In our practice we are normally working with the core defilements of greed, anger, and delusion. Often when these defilements arise, the way we deal with them is through restraint. When we restrain the defilements it feels different than actually letting them go. With restraint, we continue to experience the defilement; it’s an undercurrent in the mind. By contrast, when we genuinely let something…

Chasing after the requisites of existence, trying to build an identity around them and relying on them as enduring sources of satisfaction, creates suffering. Pressures from the external world make it easy to look for something in the material world for our sense of gratification. We can see that even if it’s not gratification we seek, there is still that sense of longing to search for something n…

I remember as a child wanting a certain toy. I told my mother that if she got that toy, I’d never want anything ever again. It would completely satisfy me. And I believed it – I wasn’t telling her a lie; the only thing that was stopping me from being really happy then was that I didn’t have the toy that I wanted. So my mother bought the toy and gave it to me. I managed to get some happiness out of…

I’m reminded of a teaching that the Buddha gave about puñña, about blessings or merit. It seems to have been given in the context of someone saying: ‘Making good karma doesn’t really matter. If you’re focused on the higher teachings, the only things that are meaningful are wisdom and liberation. Doing good deeds and making good karma is insignificant, unimportant.’ But the Buddha said: ‘Don’t beli…

A lot of our suffering, of dukkha, comes from a feeling of dissatisfaction or discontent because we think: ‘It shouldn’t be this way,’ ‘Life is unfair,’ ‘Why is this happening to me?’ or ‘Not this again – I don’t deserve this!’ Our discontent can easily be caused by a feeling that somehow the universe is out of balance, the world is out of order, and we feel this is unfair; it shouldn’t be like th…

To the extent which (paccaya) the mind has not comprehended (avijja) Truth, habitual drives (sankhara) manifest and condition (paccaya) awareness into a discriminative mode (vinnana) that operates in terms of (paccaya) subject and object (nama-rupa) held (paccaya) to exist on either side of the six sense-doors (salayatana). These sense-doors open dependent (paccaya) on contact (passa) that can aro…

I’m particularly surprised that people so often assume vipāka is always the result of action only in a past life. I ask them: ‘What about things you’ve done in this life? Aren’t they going to have some effect as well?’ It’s bizarre – especially since our everyday world keeps suggesting very strongly that the choices we make in this life matter a lot: choosing to leave that country; choosing to ch…

In this community at Abhayagiri, we need to take care of each other. If we don’t have a foundation of love and care for each other, then the foundation of our lives is on very shaky ground. I have a tremendous amount of respect and affection for each person here, no matter what their personality traits may be. It is important, I believe, that we give each other the space needed to be who we are. W…

What does it feel like to pay attention to stopping? What is that experience of stopping and ceasing the compulsion to become, the engagement of mental activity and mental impulse? This includes stopping unskillful activity as well as recognizing where it all originates so that we can still be engaged and put forth effort and be attentive to duties and responsibilities we have. But we really bring…

Dependent Origination is the fine analysis of how we get from the Second Noble Truth to the First Noble Truth. Even before taṇhā (‘craving’ – literally ‘thirst’), it’s describing how that experience of craving appears. It all starts off with avijjā, not seeing clearly. The first section, avijjā paccaya saṅkhāra, is describing that when the mind loses its clarity of awareness, then that creat…