Even in this experience of physical isolation, we’re not exactly separate – we’re always with something. Practicing with the relational sense, we meet everything as it is rather than trying to change it or fix it. From this broad state of awareness, edges and boundaries soften, and the heart connects with lovingkindness, regardless of physical proximity.

By protecting ourselves we protect others. When we protect our own hearts from defensiveness, blame, hostility and stress, we also protect others. We train ourselves through the 4 foundations of mindfulness. *Sutta reference is SN47:19.

We can use this experience of lock down to address the routines and standards that support our daily becoming. The mind is pulled further and further wondering what to do, planning what's next. What to do is stop, rest in the body, maintain deep attention. Consider rituals that nuplug and cut the tide of becoming.

We look for safety and stability in a level of experience that cannot provide it, that’s the source of agitation. In meditation we practice the ability to sustain ungrasping attention around a thought, feeling, situation, and particularly unpleasant feeling. The content will constantly shift, but the relationship to them, awareness, can become the source of stability. *Sutta reference is SN2:17.

Recollection is not just thinking about things, it’s associated with the quality of careful attention. Encourage the mind to think slowly, touch the heart and abide in wholesome qualities. In daily life we do the external, but embedded in the ground of the heart is where your basis is. *Sutta reference is AN11:11-12.

Mindfulness based on body is the way out of the mind. From here I can witness feeling rather than dive into it. With wisdom we can come to prefer skillful intention rather than seeking good feeling. When intention is skillful conduct, there is no grasping at results. That feels good! And we are free to act without seeking a result, without becoming. *Sutta reference is AN10:58.

It’s possible to meet suffering with an open heart. If the heart can open to grief, pain and vulnerability, a new view is possible – one beyond the cycle of birth and death. Keep the heart open to Dhamma, rooted in faith and goodwill. This is the Path to the deathless. *Sutta References: Therīgatha 6:2; Samyutta Nikaya 12:23; Samyutta Nikaya 1:10

We may feel more isolated than ever, but the truth is that we’re always captive in our sensory prisons. The aim is to liberate and open the heart so that qualities beyond sense consciousness can be realized. Key among the factors needed for liberation is kalyāṇamitta – spiritual friendship. *Sutta reference AN9:3

The process of purifying gold can help us understand the nature of mind. Clearing out the turbulences and impurities makes way for what is naturally pure and radiant to come forth. Freed from the hindrances, the mind is pliable, luminous, properly fit for work. *Sutta references: AN5:193; AN3:101-102; SN:46:53; AN6:85

Mind (manas) whips the heart with its interpretations of how things should be, thereby stirring up discontent and agitation. Mind can be placed in service of heart (citta) instead. Citta’s awakened response to the conditioned realm is one of empathy. Holding, soothing, steadying – there is the possibility to experience the clarity and calm of the Buddha rather than the misery that mind creates. *Sutta Nipāta: 721, Dhammapada:134, and M.18

There are many meditation techniques, but fundamental is finding where the mind will settle - what citta finds comfort in. The more energy rests in that and returns to is, energy is consolidated instead of scattered, running out to external forms. This is the principle for clarification, purification, for awakening.

Training involves the pause – connect to what’s happening, and use careful attention to deepen into citta. There’s more than just discomfort there – there’s healing potential if one can touch into the healthy spots. *Sutta reference Udāna 4:1

Instructions for widening the reference point, and notice that everything arises within awareness. Practice being with, not in.

Kamma – what it is, how it works, and why understanding it is crucial

Reflections given on questions about how to deal with other people, the social order based on human domination, and how to practice with sickness.

Awareness is open – it simply knows and can witness. If we can widen and broaden awareness, we don’t have to get snagged by the circumstances of our “self-package”.

It’s the compulsiveness and repetitiveness of certain actions that creates the sense of a solid self. So we aim for the end of action, for non-doing, and linger there. Keep relaxing and widening awareness without acting. Energy is released from activations – this is the ending of kamma. *Sutta Reference: AN10:81

A good teacher (Acariya) encourages and pushes the mind of the disciple away from the changeable world presented by sense-consciousness, to the more fruitful reality that’s centred on Dhamma. In this talk, the principles of this are pointed out, and as exemplified by Ajahn Chah. This talk was offered on Ajahn

Instructions for surveying the movements of mind and body from a wider, detached perspective. See the patterns that arise without fixating on them. Topics can then be approached from a more enlightened perspective.

An untrained mind has no choice, it goes straight into dukkha; the trained mind has the possibility to turn away from patterns that the mind creates. The hinge-point is nibbidā – disinterest, disenchantment – to no longer be gripped by the play of the mind. Through this, mental patterns can be acknowledged as they arise but not entered into. Through remaining with dispassionate awareness, liberation can be realized. *Sutta references - AN10:2; SN35:28

The mind becomes crowded with our thoughts, impressions, plans and worries. But what’s the bit that’s not occupied by all of that? Stability and confidence are available in that space, to meet what is arising.

