Discussions
Threaded conversations across the sangha. Mostly slow. Occasionally urgent. Always considered.
Day 47. The streak is no longer the point. What I notice now is how the body kno…
Day 47. The streak is no longer the point. What I notice now is how the body knows the cushion before my mind does. There is a kind of memory beneath thought. I am beginning to trust it.
First long retreat — what should I bring?
I leave for the Royal Thai Monastery in Lumbini in three weeks. Six months. I have never sat longer than a 10-day Vipassana. What did you wish you had brought on your first long retreat? What did you wish you had left behind?
On the silence between the chants
After fifteen years of chanting morning and evening, what I now hear most clearly is the silence that follows. The Pali words land in the heart only because the silence is there to receive them. The same is true of meditation. Effort is necessary, but only as a doorway. The other side is already waiting.
The cave teaches what the city cannot
People ask me what twelve years in a cave taught me. The honest answer: it taught me that the cave is not a place. The cave is what we cease covering with noise. You can find it in Manhattan if you stop running. You can lose it in Lahaul if you bring your phone.
Day 28. The grief is still there. The sitting holds it now. That is enough. I ke…
Day 28. The grief is still there. The sitting holds it now. That is enough. I keep going.
Where do you start when grief is in the way?
My father passed in March. I started reading What the Buddha Taught a week later. The sitting helps for a few minutes and then the grief comes back. Is the point to push through it, or to sit with it, or something else? I would be grateful for guidance from anyone further along the path.
Why the Therigatha still cuts
I have been reading the Therigatha for nine years. What strikes me most is not the awakenings — though they are extraordinary — but the precision of the suffering before them. Ambapali on her body. Patacara on her children. These are not idealized voices. They are real women who walked through the worst, and arrived at peace. The path holds.
A flower blooms not because it tries. It blooms because the conditions are right…
A flower blooms not because it tries. It blooms because the conditions are right. Our practice is to be the conditions. Sun, water, silence. The blooming is not ours.
Bodhi tree, Wednesday morning
A young family arrived at sunrise — Sri Lankan, three children. The youngest, maybe four years old, walked straight to the Vajrasana stone and pressed her forehead against it. Her father wept. The mother chanted the Itipiso quietly. I bowed and walked on. This place still does its work.
Sat for 45 minutes this morning before the kids woke up. Then the day collapsed …
Sat for 45 minutes this morning before the kids woke up. Then the day collapsed into noise. By 9 PM the practice was a memory. But the memory was enough. The practice does not need to be remembered to do its work.
Forty days. The streak feels like a small mercy. Most mornings the cushion finds…
Forty days. The streak feels like a small mercy. Most mornings the cushion finds me before I find it. The rest of the day, the practice goes underground. I think this is how it is supposed to work.
Why ngondro is not preparation
Western students often think of ngondro as preliminary. As if the real practice is later. This is a mistake. The 100,000 prostrations are the practice. The mandala offerings are the practice. The Vajrasattva is the practice. If you wait for the real practice to begin, you will wait your whole life. It begins on the first prostration.
From Lumbini to Kushinagar on foot
Day 14 of the walk. I started at the Maya Devi temple with one robe and a bowl. Today I crossed into Uttar Pradesh. The road is hot, the people are kind, the dust gets into everything. But the Buddha walked this route too. That thought alone keeps me moving.
The three poisons in the public square
Greed, hatred, delusion. The Buddha named the inner machinery 2,600 years ago. The same machinery now runs our markets, our feeds, our politics. The dharma is not for our cushion. It is for the world.
On commissioning a thangka
A thangka is not a decoration. It is a doorway. When a student commissions one, I ask three things: what practice is it for, what is your relationship to the deity, and what is your intention to do with it. If the answers are not clear, I do not begin. The brush will not move correctly if the heart is not aligned.
My mother spoke only Vietnamese. She chanted Avalokiteshvara every night. I did …
My mother spoke only Vietnamese. She chanted Avalokiteshvara every night. I did not understand the words then. I am now translating them, twenty years after her passing. Every line is a small hello.
On the precept of right speech
Right speech is not just truthful speech. It is timely, kind, gentle, and useful. Most of what we say fails one of these tests. The remedy is not to speak more carefully but to listen more deeply. Speech that comes from listening is naturally right.
How to translate “shunyata” for someone new?
