As a Buddhist monk for over two decades (in the Thai Forest meditation tradition, in the lineage of Venerable Ajahn Chah) I am very aware that my life is blessed with many supports for cultivating meditation and insight. Naturally I feel tremendous gratitude for this – in particular, towards the Buddha for having worked so hard to realise what he did, and to His Teachings, that is, to the deep Tru…

On this day we are considering kataññu-katavedi, which is the Pali for gratitude. Gratitude is a positive response to life; in developing kataññu we deliberately bring into our consciousness the good things done to us in our lives. So on this day, especially, we remember the goodness of our parents, and we contemplate it. We are not dwelling on what they did wrong; instead, we deliberately cho…

In addition to cultivating mindfulness, faith and devotion, chanting can also be used to build concentration or samādhi. We have lots of views and opinions about how to develop one-pointedness of mind, the jhanas; we certainly have heard lots of talks on the subject. Well, we can also use this ancient practice of chanting the parittas. Learn to be really precise with your chanting, to do just one…

So even the simple recitation of the meditation word ‘Buddho’ can capture both aspects of mindfulness – the first one, where you just completely let go and immerse yourself in the present moment experience and just let the awareness of the atmosphere take over your mind, feeling your mind expanding, widening and broadening, becoming radiant and all-encompassing towards anything that happens. And t…

It’s helpful to consider and reflect on how we perceive work. If we bring up the word work, what comes to mind? There may be a feeling of drudgery, that it’s onerous, maybe even odious. We often view work as something we’re beset with, something we have to get done and out of the way before we can be comfortable and at ease. Or we may think of work as something that keeps us from our meditation pr…

So if you want to promote a program of social change that would be true to Buddhist principles, it would be wise to heed the Buddha’s framework for understanding social well-being, beginning with his teachings on merit. In other words, the pursuit of justice, to be in line with the Dhamma, has to be regarded as part of a practice of generosity, virtue, and the development of universal goodwill. Wh…

Buddhist monasticism has always been a profound stepping out of the mainstream of society. Even in the time of the Buddha, these communities were considered to be a challenge to materialism, deity worship, social class hierarchy and institutionalized discrimination. For 2,600 years Buddhist monks and nuns have been living examples of an alternative way of life based on virtuous living and sustaina…

Living together we rely on each other. This can be compared to the “social life” of a forest. In the “society of trees” it is not the case that all trees are the same. There are big ones and small ones. In fact, the big trees also have to rely on the small ones and the small ones on the big ones for the situation to be safe. It isn’t true that a tree isn’t threatened by dangers only because it is…

Ajahn Chah had four basic levels of teaching, and each one, although at times very difficult for the students, was taught with a lot of humour and a lot of love. Ajahn Chah taught that until we can begin to respect ourselves and our environment, practice doesn’t really develop. And that dignity, the ground of practice, comes through surrender, through impeccable discipline. A lot of us in the West…

…If our attention and energies are directed only outwards towards our spiritual companions or towards society, it becomes clear sooner or later that even if we expend every ounce of energy right up until the last breath, there will still be more to do — the needs, the suffering of the world ‘out there’ is endless. We can never make it all all right. If we try, as many of us have to do before the p…