Speech, whether internal or external, tends to reinforce and reify the sense of self. Self-awareness, rather than self-referencing, is recommended. Speech has the possibility of helping to prune, clarify, steady – it can help lead to the end of the person. Sutta references: AN4:183; M.58:12

Contemplating the mind, not trying to change or explain it, knowing it as just a mental state, a result of causes and conditions. If feeling pressed upon by the mind, pause and widen. Bring attention to the body. Determine the appropriate attitude for settling.

On Āsalha Puja we commemorate the occasion when the Buddha gave his first teaching on the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Path of Practice. By cultivating this Path, the mind stops looking outside of itself – it finds pleasure in itself.

In meditation we try to establish a clear center from which to look at the various inputs and outputs happening in the mind. This process of centering is done through direct experience of body. The wholeness of body gives rise to a simple, centering effect.

Meditation is a relational experience. There’s the knowing that you’re being affected and how you respond to that. Relate to what arises with dispassion, calm, sensitivity and openness. In this relationship we learn all the skills of wisdom, compassion, clarity and non-clinging. This is nibānna here and now.

We don’t so much experience phenomena, but the citta affected by phenomena. The sense of “I am” keeps us fascinated and hypnotized by the resulting feelings and reactions. The process of purification is to clear citta of defilements and hinderances. Cultivation of samadhi and suffusion of wholesome qualities are means for purification and healing.

Realize that it’s possible to divert one’s normal preoccupations and thought patterns, and come instead into the sense of penetrating to the roots of it all. Collecting energy into this state of being conscious, being aware, lets citta flow freely, unconstricted by our habitual grasping of form.

The untrained citta runs out and becomes fixated by its own constructions, the primary construction being the sense of self. Citta can be trained to contain itself in awareness of body, distancing it from the abstractions of the mind. This is a very peaceful place to be.

Citta has its own basic clarity and sanity. Practice to establish citta on its own ground, where there is no suffering. This is the upright citta, the foundation for all the virtues leading to awakening.

How to manage inconvenient feelings of attraction; reacting impulsively towards sexual desire and hatred; working with boredom and drowsiness; how does one turn towards the deathless; is nibbana “a ground of being”; what does the use of “internal and external” mean?

Establish strong mindfulness that can act as a frame for shifting states of mind. Go easy on the mental content letting it all pass through. Aware of a basic luminosity, or vibrancy, assess what is needed to encourage citta – goodwill, patience, dispassion.

The person gets very entrained to follow circumstances, caught in a cycle of creating, worrying, planning, hoping. In meditation, it’s possible to witness the person rather than constantly re-create it. Start by establishing certain transpersonal/universal qualities of the 5 indriya.

The sense of ‘I’ is crucial for understanding citta. Guidance is provided to access the direct experience of body, then tune into the fundamental sensitivity and receptivity of citta.

The unawakened citta is always taking things in, seeking security from them. True security has not yet been found. Through developing meditation and samādhi, it’s possible to unlink from the flowing out towards objects and ideas. Citta can find true security in itself.

How does citta relate to consciousness; is citta involved with rebirth; how to practice with non-attachment; the role of cetana (intention), sankappa (attitude) and chanda (motivation) in citta cultivation; how much jhāna is needed for stream entry; where does motivation for practice/career/relationship come from; what does attachment to rights and rituals, sīlabbata-parāmāsa, mean; clarify body energies and energy flows; question about prayer; advice about life termination.

Uposatha days are times in the Buddhist calendar established for people to step back from daily chores and reflect upon the broader meaning of life, whether they’re living in harmony with the cosmos. Recollect our uniquely human potential to bring forth virtue, lovingkindness and wisdom into this world.

Uposatha is the occasion to bring up and integrate wholesome qualities so they become felt realities in the mind and heart. Refer to the Mangala Sutta (Sutta Nipata 2:4) for topics of cultivation that give rise to skillful states and conditions.

We enter meditation with a sense of faith, that there’s something beneficial that can be derived just by coming into the present moment. Witnessing, aware of, not in it, not rejecting it – a firmness of presence builds up. The initiation is faith, the consummation is wisdom.

The unconditioned gives us a place to step back from experience, to meet the conditioned world with sensitivity and equanimity. We access qualities of faith, energy, mindfulness and wisdom to accept and meet exactly what’s happening right now.

Jhāna is an embodiment practice. Absorbing and settling deeply into presence, use awareness to encourage opening each part of the body. Enriched energy and heart can then begin to digest the events of the day and release them.