I am increasingly teaching Western students at Sera. The word emptiness is misleading. Voidness is worse. Some teachers say openness. Some say spaciousness. None of them quite work. What translations have you found useful in your own teaching or learning?
The earth as our witness
When the Buddha touched the earth at Bodh Gaya, he did not invoke a god. He invoked the planet itself. The earth witnessed. The earth is still witnessing — to our climate, our extraction, our forgetting. Our practice cannot end at the cushion. The earth is the cushion now.
Nichiren wrote that the title of the Lotus Sutra contains the sutra. Some find t…
Nichiren wrote that the title of the Lotus Sutra contains the sutra. Some find this confusing. I find it freeing. The whole of the dharma fits in a single phrase if the heart is ready. Namu myoho renge kyo.
Twenty years on the same hwadu: What is this? Twenty years of not knowing. The n…
Twenty years on the same hwadu: What is this? Twenty years of not knowing. The not-knowing has become the home. There is no longer any need to know. There is only the asking.
A young monk asked me yesterday how to stop the mind from wandering. I told him:…
A young monk asked me yesterday how to stop the mind from wandering. I told him: do not stop it. Watch it wander. The watching is the practice. The mind that watches is already still.
Resources for translating ngondro liturgies?
I am working on a new English translation of the Longchen Nyingthig ngondro for my study group. The existing translations are accurate but feel stilted. Anyone with experience in this — what do you wish someone had told you before you started?
On Newar Buddhism in 2026
My grandfather performed the Vajracharya rituals daily. My father, occasionally. I perform them when I remember. My son does not. This is the slow erosion that no one wrote about in the sutras, because the sutras assumed the sangha would always be there. We are now the sangha. Or we are not.
TWIM session today: 90 minutes. The 6Rs are starting to feel less mechanical and…
TWIM session today: 90 minutes. The 6Rs are starting to feel less mechanical and more like breathing. Bhante was right — you cannot make this happen, only allow it.
I recited Amitabha’s name 10,800 times this week. My Italian friends think I hav…
I recited Amitabha’s name 10,800 times this week. My Italian friends think I have lost my mind. I have not lost it. I have placed it somewhere safer.
My third Vipassana retreat ended yesterday. Day 7 broke me, day 8 rebuilt me, da…
My third Vipassana retreat ended yesterday. Day 7 broke me, day 8 rebuilt me, day 9 I am not sure what happened but it was important. Back in Warsaw now. The street noise sounds different.
Six months guiding, six months retreat
Came down from Khumbu yesterday. The retreat was harder than the climbs. On Everest your enemy is the mountain. In retreat, your enemy is your mind, which is more cunning than the mountain. Both are necessary.
Anapanasati in sixteen steps
Students rush through the sixteen steps as if checking boxes. This is not how the practice works. Each step can take years. Each step contains the others. The first step — knowing you are breathing in long, you are breathing out long — is already the entire path. The rest is unfolding what is already there.
JuBu wondering about boundaries
I sit Vipassana in the morning and observe Shabbat on Friday night. The two practices feel coherent to me. But sometimes I wonder if I am borrowing without commitment. Has anyone navigated this honestly?
Sesshin again this weekend. Six hours of zazen on Saturday, eight on Sunday. The…
Sesshin again this weekend. Six hours of zazen on Saturday, eight on Sunday. The knees protest. The mind eventually does not. Then the bell.
Metta is not nice
Western students often confuse metta with niceness. It is not. Metta is the unwavering wish for the welfare of all beings — including those you find unbearable. This is not nice. It is fierce. It is the hardest practice I know.
Three hermits at Taktsang
Photographed three cave hermits this week. Two had been in retreat for years. One for decades. Their faces were not what I expected — not serene in the postcard way. They were alive in a way I have not seen in my city friends. Their eyes were not closed to the world. They were wide open to it.
Spent Saturday at the Zen Center pulling weeds in the garden. Did not meditate f…
Spent Saturday at the Zen Center pulling weeds in the garden. Did not meditate formally. The weeding was enough. The Zen Master walked by, said nothing, did not even look. That was also enough.
Ambedkar’s gift
In 1956, Ambedkar led 500,000 Dalits to take refuge in the Buddha. In 2026, we still walk in that lineage. The dharma in Tamil Nadu is not separate from caste justice. It is its expression. Every meditation is also a protest. Every protest is also a refuge.
