“The moment you accept responsibility for your situation you begin to move in a positive direction.”

~Bhante Gunaratana
“Mindfulness in Plain English” (Wisdom)

The cause of suffering, the Second Noble Truth, is desire (tanha)—attachment to desire out of ignorance. Here we’re not trying to rid ourselves of desire, or become somebody who doesn’t have any desires. We’re recognizing desire: desire is like this, it’s an object. So you begin to notice the desire to have something, desire for sense pleasures. Desire is a kind of energy, it takes us over. If we’re not aware of it, if we don’t recognize or understand it, we become slaves to it.

‘MEDITATION: Because some questions can’t be answered by Google!’

“If anger, despair, or sorrow accumulate in our hearts, we have to do something about it. Exercise, talk to your mentor, meditate on loving-kindness.”

~ Haemin Sunim (from The Bodhi Journal)

“The troubles in the world are always troubles in oneself, while external troubles are mere occurrences which just take place”

~Ajahn Pannavaddho
(from Forest Sangha Twitter feed)

AJAHN SUMEDHO: “The first ordination for bhikkhus (monks) at the time of the Buddha, before it got all complicated, was simply ‘ehi bhikkhu,’ which means ‘Come, bhikkhu‘ and that was it. Now we have to go through a whole procedure … But according to the scriptures the original was just ‘Come, bhikkhu.’ Just like that. You know the kind of immediacy. So ehipassiko: come and see. There is always this sense of ‘wake up, pay attention.’

Sometimes meditation can seem like a cop-out. A lot of people think we are just contemplating our navel or our breath, not facing the real world. ‘You should be out there, trying to make everything right in society, and here you are sitting at Amaravati all these days watching your breath. What good is that to anybody??’

On the worldly level there are all kinds of things that need to be done. There are so many problems at this time, it is overwhelming. You just have total collapse and burnout when you think about it—the problems that face humanity on this planet. And so this is not to dismiss this, but trying to make the world right is an endless process. You are not getting to the source of what is wrong: the delusion, the ignorance, the cause of the suffering.

And now we are looking here, not blaming the government anymore but looking at the cause; we are not blaming someone else, but recognizing the ignorance in our lives, the illusions we create and operate from. We are learning to recognize that which isn’t deluded. That takes a willingness to be patient with yourself, and being receptive and open to whatever you are feeling, whatever results you are having from your practice, whether you feel calm or confused, peaceful or angry. I’m not asking you to become anything, but—this: ehipassiko—come and see, trust this awareness more and more, recognize it. This is the real Dhamma. This is the refuge that I can always be, because I trust it more and more, I tend to be this way more and more. So be aware.

~Ajahn Sumedho
from “The Sound of Silence: Volume 4,” p. 87
NOTE: Book available for free .pdf or e-book reader download here

No doubt, even Buddhist monks have their Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s meditation moments.

Bhante Jayasara (‘Bhante J’), of the Bhavana Society Theravadan Buddhist Forest Monastery and Retreat Center in High View, WV, gives an introductory talk and leads a guided meditation in the morning of a day-long silent retreat at the PeaceTree Center for Wellness in Huntington, WV on May 11, 2019. | NOTE: This is Part 1 of audio from the silent day retreat.

“Meditation is to wisdom
as the lamp is to its light.”

~Dajian Huineng (638-713)