of things that are gross, things that are sensual. We focus instead o…

§ “Sensual pleasure is like a drug: One taste and you get addicted. They say that with heroin it’s hard to break the habit, but this is even worse. It goes deep, right into the bone. It’s what made us get born in the first place, and has kept us circling through birth and death for aeons and aeons. There’s no medicine you can take to break the habit, to wash it out of your system, aside from the m…

We have all come together here to keep precepts, to develop meditation and to cultivate wisdom in our hearts. This intention is something very hard to find in the minds of people in this present day. When we have mindfulness and wisdom, we can see the harm there is in acting in unskillful ways and doing things which transgress the precepts. In keeping the five precepts, always maintaining them in…