To allow the body to be painful when it needs to be, without regarding it as a bad thing, can be a liberating experience, a relief even, because there is no further conflict in the mind. Of course it is difficult when pain is severe, but there is a way of separating oneself from it and changing one’s relationship to it…
So if we have any discernment, we’ll realize that we’re not far from the Buddha at all. We’re sitting right in front of him right now. Whenever we understand the Dhamma, we see the Buddha…
Download PDF copy of ‘In Simple Terms’, by Ajahn Chah
A couple of years ago I experienced that commonplace modern disaster, the breakup of a marriage. It’s always a trauma when two people who have thrown in their lot together split up.
These kinds of symbols, forms and conventions can be used for awareness rather than for developing worldly attitudes or attachments to becoming some kind of Buddhist…
Back in my room, which even at midday was rather dark, I lighted a red votive candle and began idly glancing through the pages of the old gentleman’s gift. It proved to be a reprint of an eighth-century (T’ang dynasty) text composed by the Ch’an Master Hui Hai, together with a selection of his dialogues with his disciples…
For those who know little of Buddhism or who find it obscure, the Dhammapada is an ideal book to begin with. For those who know and love Buddhism it is likely already to be a constant companion and a reminder, just like having the gentle hand of Gautama on the reins of the unruly heart…
‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification. v.277 The Dhammapada ‘All conditioned things are unsatisfactory’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns… Read More ›
The metta practice rests on the basis of loving oneself, or at least liking oneself. Without this step, no further progress is possible, either in the metta practice or in the practice of any of the Brahma Viharas (the Divine Abidings). And with the English — the men at least — this first step was proving very difficult, if not impossible…
Buddhism now 