…How do we handle the contrast between what is ideal and what is real? We can moan and whinge or retreat into fantasy and desire, but from the Buddha’s perspective, it’s always about establishing a sense of clarity and equanimity within the…
Our lives depend on learning and training. We are constantly encountering new situations, meeting new people, or meeting familiar people in new circumstances. All of these experiences require specific actions, behaviour, and responses. Even…
Retreat time in particular offers a wonderful opportunity for reflection; affording so much time to cultivate this practice, and with so much support. It’s unbearable sometimes! All this good fortune – yet oftentimes what we have to sit wit…
Tonight is Asalha Puja. We’re paying homage (puja) in the full moon in the month of Asalha to remember the day when the Buddha first set forth the Dhamma as a teaching. The Dhamma as the truth of the world, of course, exists all the time. B…
When you listen to the Dhamma you must open up your heart and compose yourself in the center. Don’t try to accumulate what you hear or make a painstaking effort to retain what you hear through memory. Just let the Dhamma flow into your hear…
The refuges of Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha provide the foundation for the wholesome qualities of the heart to arise. The precepts establish a strong foundation of integrity and virtue, as well as an ability to cultivate, both individually an…
…Can we invite others into that Refuge of empathy? Especially in hearing people talk, try to hear beneath the topic, the dismissed remark, the stresses, the places where the pauses occur and there’s a reaching out for response–what is neede…
If you sincerely wish to practice, you have to let go of your terms and conditions. Profound teaching can be given only to those who really understand the value of that profoundness. In fact when you do understand the profoundness, many of…
I felt very concerned that Jay look after the quality of his own mind and not let peopled distract him due to their own traumas about his imminent death. Jay recognized the dynamic that was going on around him; he was certainly not trying t…
Now, how do we put all these Seven Factors of Awakening together? In a practical sense you’ve probably already noticed that some of them are quite active, energetic qualities, and others are more calming. There are three active ones: invest…