Sometimes carrying the baggage of a spiritual tradition can take us away from the present moment. Clinging to Buddhist perception is not the path. This is why we sometimes don’t feel the joy of practice: because we are still holding onto ideas of how things should be, instead of drinking at the source and quenching our thirst for enlightenment, for freedom. Drinking at the source means seeing dire…

Use the structure of mindfulness of breathing to develop this quality of knowing. There are sixteen steps in the Ānāpānasati Sutta (M 118) on mindfulness of breathing. The first two steps are: “Breathing in long, one knows one is breathing in long; breathing out long, one knows one is breathing out long. Breathing in short, one knows one is breathing in short; breathing out short, one knows one…

There are many layers to self-deception. The more you practice and investigate things, the less you feel like claiming to know. Instead, you’ll simply see the harm of your own many-faceted ignorance and foolishness. Your examination of the viruses in the mind gets more and more subtle. Before, you didn’t know, so you took your views to be knowledge — because you thought you knew. But actually thes…

The work of looking into the mind, ferreting out the causes of suffering and figuring out how to put an end to them, is very delicate work, very precise work. Which is why you have to get the mind very still in order to do it. It’s like threading a needle. You hold your breath, get the rest of the body still, and then you can very carefully stick the end of the thread into the eye of the needle. B…

The result we are looking for in contemplative enquiry is the understanding that actually resolves suffering. To arrive at such understanding requires skill in using the tools in our spiritual toolkit. It might also mean we need to acquire more tools. As with any task, if we don’t have the right equipment, we can’t do the work. If we don’t have access to modes of investigation any more subtle than…

…Ajahn Baen emphasized a question that is quite commonly asked in the Forest Tradition. It’s a very simple question that we should consider and contemplate in our practice: Am I supporting the defilements, or am I supporting the development of Dhamma? That very simple contemplation is critical, because our preferences and biases don’t tend to lead us to question in that way. We tend to have though…

The Buddha told his disciple Ananda to see impermanence, to see death with every breath. We must know death; we must die in order to live. What does this mean? To die is to come to the end of all our doubts, all our questions, and just be here with the present reality. You can never die tomorrow; you must die now. Can you do it? If you can do it, you will know the peace of no more questions. This…

One thing that I appreciate, of which I’ve become more aware during this week, is of the temple here at Amaravati. You could say it is the focus, the heart of the monastic life. You could say that externally, the heart of monastic life is really the meditation hall. That is the physical place where we remain connected with the heart of the path that we follow, the path of our inward practice. How…

In working with the Hindrances, one of the most helpful supporting qualities is faith or trust. This is two-fold: trust in ourselves and trust in the teachings. If we lack either of these, we don’t have the incentive to try to find a solution to the Hindrances. Trust is one of the spiritual powers (and faculties), together with mindfulness, energy, concentration and wisdom. The commentarial litera…

Live your life well in accord with the Way – avoid a life of distraction. A life well-lived leads to contentment, both now and in the future. V. 169 With a heart of contentment as our foundation, we can tackle the tasks that confront us. There are times when we need to be brave warriors battling with the forces of delusion to avoid their taking control of our hearts and minds. At other times we ne…