Happiness is an undefined term that’s really important in our lives, and yet all too often we don’t really look carefully at the experience of happiness. We don’t think seriously about happiness. We just see other people going for this pleasure or that, and we think it looks like fun; so we follow them without really looking at what we’re doing. The Buddha wants you to look very carefully inside y…

What is the future? The future is what we don’t remember. You can’t remember the future because it hasn’t happened yet. So it has to happen in the present before it becomes the past – a memory to remember. We don’t know the future, but it implies infinite possibility, doesn’t it? We can ignore the present by worrying about the future: ‘What will I do when my loved ones leave me? What will I do if…

This morning I was talking to the community about making resolutions and commitments. It’s a big part of our practice, but we need to learn how to cultivate them in the right way; there’s some subtlety in it. You can make an intention or a resolution to look at where you’re stuck or where you’re getting habitual, stale or compulsive: ‘OK, let’s determine to do that – or to not do that.’ You get a…

You shouldn’t chase after the past or place expectations on the future. What is past is left behind. The future is as yet unreached. Whatever quality is present you clearly see right there, right there. Not taken in, unshaken, that’s how you develop the heart. Ardently doing what should be done today, for—who knows?— tomorrow death. There is no bargaining with Mortality & his mighty horde. Whoever…

During these days of practice together, we have been reading the names of our departed loved ones as well as those of family and friends who are suffering untold agony and hardship at this time. There is so much misery around us. How do we accept it all? We’ve heard of young and vibrant people lost to suicide, cancer, aneurysm, AIDS, and motor-neurone disease. And so many elderly who still cling t…

Night is falling swiftly. The forest reverberates with the undulating buzz of countless crickets and the eerie rising wail of tropical cicadas. A few stars poke dimly through the treetops. Amid the gathering darkness there is a pool of warm light, thrown from a pair of kerosene lanterns, illuminating the open area below a hut raised up on stilts. Beneath it, in the glow, a couple of dozen people a…

One of the teachings Ajahn Chah emphasized most consistently was on the theme of uncertainty—that everything is not for sure. In a monastery, for instance, it’s common for the number of visitors to increase, like today, and then decrease; they’re here for a while, then they disappear. This creates a constant sense of circumstances being uncertain, always changing. We tend to conceive of our practi…

But kamma and rebirth focus on past and future. Doesn’t the Dhamma teach us to focus totally on simply being mindful—i.e., fully present—in the present moment? The Buddha talks about the importance of focusing on the present moment only in the context of what he taught on kamma: You focus on the present because you know that there’s work to be done in training the mind in developing skillful prese…

When we’re looking for kindness, we’re usually doing the wrong thing. Kindness is only something we can give, not something we can get or have. It’s something we can always give; there’s no limitation to it. Once you know what it’s about, you don’t find the world a disappointing place because there are always opportunities to give a little bit, to venture out a little bit. The sense of self, of be…

As monastics, it’s worth keeping in mind where our focus is. It is not on worldly skills such as well-honed public speaking. The Buddha said that in former times the monks who were respected and praised were those who lived and trained in the forest and put effort into practice, but later, respect and praise went to the monks who had good speaking skills. Skills, talents, and even an ability to gi…