[From a Morning Reflection, June 2013] Even when we live in a monastery, the mind tends toward busyness and proliferation. This is a natural habit of the human mind. We can make ourselves conscious of that—not through a force of will, trying to squelch or annihilate it—but through understanding the mind’s natural habits and the tendencies we carry with us. We can work with them in a skillful way.…

Along with developing gratitude towards our physical parents, the Buddha also encourages us to cultivate it in relationship to our spiritual teachers and with those who have helped us in our spiritual lives. This means gratitude to those who have taught us and introduced us to the liberating teachings. Thus, in a similar way, despite whatever shortcomings there might be in our teachers, and things…

Why should our parents have always got it right? It’s even strange that we should expect, let alone demand that. When we think it through, it’s somewhat ridiculous, but our idealistic mind can easily look for that. So it’s a good opportunity to cultivate a sense of compassion, of kindness and of forgiveness. And whatever the difficulties are that have come from family life – inherited along with t…

There’s the view that we’ve passed the Golden Age when everything was perfect. Nevertheless there is this aspiration of the human heart for individuals, communities and nations to somehow get back to that perfect paradise on planet Earth, where everything is fair and just, beautiful and true and perfect for us. And while we can point to the mess we humans have made, we have to recognize that Mothe…

Shortly after her ordination, the Buddha’s step-mother Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī asked him for a short Dhamma-instruction that would guide her in her solitary practice. He responded with eight principles for recognizing what qualifies as Dhamma and Vinaya, and what does not. The commentary tells us that after her instruction, Mahāpajāpati Gotamī in no long time became an arahant. The eight principles ha…

A more refined explanation of awakening or nibbāna is that there are two kinds: there is awakening ‘with residue’, meaning being awakened with a living body, or while still alive; and there is awakening ‘without residue’ when the awakened person dies and the body breaks up. The first designation refers to the condition of awakening with the usual expressions of body/mind still intact. The awakene…

Most of the more popular chants found in the Thai Buddhist tradition consist of passages selected from the Tipitaka. They include verses listing the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha; discourses expounding key teachings; passages of wise reflection; and verses for radiating thoughts of kindness and for sharing merits with all sentient beings. For many Thai lay Buddhists chanting is their…

Many of the practices we hear and read about in our tradition are focused on the process of letting go—how we let go of our habits and tendencies as well as objects of mind. We do this to dwell in and experience the pure state of awareness that comes from not grasping or holding onto anything. This is the ultimate practice on the path: letting go of negative tendencies and realizing, at the end of…

Over the years, in various ways, all of us have at times been caught up with and carried away by our feelings and reactions. Take a moment to observe how these things affect us; whether it’s in reaction to the people you live with or the society you live in, the way people look or what they say or their tone of voice and so forth. All of this has its effect on you – you feel something coming from…

The Buddha says right from the get-go: enjoy yourself and delight in practice. Allow yourself to suffuse and fill, permeate and pervade this body. It’s interesting that the Buddha was very explicit, in all the instructions on the developing of refined states of meditative stillness, that there’s no dissociation from the body. They’re integrated as a body-mind experience. Throughout the instruction…