“If you sit in one place and sounds get you all upset, you go away from that place and find another place that’s quiet. But if there are sounds there, you get upset again. That’s because your knowledge comes from…
“Hiri, a sense of shame; and ottappa, a sense of compunction: These are qualities that protect the world. But they can protect the world only because we practice them. If we don’t practice them, they don’t protect anything. Some Westerners…
“If you know something simply by memorizing it, there can still be doubts. If you know the truth, that’s the end of your doubts. It’s like this water cooler that has only a single opening for the water to go…
“Samadhi is firm concentration. If you’re firm in your practice, it’s a kind of concentration, but it doesn’t yet give you the fruit. It’s still just the flower—but out of the flower comes the fruit, big or small. The potentials…
“These days, Thai people are ordaining less and less. I don’t know why. Whether it’s because of their work or because the world is developing, I don’t know. In the past, people would ordain for at least four years, five…
“I’ll tell you a story about the Supreme Patriarch, something I’ve heard from other people. He went to China and, when he arrived, the Chinese gave him a teacup. It was really beautiful. There was nothing like it in Thailand.…
“When the mind reaches that level of stillness, it’s not enough—the stillness of tranquility. You have to make it still through insight. You have to give rise to discernment. With the stillness of tranquility, it’s like not being able to…
“All of us who have come here to practice: Walk in a way that correctly follows the Dhamma of the Buddha. Follow in line with his footsteps, in line with virtue, concentration, and discernment so that your practice is right,…
“Mental stillness, on its own, has other things mixed in with it. It’s still because there are things mixed in with it, but it’s not aware of them. That’s why it’s still. Suppose that this foot-wiping cloth that my feet…