Trauma and the dharma
Some of my students cannot sit for ten minutes without a flashback. The standard instruction — observe what arises — can retraumatize. We need a different approach: anchor, titrate, return. The Buddha taught for all beings. We must teach in a way that meets all beings.
Receiving Western pilgrims at Fo Guang Shan
Three young Americans arrived this week with backpacks and questions. They knew very little about Humanistic Buddhism. By the end of the week they could chant the Heart Sutra in Mandarin. The chanting was rough. The hearts were already smooth.
Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophy of mind
Reading Dunne’s translations of Dharmakirti for the second time. Is anyone aware of contemporary analytic work engaging seriously with svalakshana and samanyalakshana? Not the dilettante stuff — the rigorous treatments.
Twelve retreats in. Still no breakthrough. Or perhaps the breakthrough was never…
Twelve retreats in. Still no breakthrough. Or perhaps the breakthrough was never the point and I am only now beginning to notice. Either way, I will sign up for retreat thirteen.
Lojong slogan #6
"In post-meditation, be a child of illusion." Geshe Chekhawa wrote this 900 years ago and it still cuts. Off the cushion, do not solidify the world. The conversation you are about to have, the email you are about to send — treat them as dream-like. They are. Notice the freedom this opens.
Twenty-eight rains
A friend asked what twenty-eight years as a bhikkhu has taught me. The answer surprised me: how little I know, and how that no longer worries me. The certainty I had at year three has long burned off. What replaces it is not knowledge. It is presence. Presence does not need to know.
Restoring my grandfather’s thangkas
My grandfather kept twenty-two thangkas in a wooden chest. After he died, they sat there for fifteen years. This year I began restoring them — one at a time, with a Tibetan restorer in Boudha. The first one is Vajrasattva. As the colors return, I notice my mind getting clearer too. Restoration goes both ways.
Designing a tiny zendo — advice?
I am an architect, but a beginning practitioner. Building a 6m² zendo in my Aarhus garden for personal sitting and small groups. What matters more than I think? What does not matter as much as I assume?
Why I left the company
I gave notice last Friday. Twelve years building software. The work was good. The pace was killing me. I begin a six-month sabbatical at the Royal Thai Monastery in Lumbini in three weeks. Not running. Just walking somewhere else for a while.
On reading the Vinaya as a layperson
Lay students sometimes ask me whether they should read the Vinaya. I say yes, but slowly. The rules are not for you. The why behind the rules is. The Buddha’s reasoning — case by case, monk by monk — is a master class in how the dharma meets actual human beings. Read it for that.
A line from the Sigalovada
"As a mother protects her only child with her life, so let one cultivate a boundless heart toward all beings." The Buddha gave this instruction not to monastics but to a lay householder. The boundless heart is not the monastery’s alone.
A nun’s pilgrimage to Lumbini
I came to Lumbini for the first time at twenty-one. I returned this month at seventy-six. The dust is the same. The trees are taller. The pilgrims are younger. The Maya Devi shrine has been beautifully restored. What surprised me most: I am still moved. After fifty-five years on the path, I am still moved.
Sinhala dhamma my mother passed me
My mother sang a Sinhala paritta over my crib every night. I am now translating it. The translation feels less accurate than the singing. Some dhamma does not survive English. We have to learn the songs in the original.
Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out…
Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out. This is enough. This is the whole of it. The rest is decoration.
A child’s question at the Bodhi tree
A boy of perhaps eight asked me yesterday: "If the Buddha sat here and got enlightened, can I sit here and get enlightened too?" I said: "He sat here for many days. Are you willing to sit here for many days?" He thought, and said: "Maybe one day." I bowed to him.
The danger of the spiritual teacher
A Western student told me recently that he was looking for the right teacher. I told him: be careful what you ask for. The right teacher will not flatter you. The right teacher will not protect your self-image. The right teacher will dismantle you. If you want to be made comfortable, find a coach. If you want liberation, find a teacher.
Day 21 of the walk: Kushinagar
I arrived at the parinirvana stupa at dawn. The reclining Buddha looked like he was simply resting. I sat for an hour. Then I cried for an hour. Then I sat again. There is no greater teaching than a teacher who can die with this much peace.
Money and the dharma
The Buddha did not refuse money. He refused attachment to it. The distinction is everything. Lay practice in the 21st century is mostly about this distinction. We will not opt out of money. We must learn how to hold it without being held by it.
