On at least two occasions, the Buddha said that all he taught was dukkha and the ending of dukkha (MN 22 (Alagaddūpama Sutta, The Water-Snake Simile); SN 22:86 (Anurādha Sutta, To Anurādha)). This means that if you want to understand his teachings, dukkha is a good word to know. Its primary meaning is simple enough—pain—but it covers all levels of pain, from acute physical suffering and mental ang…

What is Buddha? Who was the Buddha? What conditions gave rise to the Buddha? What were the qualities of the Buddha? In taking refuge, we should contemplate these questions sometimes. We can recognise that Lord Buddha demonstrated our ultimate potential. Understanding that refuge in the Buddha is refuge in our ultimate nature, we can then affirm that. Then at the heart of our experience lies an ext…

‘Standing on your own two feet.’ Think about it: stability, confidence, simple dignity. The phrase is used as a metaphor, but actually it’s more than that. If you want to get a break from a scattered mind and stressful moods, it could be as easy as literally standing on your own two feet. Furthermore, if you’d like to meditate, but feel challenged by the idea of sitting still with nothing to do fo…

The difference between pain and suffering is the difference between freedom and bondage. If we cannot be with our pain, how can we hope to accept, investigate it, and heal? And if it’s not okay to grieve, be angry, feel frightened or lonely, how will we ever feel what we are feeling or hold it in our hearts and find our peace with it? When we run from life, we are further enslaved because where we…

One of the many wholesome qualities that the Buddha encourages us to develop, among the many different pieces of advice that is contained in the Tipitaka is the quality of gratitude, particularly gratitude to our parents. This is a very prominent theme in Asia and in the Pali tradition. Gratitude is Kataññu in Pali, and reciprocation is Katavedi. Katavedi is the response to generosity or kindness…

The whole reason for studying the Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha, is to search for a way to transcend suffering and attain peace and happiness. Whether we study physical or mental phenomena, the mind (citta) or its psychological factors (cetasikas), it’s only when we make liberation from suffering our ultimate goal that we’re on the right path: nothing less. Suffering has a cause and conditio…

Q: Can you speak about working with fear and loss of ego identity, fear and death? A: That’s one of the places where loving-kindness is a very skillful meditation and exercise because that sense of fear easily comes up with the loss of the familiar, with the uncertainty of where to place one’s attention. What can one trust as one starts to see? Body: can’t rely on that. Feelings, perceptions, thou…

The mental pain which some people have to endure can be even worse than physical torment. We should consider carefully whether the spiritual techniques that we pick up are in fact designed to address disruptive mental turmoil. We wouldn’t, for instance, encourage someone to go and see a dietician if we knew that they were recovering from a broken leg and what they needed was physiotherapy. When th…

…The view which emerged from the Upanishads, the late Vedic literature, was that the goal of spiritual practice was the union of the individual essence (ātman) with the universal essence (Brahman) achieved through various practices, e.g. spiritual study, austerities, yoga, etc. Most spiritual seekers in 6th century BCE India were on a quest to directly experience the supreme individual essence of…

I haven’t specified a particular point in the body at which to place attention in order to be mindful of breathing. This is because the Buddha didn’t leave any instruction to do so. Nor does ‘concentration’ (samādhi) mean holding attention onto a particular point – samādhi is a state that the mind enters into as it settles down and feels at ease. Such inner stability is the result of sustained min…