The separation of men and women has become so deeply ingrained in most cultures that it is quite natural to experience it in a religious context. But gender is transient, it comes and goes; conditioned by past karma, it is a kind of destiny. The essence of one’s being is without name and without form, and thus without characteristics of male or female. This is a fundamental tenet of Buddhism: that…

It’s not that you don’t sometimes feel negative or at least conflicting emotions towards others in monastic life or in any other type of relationship. You do feel them. However, the task is to make them conscious and see them for what they are. Experiencing difficult emotions is normal. But those emotions are not to be believed or pursued. Instead, they’re to be known for what they are: changing c…

The beauty of the Buddha’s teaching is that the Buddha brings us back to seeing…what we are actually doing. The goal is seeking the end of suffering. Yet we keep replicating and perpetuating it through a lack of understanding and our inability to let go of the impulses towards desire, attachment, becoming. We work to be able to pay attention, to recognize those habits and see clearly. That’s why t…

Perhaps we want to think of nothing, to have no thoughts, just endless bliss and perfect peace. But this is also delusion, only a more subtle form. Ajahn Chah said that being stuck in peace is a lot worse than being stuck in suffering. When we’re stuck in suffering, at least we know that we want change; at least we know we want to be free from/of it. One of the obstacles on the path of the holy li…

When you can separate the mind from its involvement with all things, the mind is no longer tied to sorrow. Whether sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations are good or bad depends on the mind’s going out to fashion them in that way. When the mind lacks discernment, it misunderstands things. When it misunderstands things, it gets deluded under the influence of all things that are bindi…

When we talk about Dhamma, the descriptions can seem a little vague because we have to use terms that point to it but don’t exactly explain it. When the Buddha describes the qualities of the Dhamma, he uses terms like sanditthiko, akāliko and ehipassiko, meaning respectively ‘apparent here and now’, ‘timeless’ and ‘encouraging investigation’. That doesn’t give us a lot to chew on, does it? The th…

[Ajahn Chah] said that listening to Dhamma talks requires a special attitude: “Keep listening, keep listening. Don’t just believe what you hear and don’t disbelieve. Make yourself neutral. Keep listening. It will bring good results, and there’s no danger in it. The peril lies in believing too much in what you hear, or in disbelieving. Listen and contemplate. This is what practice is about: being a…

Excerpt from: Ajahn Sumedho [AS] Interviewed by Roger Wheeler [RW], Part 2: RW: …Now, your and [Ajahn] Sucitto’s presence here has been an obvious display of the carrying on of a tradition that has existed for over 2,500 years…I wonder if one could get too caught up in form, missing the intended purpose? Or another way of stating it, how does one avoid getting caught up in form? AS: Well, it’s lik…

We focus on the present moment so that we give the mind a sense of feeling at home here. This is the place where you belong. Now, for most of us, we don’t live here. We live in the past, we live in the future, and come running through the present moment just for a moment, like a kid who doesn’t spend much time at home. He wants something from home, comes running in, and then he goes running out ag…

Ajahn Chah used to emphasize the need for steadiness in our practice, especially with our application of effort—finding a level that pushes the edge a little bit, but is also sustainable and doesn’t lead to our burning out. Sometimes we want to focus on tangible results, and it’s certainly gratifying to feel we’re really getting somewhere, that something’s really happening. But I think it’s much m…