Buddhist Women on a Path of Spiritual Awakening
A Mystical Ladder – Patience, the Incinerator of Defilements
We are ascending a mystical ladder which must be done so carefully and gradually. For a spiritual warrior, the path of practice is a gradual one. We are in a cloud of unknowing but patiently the cloud is emptied and we begin to see everything…
Breaking the Cycle of Harm – Patience and Friendship With The Lovely
The insight into not-self requires a deeper seeing and understanding of reality. Virtue is our saving grace. It gives us the energy for enlightenment which we transform into right effort. Thus we are guided through the wilderness of the world to develop and sustain…
What is Killing You – Thorns, Barnacles and Buoys on the Middle Way
When you know what is killing you then you will know what will save you. Right effort protects us and offers safety and seclusion. We find saving grace within if we can navigate through the wilderness of the mind assisted by a host of…
A Swallowtail Butterfly at the Hummingbird Feeder
The quality of energy manifest as courage, commitment and compassion is the way forward. We have to be brave – like a lion. Brave warriors face the powerful maras, monsters of the mind, to overcome them. They train the mind to gain its freedom…
A Matter of Death, Life, Truth and Recovery
Call suffering by its true name and the face of the Dhamma will emerge from within us. We meet the truth of impermanence, of death, and the universality of pain as we carve out the understanding of who we are and why we are…
Death – A Portal of Deliverance
Contemplating the 4 elements, the 32 parts of the living body, and the remains of the body in a charnel ground, we gain a deeper understanding of impermanence and the intrinsic impersonal and empty nature of the body. Seeing it for what it truly…
Masquerade of the Hindrances – A Blameless Life
Clearly see the danger of the hindrances in the mind and stop killing goodness. The story of Angulimala’s life reveals the power of moral rehabilitation to end our harmful ways and urgently revert to the path of goodness, wholeness and purification. There’s no one…
Beautiful Qualities – Five of the Ten Perfections
The Buddha taught about ten perfections or beautiful qualities of mind that are needed to help us cross the flood of samsara, the cyles of existence. The first five of these are generosity, virtue, energy, wisdom and renunciation. When embodied, these qualities lead us…
How To Cross the Flood – Seven Enlightenment Practices
The Buddha answers a deva who wants to know how to cross the flood of sensuality, the flood of existence, and all its dangers. Walk the Middle Way, he taught, not stopping and not over-struggling with obstacles. Use the seven enlightenment practices to train…
I Will Not Be Angry – How Ajahn Gunhah Won the Hearts of Outlaws
Laying down weaponry, giving up hostility, we can abandon negativity and establish sanctuary within us. We hear the inspirational tale of how Ajahn Gunhah transformed his kidnappers in northern Thailand. Through his embodiment of mettā they became his disciples, just as the Buddha had…
~ Dhammapada Verse 54