To begin with, the practice is essentially a practice, and not a theory to be idly discussed. Even the theoretical or philosophical aspects of the Buddha’s teachings are there to be used as tools in aiding in the escape from all suffering and stress. It’s because of this fact that the Buddha’s primary metaphor for his teachings was a path: the noble eightfold path, composed of all the “right” fact…

If we’re without Dhamma, then people can get together for all kinds of worldly victories, even to plot to kill somebody. So, harmony, really, actually means, practicing Dhamma-Viniya. If you practice just the Viniya alone or Dhamma alone, then it’s not a complete or whole practice. If you’re just totally into Viniya, that’s all you care about, it’s easy to get stuck onto these rules. You get very…

Without clearly understanding the processes of our minds, we create all kinds of problems. We are dragged about by emotional states. For there to be personal and global peace, these states need to be understood. The ways of the mind need to be seen clearly. This is the function and value of Dhamma. When we are feeling enthusiastic, we can easily give ourselves to the practice. But it can also happ…

Those of us born in these latter days haven’t had the opportunity to see the Lord Buddha. We’ve met only with the Dhamma, the teachings he taught. What he taught wasn’t anywhere else far away. In the list of the virtues of the Dhamma, it says that the Dhamma is ehipassiko: It’s for calling all living beings to come and see. It’s not for calling them to go and see. He wants us to come and see the D…

There’s a story with which many of you are probably familiar, that begins with the Buddha walking in the woods with some of his disciples. At one point the Buddha bends down and picks up a handful of leaves from the forest floor. He holds out the leaves to his disciples and says, ‘Tell me, are there more leaves on the trees and on the ground or more leaves in my hand?’ His disciples say, ‘There ar…

That mind wants to know a lot: how far the next town is, which is the most agreeable route – and many times a day it asks for a progress report. I’d be walking along quite happily, then get an urge to look at the map. Then the organizing mind would come in with estimates of how long it was going to take, or what state I’d be in, or how I could lessen the weight of this backpack … and so compound s…

In many ways, one of the most important aspects of living in a community – so mundane and obvious that we tend to overlook it – is the daily schedule. This is what Ajahn Chah would teach us so often and what has been passed down to us through Luang Por Sumedho, Ajahn Pabhakaro, Ajahn Jagaro, Ajahn Pasanno, myself, and Ajahn Ñāṇadhammo: look at your mind, look at your body, and see what comes up…

…people suffer more from their mind-state in the present than they do from the results of past bad actions playing out in the external world. No matter how much justice you try to bring into the world, people are still going to suffer and be dissatisfied as long as their minds are untrained in the qualities that make them impervious to suffering…Not only do people suffer when their minds are untra…

One of the images that [Ajahn Chah] gave of the practice was of a coconut tree. A coconut tree draws nutriments from the planet; it draws elements good and bad, clean and dirty, up through the roots and into the top of the tree and then produces fruit that gives both sweet water and delicious meat. In the same way, as practitioners, we take all the different experiences that we have, all the diffe…

Sometimes we get lost – we blow up at each other, or we do things that aren’t very nice – but that’s not our intention; these are the heedless moments. I conduct myself in a moral way not only for my own benefit, for my own practice, but out of respect for you and towards the Sangha, and towards the community around us: to be someone who lives within the restraints of the moral precepts. Then my i…