The dukkha of restriction is experienced in this very body, and manifest as a person restricted by upbringing, ethnicity and gender (etc) living in a world restricted by nationality and social structures. We can train ourselves in the unrestricted state through meditation and through living in a way that connects the open heart to service, in the ‘all -encompassing world’ touched by goodwill.

Puja celebrates that there’s something in awareness more than just this ‘self’ thing. We can open to something bigger, experience a wider sense of being. Keep lifting and placing attention back into the Dhamma stream – that which touches and opens the heart.

Clarification about the fetter “attachment to rites and rituals”; what’s the purpose of life; question about addiction; working with depression; where is the reference to energy in Buddhism; how to get space in intense situations; review of the 4 qualities to promote social harmony – generosity, gentle/harmonious speech, benevolent service, impartiality – DN30:1:16, AN4:32

Meditation is about opening up to the subjective aspect of our experience – the sense of knowing. Practice with placing attention on something very lightly, then listening with heart. Without force, without judgment, just aware of the sensations, emotion, energies, mental patterns. The quality of knowing gives rise to a tremendous immediate clarity.

As a result of the pandemic, we are experiencing the frailty of our systems and structures. Awareness is the only constant resource we have. It can be trained and purified to bring loving careful attention to all that we meet.

In Ajahn Chah, we commemorate and honor what’s possible in a human form. A seemingly ordinary person who applied all he had for noble purposes, training in what was difficult and cultivating pāramī. With this comes the severing of the outflows and the liberation of heart, a practice that many people can cultivate while engaging in life.

Properly establishing jhāna begins with disengagement. With eyes slightly open, downcast, poised between the inner and outer world, widen attention. Open up sensitivity of awareness without focusing on any particular object, attentive to the qualities that sustain that cool balance.

Intention is the basis for action, giving shape to what we do and who we become. Conditioned intentions around beliefs, work and security cause stress. The process of meditation takes us into the somatic domain, to the roots of the mind. Here intentions and reflexes can be reset to be lighter, more flexible and comfortable.

Please describe āsava in relation to citta; nagging sense something is wrong with me; how to access kalyāṇamitta for support in Dhamma practice; neck and head feel separate from body in meditation; please clarify terms vitaka-vicāra, dhammavicaya and vimaṃsa.

Please describe āsava in relation to citta; nagging sense something is wrong with me; how to access kalyāṇamitta for support in Dhamma practice; neck and head feel separate from body in meditation; please clarify terms vitaka-vicāra, dhammavicaya and vimaṃsa.

Instructions to help empty the sense fields and cultivate the right kind of attention. Sustain a wide focus as sense objects arise in awareness. Practice with spreading attention on body, the wider visual field and the quality of breathing.

Instructions begin with dissolving: guidance for disengaging from contact, soothing and steadying the mind. Instructions end with consolidating: determining what I want to move forward with in the future, and what’s been learned or left behind.

Although Dhamma practice is often geared to dissolving the sense of being a person, ‘the person’ is a required entity in the everyday world. The firm center and open awareness developed in Dhamma practice work together to support this person. They provide stability and allow duties, purpose and engagement to arise straight from the heart rather than from mental habits, or from the idea of a person. Then the beauties, steadiness and generosity of Dhamma practice and Dhamma fruitions arise in our everyday lives.

Body and mind work together to bring about the sense of stability and balance. Disengagement is then possible, becoming your frame of reference as phenomena arise. Agreeable feeling comes from disengagement.

Aspects of this human life – where we live, what we do, who we associate with – become reference points for the person. How we relate to them affects how the person manifests. We can train in a relating that is stable and disengaged, neither favoring nor opposing, no longer finding fault with the world and thereby dismantling worldly attitudes.

In meditation we’re making a shift from being engaged to being attentive but disengaged. Disengagement has a cool, easeful quality to it, giving us leverage against the strong emotional pressures of the mind. From this place we can make peace with the mind that is never at ease.

What is sati; How to stop awareness landing on negative thoughts; ‘Energies’ don’t seem to be mentioned much, what are they; What to do about lots of romantic preoccupations; Please review 4 relationships mentioned in last Dhamma Stream teaching: to self, to nature, the sacred, to other people; How to handle toxic relationships/ones that require forgiveness; How to deal with clashes with views in relationship; How do you maintain awareness in relationship?

Dhammavicaya gives us a way to acknowledge and explore phenomena without getting caught up in them. The act of acknowledging provides a place of stability and clarity, so you can relate to experience rather than be in it. Energy then shifts from the phenomena and reactivity to acknowledgement, truthfulness and relationship. This is where suffering can be allayed.

Worldly systems and structures keep us filled with activity, leaving us depleted and restless. What’s missing is pausing and discharging that any natural system includes. We can use the natural bodily system to reset body and mind and come into presence. This is where rest and replenishment are found.

