An important part of learning how to meditate lies in learning how to play with your meditation. For example, when you’re focusing on your breath, you want to learn how to play with your breath.

The same with delighting in letting go: Many things that we really should let go of are things we hold onto dearly. In terms of the customs of the Noble Ones, though, you have to learn to delight in letting go, to delight in renunciation, to delight in giving those things up, for you see the benefits that come when you give them up.

One of Ajaan Mun’s favorite topics for a Dhamma talk was the theme of practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma — in other words, in accordance with what the Dhamma demands, not in accordance with what our likes and dislikes demand.

The word sati in Pali has lots of meanings. The basic one is to keep something in mind. We’re often told it means alertness or awareness, but that’s not the case.

The mind is always working. If it were doing just one or two jobs at a time, that would be no big problem. But it’s usually juggling several jobs at once. No wonder it’s tired. Relationships, responsibilities, jobs, issues: Lots of things are going on in the mind all at once. Often when we start meditating it seems like the meditation is just one more ball to keep in the air, one more thing you’ve got to juggle. So there’s no wonder that when people leave the monastery and st

August, 2002 One of the first things you notice as you try to quiet the mind is the lack of quiet — all the chattering going on, all the discussions, the dialogs, the committee discussions going on up in your head, and sometimes all over your body. There seems to be never-ending chatter. Often our first thought as we start to meditate is, “How can I stop the chatter? How can I just quiet all those voices so things can be perfectly quiet inside?” But as you practice, you begin

Often we like to think that simply by adding meditation to our daily schedule, the effects of the meditation will permeate everything without our having to do much of anything else. Simply add the meditation to the mix of your life and it will transform all the other ingredients: That’s what we’d like to think, but it doesn’t really work that way. You have to remake your life to make it a good place for the meditation to seep through, because some activities, some states of m

Tonight I’d like us to dedicate our meditation for the people who’ve died in the events of the past week. This is a traditional practice in Thailand and in all Buddhist countries. It’s based on the realization that when people have passed over, the only way you can get in touch with them is through the power of the mind, what Ajaan Lee calls the current of the mind. And the best thing you can do for them is to send them a current of peace, a current of goodwill, hopingthatthe

The mind has a habit of loading itself down with all sorts of unnecessary garbage. It’s like a phrase they have in Thai, “the old woman loading herself down with straw.” The story goes that she thought that someday she might find herself in need of some straw, so everywhere she went she carried a huge load of straw on her back. Of course she was always bent over and at the same time could never pick up anything that was any better. When she got home that’s all she had: this b

When you come to practice the Dhamma, there are a lot of times when you experience culture shock. It’s not a question of going from a Western culture to an Asian culture. It’s going from a culture of ordinary people with defilements — Asian or Western — to the culture of the Noble Ones. Their culture involves a radically different set of values, a different etiquette, a different purpose.

July 5, 2003 The Dhamma strips things down to their essentials, with the realization that if you try to take on too many things all at once, you end up not doing anything very well. This is what the principle of renunciation is all about: realizing that some problems are more important than others, and some solutions more important than others as well. Some forms of happiness last longer than others do. So we have to look at ourselves with the realization that we have only so

July, 2003 Many ancient tribes marked the line between childhood and adulthood by sending the person off into the wilds to be alone. Some of the tribes called it a vision quest. The person could be alone for days to see what kind of vision would come up from within the mind, from within the heart, independent of the training he or she had received as a child. That was supposed to mark the person’s entry into adulthood, to give a sense of what the adulthood would be all about.

Try to be alert to the breath: what it’s doing right now and what you’re doing with it right now. Sometimes you may notice that you’re putting too little or too much pressure on it. “Too little” means that the mind keeps slipping off. “Too much” means that the breath feels confined. It’s constricted, placed in a box, and can’t get out.

July, 2003 Concentration practice involves work. We often think of it as a place for the mind to rest, and it is, but it’s even more a place for the mind to recharge its batteries. That requires energy, requires effort, requires work. In Thailand the idiom for meditation is “to make an effort.” And in meditating there very definitely are things we have to do. It’s not just a letting go of the tension, a letting go of the stresses of daily life. There’s also work to be done to

Even when the meditation is not especially easy or pleasant, taking it one step at a time makes it a lot more manageable.

March, 2001 Getting into position to meditate isn’t all that hard. First you get your body into position: your back straight, your head facing straight forward, your eyes closed, your hands in your lap. Then you get your mind into position: Just focus it on the breath. The breath is right here. You don’t have to search around too much to find it. The difficult part lies in keeping the mind in position, trying to maintain a steady awareness. That takes some doing because the m

July, 2002 The breath is where the mind and the body meet. We often have a sense that the solid part of our bodies is the part we know best, the part we inhabit, and the breath is something that just comes in and goes out through the solid part we’re inhabiting. But when you close your eyes, what do you actually sense of the body? There’s a shape defined by the area where there’s energy flowing back and forth. And that energy is actually our most direct perception of the body

September 22, 2003 Focus on your breath. And as for what’s going to happen when you focus on the breath, put that thought aside. And where the meditation is going to take you and how it’s going to take you there: Put those thoughts aside as well. Be careful not to anticipate too much, because when you know too much in advance, it’s not really knowing. A lot of it is guesswork. A lot of our preconceived notions come from ignorance. That’s precisely what we’re trying to get rid

September 10, 2003 The first step when you meditate is to get your body into position: your right leg on top of your left, your hands in your lap, your right hand on top of your left. Sit up straight, look straight ahead of you, and then close your eyes. That’s the body in position. The next step is to get the mind in position. Start with thoughts of goodwill, because that’s why we’re here. Goodwill is the wish for happiness — both for your own happiness and for the happiness

Dhamma Reflections Series In a world that often feels divided and heavy, the Buddha offered a beautiful and practical way to train the heart: four boundless qualities known as the Sublime Attitudes. These are not just feel-good emotions — they are powerful, immeasurable forces that can reshape how we relate to ourselves and everyone around us. This talk by Ajaan Geoff explores how goodwill, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity work together as a balanced team. It’s a