I was at my local Buddhist monastery last week and one of the anagarikas (one who hs gone forth – a sort of probationary stage in Western Theravada Buddhism) told me he had decided not to take Pabbajja ordination and become a samanera but to return to lay life. He explained, ‘You’re expected to continually […]
Author Archives: AJ
Today I sat with a friend, having lunch and chatting. She’s a very spiritual person and as our conversation trundled along it moved into deeper and more spiritual matters as has happened before. She knows I attend a local Buddhist monastery and so she asked me, ‘What do Buddhists do to alleviate suffering in the […]
Does the idea of perfect inner peace sound too good to be true? Can you even believe that you could have perfect inner peace? Perhaps you believe that some far off spiritual teacher might have found it but it’s not accesible to you. Do you recognise that such thoughts are self-limiting…? You’re going to need […]
If you’ve read any of the previous posts you’ll have picked up on references to present moment awareness as being of key importance to developing your inner life. I’m not the only one saying this, two and a half thousand years ago the Buddha was saying much the same and his successors and other teachers […]
I’d like to preface this post by saying that it’s important to remember to use common sense when approaching any spiritual teachings. Trying to make fast or big changes in the way we lead our lives can have an unbalancing effect. I don’t think we should ever force change but rather be aware that change […]
I wonder how many of us would class ourselves as just ‘getting by’. We’re not really happy, but we have good days and some less good ones. But real happiness seems to be out of reach. Maybe we long for that perfect career or maybe retirement. Maybe we want more money or a role in […]
I’ll say at the start that this post is a little ‘heavy’, so if you’re not up to having your mind challenged a bit then you may well be asleep by the third paragraph. However, I do think it’s important and offer it as a reflection in the hope you may find it of some […]
Spiritual paths are demanding aren’t they? They’re almost impossible to stick to all of the time. They seem to demand perfection and while we might have the notion that advice and guidelines we strive to follow are in some way good for us, another deeper part of our nature wants to rebel and kick off […]
Like all the posts here, I would like you to consider what’s being said not as an edict but a reflection. I’m not trying to say, ‘It’s like this’ or ‘you should do that’. You have to find your own truth. All I offer are some perspectives on life in the hope they might be […]
I spend a lot of my time sitting in traffic. I don’t mind, it gives me time to refect on things and I thought I might share some of those reflections with you. The idea I want to consider in this post is to give some perspective on what is of value and what is […]
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