Just because of the simple fact that you are human, you find yourself heir to an inherent unsatisfactoriness in life that simply will not go away.
It is rather a healthy habit pattern that you have consciously and voluntarily chosen to impose upon yourself because you recognize its superiority to your present behavior.
In the practice of meditation you become sensitive to the actual experience of living, to how things actually feel. You do not sit around developing sublime thoughts about living. You live. Vipassana...
Concentration holds an object before mindfulness. Mindfulness then pays close attention to it. Then investigation finds that it is constantly changing, thus showing the signs of unsatisfactoriness and...
Both of them, alone, are limited. But when the disabled person climbs on the shoulders of the blind man, together they can travel and achieve their goals easily.
We train ourselves to ignore the constant impulses to be more comfortable, and we dive into reality instead. The irony of it is that real peace comes only when you
You can’t make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes will flow naturally. You don’t have to force anything...
Why do you have to do all this after attaining a jhana? Jhana is like a juggling act. You keep things suspended in the air or balanced. Then you drop them. Then you start over.
When you see deeply, as a real experience, with your own wisdom-eye, that all conditioned things are impermanent, your mind state changes. Your superficial understanding of impermanence becomes a deep...
When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic. An accomplished meditator has achieved a profound understanding of life, and he or she inevitably relates to the worl...
When you are totally absorbed in the subject of your meditation, when you merge with or become one with the subject, you are completely unaware. That too is not jhana, at least not what Buddhism consi...
We spend all of our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears, endlessly seeking security.
We categorize experiences. We try to stick each perception, every mental change in this endless flow, into one of three mental pigeon holes: it is good, bad, or neutral. Then, according to which box w...
Vipassana meditation is a process by which that concept is dissolved. Little by little, you chip away at it, just by observing it.
The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found, and how to deal with it when it arises.
The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built.
The roots of suffering are within us. And the method for eliminating suffering is within us as well.
The mind can never be focused without a mental object. Therefore we must give our mind an object that is readily available every present moment. One such object is our breath. The mind does not have t...
The lowest level is adherence to a set of rules and regulations laid down by somebody else. It could be your favorite prophet. It could be the state, the head of your tribe, or a parent. No matter who...
Skillful thoughts, on the other hand, are those connected with generosity, compassion, and wisdom. They are skillful in the sense that they may be used as specific remedies for unskillful thoughts, an...