Instructions to establish an upright, open and relaxed posture, following the natural expanding and subsiding of breathing. This allows the internal aspect of the body to become more apparent. Train the mind to relax its preoccupations and return to the simplicity of body breathing.

Mind always has some purpose to it. The aim is to keep refining that, keep it from becoming corrupted. Sustain inner awareness and disengagement. The unshakable deliverance of mind is the ultimate goal, not shaken by the circumstances of life, aging, sickness and death. (Sutta reference: MN 29)

Chanting is like a subtle yoga. It uses your whole body in a non-straining way. We bring something forth into the world with our voices, and we open awareness to what’s around us, to the persistent flow of mental and emotional arisings. Don’t try to change anything, but receive it all with a kindly devotional heart.

Citta’s awakening intelligence is in its capacity to know and be touched. Rather than trying to change or complain about our situations, embrace the human condition with the qualities of pure citta and let that do the work. Citta is the most important thing – it’s what suffers, what leads and directs us, and what gets liberated.

Encourage attention to find its way back through the tangle, back to the basis of citta. Sentient, present, withdrawn from the mental landscapes and the personal scenarios. Fully dwelt in, lingered in, citta, in its basis, is happy.

We seek steadiness and happiness from that which is inherently changing and unsteady – the constructed notions of future, past, myself and others. Withdraw from the tangle, acknowledge without getting involved. When you collect your heart with presence and acknowledge the tangle and the stress, there’s empathy rather than agitation. Good qualities naturally arise from that stable empathetic basis.

Mind is always searching – in the personal, social and sensory realms – for solidity and satisfaction. But to find this, we must go forth – set aside the virtual world that we compulsively create and come into presence. This is the place of realization, where we meet what arises with the compassion, goodwill and discernment of the heart.

The cycle of saṃsara develops from feeling. Perceptions then form that stimulate particular actions that can be stirring, disturbing, exciting. Investigate these from the stillness and stability of presence. What’s needed?

Please explain why you got the COVID vaccine as I am hesitant; can meditation help with IBS; can’t exhale completely because in breath rushes in; does it matter if formal practice/meditation is less; is manas an impediment to citta or can it be used beneficially; how to get over the pain of divorce; how to ask someone to leave a community due to ethical reasons; when desire is abandoned how is avijja eliminated; elaborate on terms samādhi, atammayatā, nibānna.

We can use the occasion of puja to cultivate signs of purity, beauty, liberation. You’ll feel it changes the rhythm of the mind – heart opens, thinking mind slows down and bodily presence wakes up. Anxieties and agitations are held in this open presence, felt in the body, and allowed to pass and dissolve.

Our apparent reality arises from moods and interpretations that generate the world of time and space, self and other. It’s possible to meet the moods and mental states directly without creating stories or identities until the signs dissolve and only clarity remains. Meditation and engagement are skillful means to understand the dependent arising of our world, of suffering, and of skillful dhammas.

Use the three intelligences of heart, mind and body to create a sense of calm and happiness. Body helps restrain mind; heart generates an atmosphere of gentleness and goodwill. Know what’s worth giving attention to for liberation.

One of the most fundamental requirements in meditation is restraining the mind. Rather than running out, energy can settle and calm. Then one’s effort is neither straining towards some goal, nor enmeshed in agitation. There’s space for sensitivity, receptivity, listening. When the outflows are restrained goodwill, compassion, clarity and wisdom come forth on their own.

The Buddha said that amongst all the bodies, best is the breathing body. Most important is to give emotional support to let the breathing do the work – allowing, wishing, encouraging. This a useful foundation for contemplating the various currents, energies, obsessions that citta has to release.

Cultivation of citta is the highest kind of learning we can undertake. The breathing body is our means for learning, for directly experiencing our kammic configurations. It provides a basis so when difficult states arise, citta can remain open and stable, and move through them.

When we try to settle, what we might notice is unsettledness. Rather than go into the topic, recognize the energy. Give attention to places in the body that are non-agitated. Use body and breathing to change the speed of the mind, steady it. Once settled, then dilemmas and unfinished business can be related to with dispassion, compassion, detachment.

Cultivating mental/emotional equilibrium – drowsiness, other people. Energies – how to sense subtle body, body sways in meditation, standing meditation, qigong, kundalini. Do we need goals in life; fear and anxiety; physical pain devoid of mental pain; advice about becoming a nun.

Establish mindfulness with the experience of a feeling body, the most fundamental source of feeling. Use a wide form of attention that covers the whole body. As phenomena are changing the mind is still with receptivity and deep listening. The nature of sati doesn’t react to feeling. The feeling can be felt, without blaming, criticizing or getting involved. When feeling isn’t given any more food, it becomes more equanimous.