September 3, 1965 Normally, illness is something we all have, but the type of illness where you can still do your work isn’t recognized as illness. It’s called the normal human condition all over the world. Yet really, when the body is in its normal state, it’s still ill in and of itself—simply that people in general are unaware of the illness of the deterioration of physical and mental phenomena,…

As we try to integrate the Buddha’s teachings into our daily lives, we can reflect on the following questions: Why is life burdensome? And how does life become burdensome? When does it feel like I’m carrying around a mountain of problems? And when does my attention get entangled in thoughts and worries about the past and future? How does that entanglement work? We’re obviously not free from suffer…

I assume that you are capable of motivating yourself, and so I present this opportunity for practice. Sometimes people can have very low opinions of themselves which are not really true. Maybe they’ve never had an opportunity or never felt that anyone trusted them enough to motivate themselves. We are trying to bring into our monastic life that kind of value, that kind of beauty, so that monastici…

When discernment turns to the larger questions of understanding the framework of the practice—in other words, when it focuses on the processes of discernment itself—its middleness is no longer a shifting point on a continuum. It becomes a range of points off the continuum entirely. In cases like this, the middleness of the path is less a matter of moderation and more one of appropriate attention:…

Walking slowly, tune in to how the body walks in a comfortable and calm way. Let your shoulders and arms be free and bring your whole body into a walk that’s a ‘going nowhere special’ stroll. Because a lot of our walking is hasty, with the upper body stiff and disconnected from the legs, you might need to give some attention to getting into flow. So, imagine you’re stepping over a row of sleeping…

In learning about love, these are the kinds of questions we can ask ourselves: What is love? What are the advantages and drawbacks of love? How does love arise? How is love sustained? How does love decay and end? What are the impurities of love? What preserves and purifies love? How should we behave with respect to love so as to maximize happiness and minimize pain? Mundane love has natural limita…

The body is an important object of craving; and the resulting attachment is a tenacious defilement. Suffering is the consequence. To overcome it, focus your attention on the decay and disintegration of the human body so that the mind becomes clearly disgusted with the human condition, thoroughly weary of the true nature of human embodiment. As repulsion to the physical grows stronger, lightness an…

An example of harmless pleasure is the pleasure that comes from the beauties of wilderness, where you can find the seclusion that fosters concentration. At present we tend to take for granted the idea that wilderness is beautiful, and forget that only recently has human culture come to view wilderness in a positive light. For millennia, ever since the beginnings of agriculture, wilderness was some…

Having been born into the world, we attach importance to the days and the months and the years as they pass. We believe in the importance of our lives and the lives of others. For this reason, our minds are constantly concerned with pain and suffering. No sooner do we take birth than we cling on tightly to our precarious state and start to worry. We are afraid of this and fear that. Our minds are…

This morning I was walking through the forest on a path that I’ve walked thousands of times before, and everything looked completely different. Two conditions had changed: there was moisture in the air and the temperature had dropped below freezing. This completely transformed the path. Most of the trees were covered with heavy snow and ice. It was quite beautiful. I was contemplating this in term…