The human mind is endowed with the capacity to think. In this capacity, the act of conceiving can generate an Ideal; but for truth and action, what is important is the ethical basis of the conceiving. This ethical basis must rest not on idealistic righteousness but on an empathic relationship that is structured around respect and compassion. When we get intoxicated with ideas, that relationship su…

My alms bowl is central to my life. A symbol of the Theravāda Buddhist monastic tradition in which I trained, it is the soul of my mendicancy – coming empty-handed before the laity to receive material nourishment and responding to their generosity. Sometimes that means reciprocating with a teaching from the Buddha, sometimes with a blessing chant or simply an expression of gratitude and kindness.…

In monastic life, we’re taught to work with very simple reflections that we try to bring forth at different times. For instance, before the main meal, we say: “Wisely reflecting, I use alms-food not for fun, not for pleasure, not for fattening, not for beautification, but only for the maintenance and nourishment of this body, for keeping it healthy, for helping with the holy life. Thinking thus, I…

The development of friendliness (mettā), sometimes translated as ‘loving-kindness’, progresses through various stages in much the same way as an evolving friendship gradually deepens. The practice starts with learning to be more friendly towards those aspects of ourselves to which we are averse or resistant. This doesn’t mean that we have to like them, but at least we can be less negative and mor…

The act of going for refuge marks the point where one commits oneself to taking the Dhamma, or the Buddha’s teaching, as the primary guide to one’s life. To understand why this commitment is called a “refuge,” it’s helpful to look at the history of the custom. In pre-Buddhist India, going for refuge meant proclaiming one’s allegiance to a patron—a powerful person or god—submitting to the patron’s…

At the conclusion of an Ordination ceremony for Western monks, Luang Por would usually take the opportunity of this gathering of the Western Sangha to give a Dhamma talk which would encompass the whole monastic training from its most basic foundations to the ultimate goal of the Holy Life. On one such occasion, he began – as was his custom – by emphasizing the importance of living together in harm…

I find it interesting to contemplate the sense of gladness and joy when thinking about this time together - and then noticing too the slight sense of sorrow, a kind of longing in the heart, at the thought of separating. Sometimes we can think that this is wrong - that we shouldn’t feel sad. If we were true Buddhists, we would be completely dispassionate. There would be none of these untidy emotion…

The years Mae Chee Kaew spent living at Phu Gao Mountain were a fruitful time for her meditation practice. With each new foray into the invisible world of sentient spirits, she gained increased expertise in the realms of nonphysical existence. With Ajaan Khamphan’s assistance, she strengthened her ability to explore varieties of phenomena within the many lowly but subtle nonhuman states of existen…

Sometimes we come to a monastery with a real sense of purpose but discover later that things may be very different from the purpose we envisaged at first. After reading lots of books on Buddhism, we perhaps enter the monastery with the idea that we must become a good Buddhist, or become kind, or compassionate, or loving and so on. And thus we enter into conflict with ourselves because the reality…

If your intentions influence the quality of the result, does this mean that every action done with good intentions will tend toward a good result? For an intention to give good results, it has to be free of greed, aversion, and delusion [§31]. Now, it’s possible for an intention to be well-meaning but based on delusion, which can easily disguise subtle aversion or greed. When that’s the case, acti…