This beautiful sutta from the Pali canon tells the story of what happened after the beloved disciple and arahat Sariputta passed away. Sariputta—(Sāriputta (Pāli) or Śāriputra (Sanskrit)—was a truly remarkable student of the Buddha’s, and along with Ananda, was considered his greatest pupil. As Nyanaponika Thera writes of him in The Life of Shariputra: “Shariputra..was […]
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The Skill in Looking at Emptiness as a Mode of Perception Rather Than a Worldview
2012/01/18 
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Few words in Buddhism are more well-known, and more debated historically among Buddhists, than the word “emptiness.” What do we find about “emptiness” in the Pali canon, the oldest records we have of the Buddha‘s teachings? In this essay Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains how Theravadan Buddhists understand the word in terms of these earliest […]
Continue reading What Am I Doing Right Now? And Why Does it Matter?
2011/12/09 2 Comments
In this essay Thanissaro Bhikkhu analyzes the profound importance of understanding the nature of our intentions and the actions that arise out of those intentions. In many ways, as he points out, this issue is at the very heart of the Buddha’s teaching—looking deeply into intention, into cause and effect, and seeing how to “unbind” […]
Continue reading How the Buddha talked about “Not-self”
2011/10/01 1 Comment
§ 128. “Form, monks, is not-self. If form were the self, this form would not lend itself to dis-ease. It would be possible (to say) with regard to form, ‘Let my form be thus. Let my form not be thus.’ But precisely because form is not-self, this form lends itself to dis-ease. And it is […]
Continue reading Look at Karma in Terms of What One is Doing Right Now
2011/08/02 0 Comments
Karma—It’s About What We Can Do Now An excerpt about karma from “Noble Strategy” by Thanissaro Bhikkhu Karma is one of those words we don’t translate. Its basic meaning is simple enough—action—but because of the weight the Buddha’s teachings give to the role of action, the Sanskrit word karma packs in so many implications that […]
Continue reading Working with The Six Properties in Meditation-Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Space, and Consciousness
2011/05/10 0 Comments
For the past few months I’ve really been focusing on “body work” in my dharma practice. I’ve been working with full-body awareness and vipassana, as well as using deep loving-kindness meditation to embrace mental and physical pains. This essay by Thanissaro Bhikkhu has been especially helpful in getting in touch with the actual feelings of my […]
Continue reading Did you know that the Buddha almost didn’t teach the Dharma?
2011/05/05 4 Comments
According to the Pali canon, not long after the Buddha attained enlightenment, he mused to himself: “This Dhamma that I have realized is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced only by the wise.” The Buddha then apparently seriously questioned whether he could […]
Continue reading The Importance of Alertness and Attention in Developing Concentration
2011/05/05 3 Comments
As I have grown in my meditation practice, I have been able to develop deeper and deeper levels of concentration and corresponding insight. And yet, when I’ve read about some of the various deeper levels of jhana (deep concentration, or samatha) I’ve sometimes wondered about my progress and whether I’m going “deep” enough. This great […]
Continue reading How Letting Go Helps Us See the Truth of Non-duality
2011/02/01 2 Comments
Ayya Khema is a highly-skilled Theravadan teacher who brought a remarkable love and light to her service as a nun in the Theravadan tradition. I highly recommend her book Who is My Self? A Guide to Buddhist Meditation. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read on developing deep concentration and insight (samatha and […]
Continue reading How Not to Get Swept Away by Mindstorms
2010/12/28 4 Comments
Here is another skillful teaching by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. We’ve all been swept away by the “storms” and epics stories and worlds we create in our minds. Happily, the Buddha showed how we can not only find safe refuge from these storms, we can learn how to stop their creation. Mindstorms Thanissaro Bhikkhu There’s a part […]
Continue reading The Buddha on Attachment to Views and Disputations
2010/12/07 0 Comments
In Buddhism, Right View is part of the Noble Eightfold Path. But attachment to views, even right views, is always a hindrance. In The Mind Like Fire Unbound, Thanissaro Bhikkhu comments: “Attachment to views can block an experience of Unbinding in any of three major ways. First, the content of the view itself may not […]
Continue reading The Great Freedom of Seeing the Body for What It Is
2010/12/06 0 Comments
Here is a very helpful teaching on the body by Ajahn Chah from a talk he gave called “Clarity of Insight.” “The Buddha taught to transcend delusion. The way to transcend it is through clearly seeing the body for what it is.” Ajahn Chah “With penetrating insight you must see that the true nature of […]
Continue reading Life Isn’t Just Suffering-but Clinging Always Is
2010/12/06 0 Comments
Here is another great teaching from Thanissaro Bhikkhu. I have to admit that in my pre-dharma days, I too had the impression that Buddhism was “negative” or “pessimistic.” Looking into Buddhism for myself and breaking free of the dogmatic beliefs of my religious upbringing, I found the way of the Buddha to be the happiest […]
Continue reading The Unshakable Peace of a Mind that Can Let Go
2010/10/22 4 Comments
The following in an excerpt from a dhamma talk by Ajahn Chah titled Unshakable Peace. It is a wonderful and deep teaching explaining how to practice the mind that lets go—the mind of liberation and peace. The Buddha did not teach about the mind and its psychological factors so that we’d get attached to the […]
Continue reading Training the heart by seeing what is and letting go
2010/09/21 5 Comments
Here is more on “Training the Heart” by Ajahn Chah. It is a follow-up and further development of yesterday’s teaching: Train your heart! Don’t just follow its moods! May this teaching help liberate your heart and awaken the mindfulness and presence that lead to liberation and freedom! Training the heart by seeing what is and […]
Continue reading Do we really believe in impermanence?
