“So the Three Characteristics in and of themselves are not the content of Buddhist wisdom, Buddhist discernment. They have to be placed in context, the context of the question of skillfulness: “What are you doing? What are your intentions? …”
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Celebrate World Day of Metta!
2013/03/20 
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Today, March 20, 2013, the organizers of the World Day of Metta are asking people all around the world to open their hearts and from 12 PM to 2 PM, local time, to meditate on and offer the following metta to all beings of the world: THE METTA May all beings have fresh clean water […]
Continue reading To Know the Dhamma is to Know Your Monkeys!
2013/03/08 9 Comments
Here is an short excerpt from a wonderful teaching called “Still, Flowing Water” by the great Thai Forest Tradition teacher Ajahn Chah. As usual, the dharma talk shows Ajahn Chah’s great wit, his sense of humor, and the depth of his insight into human nature and the Buddhadhamma. Do you know your “monkeys”? “Some people complain, […]
Continue reading The Buddha’s Teaching When a Beloved Disciple Passed Away
2012/01/23 4 Comments
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 […]
Continue reading The Skill in Looking at Emptiness as a Mode of Perception Rather Than a Worldview
2012/01/18 6 Comments
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 How the Buddha looked at the “What is a Person?” Question
2011/12/10 3 Comments
A recurring theme in Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s writing is his stress on how important it is to understand what kinds of questions the Buddha answered, and refused to answer, in his teachings. Many people think his new way of using the Pali word “khandhas” was the answer to the question, “Who am I” or “What is […]
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 The Unconscious Motivations for Meditation Practice
2011/12/09 2 Comments
These remarks are excerpted from a day-long program given by Jack Engler at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS) on November 1, l997. Jack has had a long association with Dharma study and practice. He studied Pali language and Abhidhamma at the Post-Graduate Institute of Buddhist Studies in Nalanda, Bihar, and practiced meditation for […]
Continue reading Chaos Theory and Buddhist Views of Causality
2011/11/17 9 Comments
Samsara Divided by Zero by Thanissaro Bhikkhu “The goal of Buddhist practice, nibbana, is said to be totally uncaused, and right there is a paradox. If the goal is uncaused, how can a path of practice — which is causal by nature — bring it about? This is an ancient question. The Milinda-pañha, a set […]
Continue reading A. H. Almaas on Emptiness and The Void
2011/11/10 3 Comments
In the “Diamond Approach” of A. H. Almaas, there are many similarities, yet profound and important differences between this path and Buddhism, perhaps particularly Theravadan Buddhism. Almaas envisions, and speaks from his experience, of “something” beyond “the void” or “emptiness” of traditional Buddhism—that which he calls “Essence” or “Being.” When Almaas speaks of “Essence” or […]
Continue reading How Facing Pain Helps to End Suffering
2011/11/09 5 Comments
The Joy Hidden in Sorrow Reflections by Ajahn Medhanandi “When Marpa, the great Tibetan meditation master and teacher of Milarepa, lost his son he wept bitterly. One of his pupils came up to him and asked: ‘Master, why are you weeping? You teach us that death is an illusion.’And Marpa said: ‘Death is an illusion. […]
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 Why Working with Suffering is Essential to Our Awakening
2011/09/14 1 Comment
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Ajahn Sundara, a French-born ordained monastic in the Buddhist Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah. She has been teaching and leading retreats in Europe and North America for 20 and currently resides at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in southeast England. May this sharing inspire you to discover […]
Continue reading What the Buddha Said about Purity of Heart and the Grasping Self
2011/09/08 2 Comments
This passage from the Sutta Nipata of the Pali canon has very special place in many Buddhist hearts. To me, the teaching is closely related to the beloved passage from the 9th Chapter of the great Mahayana Diamond Sutra that I recently posted: See: “Does a Buddha say to himself ‘I have obtained Perfect Enlightenment?‘” I […]
Continue reading Announcing “Dharma Nuggets” for Metta Refuge!
2011/09/02 2 Comments
I am absolutely delighted to announce the creation of a new sister blog—an ancillary blog, actually—to Metta Refuge. It’s called Metta Refuge Dharma Nuggets and can be found here: Metta Refuge Dharma Nuggets Here’s what it looks like: I created this new support blog because I wanted a way to post more often but with […]
Continue reading Meditation as Medicine-Learning to Be Your Own Breath Doctor
2011/08/11 1 Comment
Meditation as Medicine Thanissaro Bhikkhu You all know the old image of the Buddha as a doctor and the Dhamma as medicine. When you come to practice the Dhamma, it’s as if you’re learning to be your own doctor, looking after the illnesses of your own mind. Everyone comes up here wounded in one way […]
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 Skillful Ways to Deal with Your Demons
2011/07/17 3 Comments
Recently, on Facebook, I posted a Photo to my Wall with a comment about working with “demons.” As I said at this Photo post: “Demons are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in the dark; they are the forces we find inside ourselves that fabricate around ego-clinging and that we project “out there” on others, […]
Continue reading Desire-our “most precious possession” or the root of all suffering?
2011/07/06 0 Comments
The Buddha’s Second Noble Truth is that craving—desire, attachment, clinging—is the cause of suffering, unsatisfactoriness, stress. Anyone who has looked into the cause of suffering can affirm this great truth for oneself. From this insight, one might conclude that the way to end suffering and find lasting happiness is to kill all desires. From that […]
Continue reading What to Do in Meditation When You Are Flooded with Mental Pain
2011/06/22 2 Comments
Each meditation is so different. Today, as I settled into my breath, I was immediately aware of a great deal of mental pain. The pain didn’t seem to be tied to anything in particular, but was more an existential kind of pain—just “being” felt painful. One I got mentally quiet enough to feel its full […]
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
- Healing the Body with Mindfulness of Breathing
- Practicing the Middle Way-not too much, not too little
- 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
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