When I paint Tara, I am not painting an image of Tara. I am painting Tara. The d…
When I paint Tara, I am not painting an image of Tara. I am painting Tara. The deity inhabits the brush, the pigments, the canvas. The painting is the practice. The completed thangka is just the residue.
Thay’s untranslated Vietnamese talks
I am working on a project to translate Thay’s Vietnamese-language talks into English. There are thousands of hours. The English-language Thay we know is more polished, more measured. The Vietnamese Thay is fierier, funnier, more direct. We have been listening to half of him.
On being a siladhara
I have lived as a siladhara — a ten-precept nun — for thirty-five years. The status questions, the structural questions, the future of women in the Theravada — these remain unresolved and they matter. But none of them have ever once stopped me from sitting. The practice does not wait for the structure.
Why we debate at Sera
Westerners often find Tibetan debate strange — the hand-claps, the dramatic gestures, the loud voices. But debate is not performance. It is the practice. To articulate your view clearly while remaining open to its refutation. To love your position less than you love truth. This is the dharma in action.
Earth witness, climate witness
The bhumisparsha mudra — the Buddha touching the earth — was never just a story. It is an ethical posture. The earth is our witness to suffering and our witness to liberation. Our climate practice is dharma practice. There is no separating them anymore.
Visited Mt. Minobu last month. Nichiren’s grave is small. The mountain around it…
Visited Mt. Minobu last month. Nichiren’s grave is small. The mountain around it is vast. Both felt necessary. The teacher and the world that holds him.
Twenty years on the same hwadu. I once thought this would be over by now. The no…
Twenty years on the same hwadu. I once thought this would be over by now. The not-knowing has become a kind of home. The home is bigger than I imagined.
On dana from the receiver’s side
Lay people often think of dana as their practice. It is also the monastic’s. Every meal received is an opportunity to receive without grasping. The giver and the receiver are co-practitioners. This is why we bow back.
Ngondro day 200,000. The mind is quieter. The prostrations are easier. The teach…
Ngondro day 200,000. The mind is quieter. The prostrations are easier. The teacher’s words from years ago are starting to arrive in the body. This is what they meant by slow.
Patan, May full moon
The Buddha Jayanti procession passed our courtyard tonight. My five-year-old son watched silently. Then asked: "Father, did the Buddha know me?" I said: "He knew everyone who would come after him." He thought about this for a long time. So did I.
TWIM vs noting — anyone done both seriously?
I have done about 800 hours of Mahasi-style noting and now 400 hours of TWIM. They feel like different practices that point to the same place — but the journey is very different. Curious if anyone has done extended retreat in both and can compare.
Pure Land in Italy is strange. There are perhaps eight of us. We meet on Tuesday…
Pure Land in Italy is strange. There are perhaps eight of us. We meet on Tuesdays in a friend’s apartment. We chant. We have no temple. The chanting itself is the temple.
Sixty days of daily sitting. Some days twenty minutes, some days an hour. The co…
Sixty days of daily sitting. Some days twenty minutes, some days an hour. The consistency matters more than the length. I am beginning to understand this in my body.
What the mountain taught me about the mind
On Everest, weather changes in minutes. Twenty-mile visibility one moment, whiteout the next. The mind is the same. You do not control the weather. You read it, respect it, prepare for it, sit through it. Both teach the same skill: stay with what is, without panic.
Buddhadasa said: "Heaven and hell are here, now, in the mind." I have repeated t…
Buddhadasa said: "Heaven and hell are here, now, in the mind." I have repeated this to students for twenty-five years. I am only now starting to believe it in the body.
Sat through Yom Kippur with both eyes open. The fast and the silence joined. I a…
Sat through Yom Kippur with both eyes open. The fast and the silence joined. I am not sure if this is allowed. But it felt true.
The bell at the end of sesshin. Everyone bows. Everyone has been through somethi…
The bell at the end of sesshin. Everyone bows. Everyone has been through something. No one will tell each other exactly what. The bell holds it all.
Bangkok metta
Sitting metta on the BTS Skytrain this morning. The man across from me looked exhausted. I sent him metta. He never knew. It does not matter that he never knew. The practice is the giver’s, not the receiver’s.
Photographed a wandering yogi at Punakha Dzong. He had been walking for nine yea…
Photographed a wandering yogi at Punakha Dzong. He had been walking for nine years. He had no map. He said: "The path knows where I am going." I am still thinking about this.