2010/09/14 8 Comments
In my own practice, I’ve really been wrestling with the Buddha’s teaching of anicca—the truth that all conditioned, fabricated, created things are impermanent and constantly change. It’s one thing to accept anicca as a truism—after all, it’s obvious that all things change and are transient. And it’s another to see something of the truth of […]
Continue reading How to accept our faults without falling into self-condemnation or inaction
2010/09/13 4 Comments
Here are some more great teachings from Buddhist teacher Ayya Khema. If you, like me, often have to deal with self-condemnation and self-hatred because of continual personal failings, this article should be a big help in balancing seeing what needs to change in us and accepting everything in us without self-condemnation. Accepting Oneself Ayya Khema […]
Continue reading Breaking habits of perception-a skill that changes everything
2010/09/04 7 Comments
Here is another great teaching from Thanissaro Bhikkhu. While looking for some buddhadharma about dealing with guilt about the past, I came across this paragraph, from the end of his article, “Habits of Perception.” It was so helpful, I stopped my search to read the whole article, which I share below. May it be an […]
Continue reading Why Loving-kindness Doesn’t Have to Be Lovey-dovey
2010/08/20 8 Comments
One of my favorite things each day is getting my daily e-mail for Tricyle Magazine. There’s always an inspiring dharma teaching or quotation from an article at the website that I almost always want to go and read. Given that this blog is all about metta practice, and since Gil Fronsdal is a teacher I’ve […]
Continue reading The Dhammapada – Audio Dharma by Gil Fronsdal
2010/08/06 5 Comments
The Dhammapada is a great treasure of the Buddhadharma and beloved by Buddhists of all traditions as well as many non-Buddhists. There are many wonderful translations of the Dhammapada from its original Pali, but one of my favorites is the fairly recent translation by Gil Fronsdal: The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic […]
Continue readingMay All Beings Be Happy
- Looking at the Ninth Zen Precept-I Do Not Indulge In Anger
- True God, True Buddha
- The Difference Between Compassion and “Idiot Compassion”
- Ajahn Brahmavamso teaches Loving-kindness Meditation
- Now-and-Zen-Are you still carrying her?
- A Buddhist Mantra based on the Prayer of St. Francis
- Mindfulness of Breathing-The Anapanasati Sutta
- Buddhist Forgiveness-When We Have Hurt Another-Part 3
- Practicing the Middle Way-not too much, not too little
- Healing the Body with Mindfulness of Breathing
- Look at the Three Characteristics in Terms of Actions
- Thich Nhat Hanh – Healing Through Resting in the Breath
- How Metta Can Help You When Meditation is Hindered by Overwhelming Feelings
- The Importance of Taking the “Should” out of Spiritual Practice
- Can We “Choose” to Be Happy? No—and Yes!
- Ken Mcleod on how to use Thich Nhat Hanh’s Five-Step Method of Emotional Releasing
- Non-resistance and the Art of Resisting without Resisting!
- Don’t be fooled! There is a Way and We Can Walk It!
- The Importance of Compassion in Assessing Our Dharma Progress
- Jesus and the Buddha on Good Friday
Metta Refuge 