When we adopt the renunciate life we aren’t condemning the world of the senses per se, because that leads to aversion and negativity. Instead we are learning to accept whatever is offered to us with full appreciation. Whatever arrives is received and cherished, but we don’t try to add anything. I think many people listen to music because they love the place to which the music takes them, which is…

Becoming is a sense of identity in a particular world of experience. Becomings of this sort can last for whole lifetimes or, within the mind, for fleeting moments of time. In every case of becoming, both the identity and the sense of the world coalesce around a particular desire. The identity relates to the desire in two ways: both as the self that wants to experience the object of the desire, and…

It is particularly fruitful to explore the relationship between the sense of being a separate self, someone or something separate from the surroundings, and the energies of attraction and aversion—how they depend on each other. By identifying ourselves as something—anything—we are trapped into this sense of being someone or something having experiences from which we are separate. Then our relation…

One can be a very selfish Buddhist and want life to be very quiet and want to be able to ‘practise’ and have plenty of time for sitting, plenty of time for studying the Dhamma and ‘I don’t want to have to receive guests and talk to people about silly things’ and ‘I don’t want to … blah blah blah.’ You can really be a very, very selfish person as a Buddhists monk. You can want the world to align it…

When Venerable Ajaan Khao became ill while he was living in the forests and hills, he was never much concerned about finding medicines to cure himself. He tended to rely upon the ‘Dhamma remedy’ much more than any other method, for it was effective both for the body and for the citta at the same time. He would grasp the problem, fix his attention on it and reflect upon it for a long time – much lo…

Meat Stuck in Your Teeth, Ajahn Chah Sensual desire is something hard to escape from. It’s no different from eating meat and getting a piece of meat stuck in your teeth. Boy, does it hurt! Even before you finish the meal, you have to take a toothpick to get it out. Once it’s out, you feel relieved for a while and you don’t want to eat meat anymore. But when more meat comes your way, another piece…

September 3, 1965 Normally, illness is something we all have, but the type of illness where you can still do your work isn’t recognized as illness. It’s called the normal human condition all over the world. Yet really, when the body is in its normal state, it’s still ill in and of itself—simply that people in general are unaware of the illness of the deterioration of physical and mental phenomena,…

As we try to integrate the Buddha’s teachings into our daily lives, we can reflect on the following questions: Why is life burdensome? And how does life become burdensome? When does it feel like I’m carrying around a mountain of problems? And when does my attention get entangled in thoughts and worries about the past and future? How does that entanglement work? We’re obviously not free from suffer…

I assume that you are capable of motivating yourself, and so I present this opportunity for practice. Sometimes people can have very low opinions of themselves which are not really true. Maybe they’ve never had an opportunity or never felt that anyone trusted them enough to motivate themselves. We are trying to bring into our monastic life that kind of value, that kind of beauty, so that monastici…

When discernment turns to the larger questions of understanding the framework of the practice—in other words, when it focuses on the processes of discernment itself—its middleness is no longer a shifting point on a continuum. It becomes a range of points off the continuum entirely. In cases like this, the middleness of the path is less a matter of moderation and more one of appropriate attention:…