Another aspect of the practice which can be quite confusing is that the more determined you are to do something good, the more challenged you may become. Let’s say that you determine to do something wholesome. You will notice that, not long after that, Ma ̄ra (the Buddhist personification of evil) will come along and test you. One year, when I was a novice, I resolved to refrain from eating any ch…

Compassion fails when it causes sorrow. When faced with suffering, if one is overwhelmed by grief or heaviness of heart, then that is not being compassionate. The quality of compassion is then tainted and not functioning properly. When the heart is drawn towards boundlessness, it is not dragged down by suffering. Instead, it is uplifted. It is important to recognize that. The heart could be weighe…

You can also approach this silent kind of knowing through an attitude of question. Question mark. Here is, if you like, a non-statement. When you question, when you bring your thinking energy into a question, for that moment, that question is being in the thinking mind. It doesn’t know. That’s what it’s asking. Right at the point where the question mark occurs, there’s a listening. Then it comes u…

Those who are to reach the paths (magga) and fruitions (phala) leading to nibbāna will do so by way of the heart. If the heart isn’t trained, then no matter how much external goodness you may have, you won’t be able to reach nibbāna. Nibbāna can be attained only by training the heart in the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment. Virtue forms the basis for concentration; concentration,…

Viktor Frankl wrote, “What is to give light must endure burning.” We want to give light but we’re afraid to suffer, not realising that our very freedom lies in penetrating to the middle of that suffering – and knowing its nature. But the poison arrow doesn’t simply vanish, nor does the wound heal by marvelling at it, “O what a grievous injury, what a spectacular wound!” We can’t light the candle o…

To reach a deeper understanding of anattā we simplify our perspective on life’s events by observing our experiences as bodily sensations, feelings, perceptions, mental constructs, sensory phenomena. In other words we observe the changing nature of the khandhas. If this objective perspective is missing we easily get caught up with the narrative or story line that each life situation generates. For…

We have all the different sense organs: the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, body, and mind. If you review those, you’ll see that there’s a particular logic in that sequence. The phenomena that arise in the eye are distant. There’s space. They’re out there. You can see things that don’t see you. You’re removed from them. The eye is very good for the hunter because it’s good at sharply defining…

It’s helpful to reflect on the reality of illness or discomfort that is natural and happens all the time. What comes to mind is the Buddha’s discourse on the two arrows. Being struck by one arrow is painful, and being struck by a second one is painful as well. In terms of feeling, because each of us has a body, it is quite natural that we experience unpleasant sensations. And due to having a mind,…

If you were to ask people familiar with Buddhism to identify its two most important wisdom teachings, they’d probably say emptiness and the four noble truths. If you were to ask them further which of the two teachings was more fundamental, they might hesitate, but most of them would probably put emptiness first, on the grounds that the four noble truths deal with a mental problem, while emptiness…

Within oneself is peace to be found, not from another will a bhikkhu find peace. For one who is inwardly calmed, nothing is accumulated, how then rejected? Just as in the centre of the ocean no waves arise, but all is still; so, steadfast and free of lust, on what is there for a bhikkhu to build arrogance? (Sutta Nipāta 919-920) Spiritual peace is a subjective experience rather than an external r…