‘Buddha’ means ‘one who is awake’. But being awake is not easy to talk about. As soon as we start speaking, we complicate everything. We enter another field of understanding, which is the intellect. Looking at the mind, dealing with the mind, is slippery business. We have at our disposal an array of tools and skilful means to liberate the mind, but they are competing with the incredible complexiti…

Buddhism teaches contentment. But if everyone was content with their life, how would human progress ever be achieved? Virtues taught by the Buddha are to be understood within the overall context of his path to awakening. Whenever the Buddha spoke about contentment, he paired it with an energetic quality such as diligence, persistence or industriousness. He was careful to make clear that contentmen…

Mindfulness is sometimes likened to a monarch. This monarch is surveying, supervising, impartial, aware, connected. They are not pulling, not struggling, not trying to hold things, not arrogant. It is the true monarch – the true king or queen. The false monarchs are the inner tyrant who keeps bullying you and the braggart who becomes cocksure when they get a little bit of something good. Mindfulne…

The Buddhist festival known as the Kathina revolves around the simple act of offering a piece of cloth to a monastic. But it’s really much more than that. What this ceremony symbolizes is the profound relationship between the two halves of the Buddhist community: the Sangha and lay society. In the Kathina, there is a recognition of the physical dependency of the monastics on their lay supporters.…

Television is extraordinary. They can put all kinds of fantastic adventurous romantic things on the television. It’s a miraculous thing, so it’s easy to concentrate on. You can get mesmerised by the ‘telly.’ Also, when the body becomes extraordinary, say it becomes very ill or very painful, or it feels ecstatic or wonderful feelings go through it, we notice that! But just the pressure of the right…

Some of the most profound and beautiful of Luang Por’s similes shed light upon experiences in meditation. In one memorable image, he compared the mind existing in a state both at peace and yet primed to respond intelligently to conditions to that of a bell at rest. When a bell is rung and its natural silence disturbed by a forceful stimulus, the bell responds with a beautiful sound that, after a s…

Witnessing the mind is not so simple. When we try to be a witness, a knower who watches and observes, it can take a while before we come to the place where the mind settles, where it is relaxed, present and aware enough to actually begin seeing things in the moment. Even then we might still not be skilled in seeing; it can take a long time. I spent years witnessing anger and letting it go, and it…

In his teachings on the foundations for open-heartedness, the Buddha spoke of the four brahmavihāras (sublime states of mind): mettā is the sense of goodwill, of well-wishing to all beings; karuṇā is compassion for the suffering of beings; muditā is joy or gladness for the success or good fortune of other beings; and upekkhā is equanimity or even-mindedness. The brahmavihāras enable us to relate t…

320. As an elephant in battle withstands arrows, I choose to endure verbal attacks from others. 321. Well-trained horses can be trusted in crowds, and are to be mounted by kings. Individuals who have trained themselves to withstand abuse will be valuable everywhere. 322. Impressive are horses or elephants which have been well-trained; but more impressive are individuals who have tamed themselves.…

As for the pain, that also becomes something you can approach with the tools you’ve learned from your technique. Try breathing through the tension around the pain. If the pain is in your knee, you can think of the breath coming in and out right at the knee. Or you can think of it going down the leg and through the pain in the knee and then out through the toes. Or if it’s already coming into the k…