Reflections on Ajahn Chah and his teaching on the wisdom of allowing your practice to take its natural course without forcing it or thinking you can control it.

An introduction to a secular Buddhist interpretation of the dharma through the example of rethinking the four noble truths as four noble tasks, thus establishing a context for the reflections on a series of suttas.

The third link in Dependent Origination is Consciousness. Consciousness springs forth from the fertile ground of ignorance and mental formations. We might think of this expression of consciousness as "egoic consciousness," the sense that "I am conscious of..." Different traditions use various definitions for the term, consciousness. In Buddhism there are different consciousnesses for each sense door. To get a sense of what this means, image you are standing on the ocean shore. If you focus exclusively on sight, certain memories and sense impressions will flood your mind, but if you concentrate exclusively on smell, there will be a whole new set of sense impressions and accompanying memories that may be very different from your visual consciousness. So too with each sense door - hearing, tasting, thinking, touching - each evokes a different set of memories and mental formations. The mind collates these separate consciousnesses into a single consciousness with "me" as the central casting figure. When each person speaks of "my consciousness or my mind" they usually mean the summation of all the separate consciousnesses falsely organized (ignorance) as a single conscious entity.

Many of us do not realize the accessibility of the heart. We think it is distant and attainable only through hard work. But it is as close as a pause in our thoughts, a hesitation in our busyness, and is the natural response of awareness to life. Our thoughts cover the heart with a foggy distraction, but when we interrupt the stream of our thinking the heart response with a gentle appreciation for living. In that moment life is acknowledging itself with gratitude. During this season of Thanksgiving, look deeply and silently to call forth this natural appreciation for living.

17 minute guided meditation on finding peace in the body and opening to states of mind and thinking as support for awareness.

Though we receive lots of instructions for our meditation practice on retreats, let’s face it – we spend a lot of time thinking. What do we think about? At the heart of these movements of the mind is answering the questions, “Am I OK?”, “Was I OK?”, and “Will I be OK?” Our obsession with these questions is the cause of a huge amount of restlessness. Restlessness is one of the major hindrances to calming the mind and deepening our meditation, and can be seen as both the cause and the effect of all the other hindrances. The Buddha also talked about this kind of thinking, and called it unwise attention that leads to all kinds of suffering. We need to look at the core issues that lead us to dwell on these questions if we are to create a more skilful relationship to our thoughts.

Letting go of habitual thinking.

This talk explores the three components of self-compassion: 1. mindfulness to deal with self-critical thinking; 2. loving kindness, to increase our sense of love for ourselves; 3. and shared humanity, the recognition that we are not alone.

Mindfulness and thinking, momentary concentration, kamma, how to develop the five controlling faculties.

If we can leave our fixed ideas behind, and return to the openness of our direct experience, we gain a new kind of knowledge, independent of our thinking mind that is immediate, fresh and deepens our trust in the natural unfolding.