Our sangha is a diverse group. There are young people, older people, people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. There is diversity in the expression of gender and sexuality. We have different occupations and come from different family structures. But, despite all these differences in the particularities of our lives, we all share at least one thing in common, and that is that we suffer, and we would like to find a path out of that suffering. This is something that unites all beings. Of course, suffering is not evenly distributed. Many get more than their fair share of suffering, either ..read more

At a recent retreat, Ajahn Da urged the retreatants to practice so that their awareness can blossom like a flower. For me, this reminded me of the blossoming lotus often used as a symbol for Buddhist practice. What makes the lotus flower such a wonderful representation of practice is the way that the lotus grows. It begins its life deep in the mud and muck of a still pond, but over time rises up to form a beautiful blossom above all that muck and mud. This is such a nice metaphor for our practice journey. We all start out in the muck and mud of dukkha – unable to see clearly due to all the wan ..read more

I would like to reflect on two key factors the Buddha urges practitioners to develop and maintain in order to reduce suffering and eventually realize what he referred to as the “Deathless.” Those factors are sati and sampajanna. My remarks may seem a bit technical in the beginning, but I will try to bring them back down to earth and hopefully help explain their relevance for you and your practice. Sati is traditionally translated as “mindfulness,” and sampajanna is usually translated as either “clear comprehension” or “full awareness.” In the early suttas, these two factors almost always occur ..read more

My teacher, Ajahn Da, often summarizes our practice as seeing and knowing what is here, particularly in the mind, and letting it go. Seeing and knowing what is here means seeing and knowing what is here as a present moment phenomenon. So, when the mind is thinking a thought, or experiencing an emotion, simply know that the mind is creating a thought or an emotion. It doesn’t mean seeing and knowing the story contained in the thought or lying behind the emotion, as the narrative within the thought is not what is actually happening in the present moment. Of course, we will know what the mind is ..read more

It’s said that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This is not really true of course. A dog can learn new things at any age. It just takes a bit more time and effort to teach an older dog something new. This is not so much due to any differences in an older dog’s brain, but rather to the fact that they’ve already been conditioned in a certain way. They are no longer a blank slate. Instead, they have some level of preexisting conditioning that needs to be undone and replaced with the new behavior. In our practice, we are trying to teach our minds a new trick. Rather than pursuing happiness b ..read more

We are living in very difficult times. We are still dealing with COVID. The economy is struggling. There is a deepening climate crisis. Authoritarianism is on the rise. Rights are being curtailed. There is a war in Europe. And there are repeated mass shootings taking place under a government that seems incapable of responding. During one of our recent meditation practices, one of the attendees asked how we can maintain faith that things will get better, particularly in light of the recent shootings. How do we not get dragged down into despair? The truth is that we cannot know when things out t ..read more

In the practice of Mahasati insight meditation, we develop the faculty of being able to observe what is occurring in the body and mind without any judgment and without adding anything to what we are experiencing. Not judging means not saying to oneself that this should or shouldn’t be here. Whatever is here in this body and mind, in this present moment, is what’s here. Not adding anything means not thinking about and creating a story around what we are experiencing. It also means holding back on our usual habit of continuously taking ownership for mental and physical phenomena by believing “th ..read more

People often ask what the ending of dukkha or suffering is, and what is the moment of awakening that they’ve heard so much about. Some modern practitioners question whether it is even real. The following is an attempt to describe this ultimate goal of Buddhist practice. It is flawed, as any attempt at description with words must be, but is offered in the hopes that it might help some people set aside some of their doubts about practice. Ultimately, it must be experienced directly for oneself. When a being is born, that being’s ability to perceive itself accurately is by nature limited. The bei ..read more

The whole point of Buddhist practice, or any religious or spiritual practice, is to learn to be happy in the face of this life that we live. It’s not easy to live with happiness. The life of the individual self – the self that we continuously fabricate and which experiences thoughts and feelings, and pursues plans and projects – is a tragic life. It may find times of joy and pleasure, but the story of that fabricated self universally contains suffering, growing old, the loss of people and things that are dear, and ultimately one’s own death. So, it takes some work to discover how to be happy i ..read more

Our body’s immune system is an amazing thing. I’ve heard that we are exposed to about 60,000 different germs every day, yet we rarely become sick. Though we come in contact with all those different bacteria and viruses, we don’t become sick because our immune system prevents them from entering our cells. If these potential pathogens aren’t allowed into our body’s cells, they can’t make us sick. Our immune system allows us to contact all these germs safely. We can think of mindfulness as the backbone of our mind’s immune system. It allows the mind to contact all sorts of things that might make ..read more