This classic meditation practice is designed to deepen concentration by teaching us to focus on the in-breath and out-breath. Sit comfortably on a cushion or a chair. Keep your back erect, but without straining or overarching. (If you can’t sit, lie on your back, on a...

Tonglen practice, also known as “taking and sending,” reverses our usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. In tonglen practice, we visualize taking in the pain of others with every in-breath and sending out whatever will benefit them on the out-breath....

‘The beginning of this buddha-knowledge is the discovery of the wondrous law of the one mind.’ Zen Master Hakuin

‘Rather than searching for a distant place where suffering does not exist, the Buddha invites us to investigate the nature of suffering itself, right here in the present.’ Everyday Buddhism

The Buddhist world is now filled with people of their sort.

Buddha was asked, 'where do mind and body fall away?' He replied, "Vinnanam anidassanam anantam sabbato pabham" (consciousness, signless, timeless and everywhere brightly shining). [The Kevaddha Sutta] The Kevaddha Sutta

‘Buddhists are people and people do believe things, but Buddhism is concerned with truth, not with belief, and the teaching is to see things as they are.’ Everyday Buddhism

‘Nobody likes ordinary, commonplace things. And that is quite natural. A good medicine is bitter to the taste, but it wakes us up. It makes us open our eyes. And waking up spoils our dreams.’ Zen Master Hakuin

‘The Tathagata has abandoned that clinging to views, that adherence to views. Having seen what can be seen as it actually is, without grasping, without rejection . . .’ The Buddha

The Sutta-nipata is one of the earliest texts of the Pali cannon, coming from the same period as the Dhammapada, before the monastic tradition was strong.