A topic that aroused a good deal of interest at the latest Vipassana Teachers’ Conference (April [2017] at IMS) was ‘the sacred’. As in ‘What is it?’ ‘Is it a useful reference?’ ‘How do we teach it?’ The interest centred around the distinction between meditation as a system that one does and the meditative domain that can, over time, open. There thought and the world of the senses dissolve, and th…

Also, this particular society conditions us to be very competitive. We’re brought up to try to be the best, so we put a lot of effort into doing well at school, doing well in sport; there are various values which are held to be particularly important. For example, when I was a child a lot of importance was placed on IQ (Intelligence Quotient). One Christmas my younger sister was given a book about…

In our culture we are programmed to stand out, to be special. It’s considered very important to have a ‘personality’ that’s special in some way. However, in fact this is an expression of ignorance, the first factor in the chain. We haven’t really understood that each of us – and all of existence – is simply part of a large number of interconnected phenomena that blend together. We put a lot of ene…

Walking jong-grom is a way to practise meditation while walking up and down. Cultivating this will bring happiness and serenity to our practice. When walking meditation, we should move unhurriedly, with a peaceful and relaxed attitude, and a smile on our face. Walking, we have all the time in the world and nothing else whatsoever that we have to do. With every step, we let our worries and concerns…

Remember to receive life as it is. This is the first step towards living in reality rather than in dreams which can easily turn into nightmares when we identify with them. If we don’t identify with the dreams, we can feel freedom in our hearts. Then we can go through both nightmares and pleasant dreams but not need to depend on any of them to be happy. Then we experience life as it is and let go o…

When I was about twelve, some of my mother’s extraordinary qualities became apparent to me in a very powerful way. I was a growing lad who had a cooked breakfast every morning before going off to school and would come back in the late afternoon and then eat cream doughnuts for tea and an hour later scarf down huge amounts of food at supper. I was turning into a burly youth. And every afternoon my…

Equanimity in Pali is called upekkha. It is characterized as that quality which brings about a sense of neutrality or an evenness of heart towards all beings. Its function is in maintaining a steadiness of mind and not allowing differences—whether physical, intellectual, spiritual, or whatever—to detract or influence our perception of those with whom we come in contact. Its proximate cause is unde…

When a negative feeling like irritation comes up, it can be challenging to want to be truly awake to that irritation. At those moments, one just needs to trust in this practice because one’s intentions are good. Developing trust in that full consciousness is often all you have to do. You don’t have to get rid of a negative mood or emotion, nor do you have to hate yourself for having it; but you do…

To master the emptiness mode of perception requires training in firm virtue, concentration, and discernment. Without this training, the mind tends to stay in the mode that keeps creating stories and worldviews. And from the perspective of that mode, the teaching of emptiness sounds simply like another story or worldview with new ground rules. In terms of the story of your relationship with your mo…

When all of this was related to me while I was in India, I couldn’t help thinking of the Buddha, who was pure by virtue of the peerless quality of his heart to the point where he was able to invest the properties in his body with power, making them more pure than any other properties in the world. His relics, for example, have appeared to those devoted to him and, I have heard, come and go on thei…