Simple|Suttas Podcast

download Like many of you, I was brought up a Christian. I was raised in a small offshoot of the Mormon Church. Church twice a week minimum plus camps and retreats. Unlike some of you, I really enjoyed it. I did music, I gave testimony. I was devout. But something happened when I was a […]

download Yikes! The first two guardian meditations were so uplifting! And the last two are such downers! Well of course. Sometimes the medicine you need is energetic and encouraging. Sometimes the medicine you need is a little less fun. Sometimes the doctor gives you morphine, sometimes chemo. The morphine might be more fun (temporarily), but […]

download There is an idea in meditation circles that there are two ways of approaching meditation, and practice generally. One goes something like this: “I should purify my behavior and development my practice and my meditation.” The other goes something like this: “I’m perfect as I am, and the main practice both in meditation and […]

download One of the Buddha’s most important, most original teachings is that we don’t have a self, or at least a self that can be pointed to in any way. No soul. No essence. No unchanging identity. This was a direct contradiction of the Vedic religion as well as just about every other religious and […]

download The Buddha said that the path is “good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end.” I stumbled on an article “The Quiet Hell of Extreme Meditation” in, of all places, Men’s Health magazine. Now, what do you think they mean by “extreme” meditation? Sitting alone in the jungle for […]

download Thanissaro Bhikkhu:”In order to attain strong states of concentration, the mind must be nourished, the heart must be nourished, and the body must be nourished”. Body – It’s extra hard in ill health, on drugs, or even on a diet! Is it true that the body needs to be well nourished to have a […]

download One problem in meditation begins with one of the very first instructions we get in meditation. “Watch the breath without trying to control it.” Now, this is partly true. We are not doing pranayama style breath control. We are not forcing the breath to be a very particular pre-designed pattern. No artificial, outside patterns […]