Contemplate contentment and gratitude.
Ajahn Sumedho
You Are Not A Permanent Person, by Ajahn Sumedho
So much of our suffering is around attachment to perceptions, views, opinions and emotional habits. In the enlightened mind one is breaking out of conditioning. Because there is an infinite variety of conditioned phenomena, the Buddha talked in terms of just five groups (five khandhas) in which to get a perspective on it, and this is to be understood in a very direct way, not in a theoretical way. Each one of us experiences through the body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness, and…
Emotional Habits, by Ajahn Sumedho
We talk about the doors to the deathless, but it’s not something out there, something remote or hidden. The Buddha pointed to this mindfulness—this is the path to the deathless…
Universal Original Purity, by Ajahn Sumedho
The purity of the moment is in this pure state of awareness. Therefore, you can always refer to it, remember it, just by the simple act of attention, this wide, embracing attention, intuitive awareness in the present. That’s the gate to the deathless, transcendent reality, the unconditioned. It’s not an achievement; you don’t achieve it; you just remember it
Direct Knowing, by Ajahn Sumedho
Now the Buddha was a sage who tried to convey a particular teaching that would encourage the realization of ultimate reality. And the teaching of the Buddha sometimes baffles modern humanity because it does seem somewhat strange to our way of thinking; we are used to regarding religion from the point of view of being told something. A sage, or philosopher, or some prophet tells us something, and we either agree with it or not…
Right Speech, by Ajahn Sumedho
‘I’m going to vow not to talk badly about anybody! I’m not going to gossip any more. If I speak it will just be on the dhamma! I’m not going to talk about worldly things like politics and football or anything like that.’ Then you have tea with…
Developing an attitude towards meditation, by Ajahn Sumedho
The goal of Buddhist meditation is to see things as they are; it is a state of awakened attention. This is a very simple thing to do; it isn’t complicated or difficult or something that takes years to achieve. It is so easy that you don’t even notice it…
Guilt and Tendencies towards Negativity, by Ajahn Sumedho
In the Western world we have a lot of problems around guilt. We can feel guilty all the time, and this of course is very much a cultural tendency that we have…
Buddhism now 