Thus have I heard: On one occasion the Exalted One was residing at the Deer Park, [3] in Isipatana, [4] near Benares. Thereupon the Exalted One addressed the group of five bhikkhus as follows: “There are […]
“And what, monks, is right concentration? (i) There is the case where a monk—quite secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful qualities—enters & remains in the first jhāna: rapture & pleasure […]
The term “mindfulness” on its own is something neutral. It can be put to good uses or bad—because it simply means keeping something in mind. You can keep in mind […]
The Thai idiom for meditation is making an effort: tham khwaam phian. And the important thing, of course, is to make the effort right. Brute force is not going to take […]
Right livelihood is the poor stepsister of the eightfold path. It’s the factor that the Buddha hardly defines at all. He simply says that the disciple of the noble ones […]
I’ve often found that one way of jumpstarting your practice is to make up your mind that you’re going to sit for a certain amount of time every day and […]
The fourth noble truth is the path of practice to the cessation of suffering. It’s true in the sense that it’s a genuine possibility—it can be done—and it really leads […]
The third noble truth is the truth of the cessation of suffering. The term “cessation” here doesn’t refer to the fact that suffering, once it arises, ordinarily has to pass […]
Concentration requires that you be secluded, as the Buddha said, from sensual thoughts. In other words, your mind is not totally devoid of them, but at the moment, you’re not […]
The second noble truth is called the truth of the origination of suffering. The term “origination”, samudaya, means “cause”—and a particular kind of cause at that: a cause coming from events in […]