When monks and novices are ordained they are encouraged to begin with sense restraint, to guard their senses and be self-composed, to receive sense impressions mindfully. Mindfulness nurtures wisdom and understanding, preventing greed, hatred, and delusion from arising; the mind thus abides with wholesome states. This mindful reception of sense objects, and the prevention of unwholesome states fro…

As human beings we have no choice but to engage with the four basic requisites of life: food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. If one looks at the monks’ training one sees that it begins with an awareness of how to properly use the four requisites, which is considered an aspect of moral conduct (sīla). It may not have occurred to some people that knowing how to eat or consume is a part of morality…

There’s something very sensible, magical, and confusing about working together. Sensible because you get more done that way and you learn from others; and magical because it makes work into a recreational activity: you get to feel part of a group in a comfortable rather than conformist way. The confusing thing is that, although it makes sense, it doesn’t happen so often. Despite needing other peop…

Back at Cittaviveka, we’ve just concluded the forest work month, which amounts to three weeks of work in our woods – cutting coppice for fuel, stacking logs, planting new trees and heather, and building boxes for bats to live in. This work has been going on since 1986; gradually a self-sustaining woodland has come into being. The desolate silence of a commercial monoculture of non-native trees has…

Earth represents solidity. It represents form and structure, that which resists pressure. It’s what forms the physical structure of our own bodies and the world that we’re a part of. We assume the earth is solid and predictable. We can stomp on it and say, ‘Yes. There it is. This is the Earth.’ But when we start to look more closely and consider the quality of solidity, we realize it’s only relati…

We live in so many worlds. There’s the world of work, the world of our family, the world of our imaginations. When we meditate, we’re creating a world apart, one that’s not involved in the other worlds. We start out by focusing on the breath. As the Buddha said, you focus on the body in and of itself. In the case of the breath, this means simply being with the sensation of the breathing as it come…

Monks intent on the path of practice have always been drawn to forests because secluded environments support the development of sense-restraint, fewness of wishes, contentment, love of solitude and introspection – the core virtues of a monastic vocation. Living in nature demands care and respect for one’s surroundings and a patient acceptance of a world over which one has only limited control. Whi…

The weather these days is itself giving us something to reflect upon: Yesterday and last night it was raining. This weekend it’s expected to be over 100 degrees. It should be obvious to us that this is definitely uncertain! Ajahn Chah kept encouraging us to investigate the truth of uncertainty–that the nature of things is “not sure”–and to resist the inner voice that says, “Without a doubt, things…

Try to be mindful as you keep track of the breath going in and out. Don’t let yourself forget or be distracted. Try to let go of all concepts of past or future. Silently repeat ‘buddho’ in your mind–’bud-’ in with every in-breath, and ‘dho’ out with every out–until the mind settles down and is still. Then you can stop your mental repetition and begin observing the in-and-out breath to see how fast…

Jātipi dukkhā. Birth is suffering. I heard someone recently explaining the Buddha’s list of the different forms of suffering. He came to this one and said, “Well, that’s behind us now.” The problem is that it’s not behind us. We have it behind us, but we also have it ahead of us if we’re not careful. Each time it happens, it’s like a throw of the dice. As they say, the opportunities that are open…