May 28, 2019

When we cultivate habits of awareness, we discover the causes of our deepest hurt.  The regular, worldly awareness mostly ruminates about the past and frets about the future. Check your own mind. These are the habits of ego-clinging, seeing yourself as distinctly separate from all others. However, awareness of...

May 21, 2019

Our deeply-ingrained mental habits help feed a profound sense of dissatisfaction. That’s what Buddha calls suffering, or samsara. This emotional hunger, or craving, we call attachment. When attachment doesn’t get what it wants, then we experience anger. If we break down the karmic steps in the situation, we can see...

May 16, 2019

Buddha observes a simple moral framework of non-harming. The way we relate to others really creates the kind of person we become. It shapes how we experience the future in very particular ways. If the mind is habituated or oriented toward morality, then disturbing emotions won’t arise. If it is habituated in...

May 14, 2019

Everything we experience and everything we become, stems from our previous actions. It’s not just random. There is some structure and consistency to the law of cause and effect. Check with your own experience. That’s karma.

This is part of a series of talks given at the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Center in...

May 7, 2019

Let’s take a closer look at this mind that we can see directly with our own consciousness. In Buddhism, we work to understand what’s happening inside us. So, we calm down and learn what our senses do, how they interact with emotions and thoughts. We can see things playing out in the mind. We have loads of thoughts....