The afterlife is mostly a dream state where you confront the good and evil within you. The text repeatedly explains that the images the deceased sees and the sounds one hears are hallucinations created by...

When life is good do not take it for granted as it will pass. Be mindful, be compassionate and nurture the circumstances that find you in this good time so it will last longer. When...

Observe & accept what ever arises & know that everything is as it needs to be.

The experience of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral is the consequences of perception.

Some perceive God in the heart by the intellect through meditation; others by the yoga of knowledge; and others by the yoga of work. Some, however, do not understand Brahman, but having heard from others,...

Perhaps the day will come where the validity of one’s spirituality will be judged not by the correctness of one’s theology but by the authenticity of one’s spiritual life. When that day comes, an authentically...

It was my letting go that gave me a better hold.

He no longer grasped to a strong sense of self. To him life felt more like a dream, a cascade of cause and effect that was completely up for grabs-and he was no longer separate...

Reality is harsh. It can be cruel and ugly. Yet no matter how much we grieve over our environment and circumstances nothing will change. What is important is not to be defeated, to forge ahead...

On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a...

Attachment leads to suffering.

Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities...

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar...

You tell me to stand still, but I am not walking,” he shouted, “whereas you who are walking say you are still. How is it that you are standing still but I am not?”The Buddha...

Against The Stream is more than just another book about meditation. It is a manifesto and field guide for the front lines of the revolution. It is the culmination of almost two decades of meditative...

Thinking we are only supposed to have loving & compassionate feelings can be a terrible obstacle to spiritual practice.

Living in a world such as this is like dancing on a live volcano.

Your emotional understanding about the preciousness of your human birth comes through conscious, repetitive mind training.

Cake.” I admired his directness.

The way is not clear, and it is when you do not have clarity, when this is allowed, that you will finally have clarity.

Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.

We who are like senseless children shrink from suffering, but love its causes. We hurt ourselves; our pain is self-inflicted! Why should others be the object of our anger?

… the four noble truths: that there is suffering, that it has an origin, that there is a cessation of suffering, and that there is a path to that cessation.

If the whole universe can be found in our own body and mind, this is where we need to make our inquires. We all have the answers within ourselves, we just have not got in...

It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely...

You actions are your only true belongings.

We see, at least with intellect, that beyond both true and false is truth; that there is beauty beyond our present views on the beautiful and ugly; that pleasure-pain can now alike be transcended, and...

As long as we practice with a vow to help others, we are the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, and we become the leading figure in the Heart Sutra, whether we are a layperson or are...

I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I’m definitely not religious, and I’m very tired of the preachiness and obsession with...

God stipulates in the Bible that Jesus Followers are to love and serve everyone regardless of their faith or lack of it. But, this does not require us to honour and respect their Biblically-heinous cultural...

Strength is Happiness. Strength is itself victory. In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness. When you wage a struggle, you might win or you might lose. But regardless of the short-term outcome, the very...

Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even...

Bhikkus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?The eye is burning, visible forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning; also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant...

The more we explore, understand, and even come to appreciate our own self-destructive mental attitudes, the more control we gain over our minds.

Everyone burns, as the Buddha says, in their own way. Some burn with anger, some with lust, some with a desire for vengeance, some with fear. But inside us burn many fires, not just one....

To be free, to come to terms with our lives, we have to have a direct experience of ourselves as we really are, warts and all.

I had uncovered a widely held but overlooked attachment: our attachment to the view that every problem must have a solution. We delude ourselves that we can think our way out of a problem or...

Buddha first taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.

Knowing life’s purpose would invest everything one did with meaning.

There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things....

In the practice of exchanging self & other, paradoxes abound.

My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it’s not really forgiveness. It’s Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you’re trying...

Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened...

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and failure to listen, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening to relieve suffering and promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other...

A maggot is just another life form.

Buddhism does not deny the existence of gods—they are described as powerful beings who can bring rains and victories—but they have no influence on the law that suffering arises from craving. If the mind of...

The art of peaceful living comes down to living compassionately & wisely.

Without the ability to be present we are missing much of what the adventure has to offer.

Those who read books cannot understand the teachings and, what’s more, may even go astray. But those who try to observe the things going on in the mind, and always take that which is true...

By-passing all scriptures and all that any teacher has to say, we shall, while respecting every finger that points to the moon, be mindful only of the moon. This habit will make it easier to...