Sat 30 minutes before work. The workday did not improve, exactly. But I noticed …
Sat 30 minutes before work. The workday did not improve, exactly. But I noticed three small kindnesses I would otherwise have missed. The sitting widened the day.
Why Ambedkar mattered
Ambedkar did not just convert. He gave us 22 vows, written in plain Marathi. They are an ethical manifesto, a refusal of caste, and a refuge in the dharma. To read them is to understand why Buddhism in India is not a hobby. It is a question of dignity.
After IMS retreat: arrived home, looked at my partner, looked at my dog, looked …
After IMS retreat: arrived home, looked at my partner, looked at my dog, looked at the kitchen sink. None of them had changed. I had. The kitchen sink is now a teacher.
Compassion fatigue, dharma fatigue
Therapists know compassion fatigue. Dharma teachers experience it too — and rarely admit it. What I have learned: you cannot pour from an empty cushion. The practice for the teacher is the same as for the student. Sit. Then sit some more.
Humanistic Buddhism’s claim is simple: the Buddha’s teachings are for this life,…
Humanistic Buddhism’s claim is simple: the Buddha’s teachings are for this life, this world, these people. Not for some future incarnation. If the dharma is not making your today kinder, you may be doing it wrong.
Read Candrakirti’s Madhyamakavatara cover to cover this winter. I have new quest…
Read Candrakirti’s Madhyamakavatara cover to cover this winter. I have new questions, and I have lost some certainties I was attached to. Both feel like progress.
A student asked why we meditate. I said: because you cannot think your way out o…
A student asked why we meditate. I said: because you cannot think your way out of a thinking problem. She nodded. Then asked the question again. So I sat with her.
Good Question Good Answer, twenty years later
I wrote that little book in 1996. People still ask me about it. Most of the answers I would write differently now. Some I would write the same. Books are like that. They are the truest snapshot of the practitioner we used to be. We owe them no fealty, only honesty about what has changed.
Climbed the 365 steps at Swayambhu this morning. The monkeys watched. The prayer…
Climbed the 365 steps at Swayambhu this morning. The monkeys watched. The prayer flags watched. The view from the top did its thing. I sat at the eyes of the stupa for an hour. Came down lighter.
The zendo footprint is now drawn. 2.4m x 2.4m. Cedar floor, white plaster, a sin…
The zendo footprint is now drawn. 2.4m x 2.4m. Cedar floor, white plaster, a single window facing east. I have spent more hours designing it than I have meditating this year. The irony is not lost.
A new Pali student asked: "Why do we chant in a language we do not understand?" …
A new Pali student asked: "Why do we chant in a language we do not understand?" I said: "So that you stop using language to understand. Chant. Listen. The understanding will come."
Visited the new nuns at DGL this week. Average age: 22. They have grown up onlin…
Visited the new nuns at DGL this week. Average age: 22. They have grown up online and they sit better than I did at their age. The dharma will be in good hands.
Walking meditation in the snow today at EIAB. Each step a different kind of sile…
Walking meditation in the snow today at EIAB. Each step a different kind of silence. Each silence a different kind of teacher.
On the Therigatha, again
Yesterday I taught the verses of Patacara to a small group at Oxford. Three of the students wept. One was a war widow. The 2,600 year gap closed completely. The dharma is not a museum. It is a mirror.
My ten-year-old asked tonight: "Mom, what is enlightenment?" I said: "It is when…
My ten-year-old asked tonight: "Mom, what is enlightenment?" I said: "It is when you stop running." She thought about it. Then: "From what?" I said: "From yourself." She nodded and went to bed. I sat for another hour.
A Sri Lankan grandmother gave me a small bag of jasmine flowers today. She had w…
A Sri Lankan grandmother gave me a small bag of jasmine flowers today. She had walked from Colombo with her son. The flowers were still fresh. So was her devotion.
A Western student wept in interview today. He said: "I do not feel ready." I sai…
A Western student wept in interview today. He said: "I do not feel ready." I said: "Good. You are ready." He laughed through the tears. The path begins where readiness ends.
Sarnath — turning of the wheel
I am at Sarnath today. The deer park. Where the First Sermon was given. I read the Dhammacakkappavattana aloud to no one in particular. The wheel keeps turning. We just have to remember to step onto it.
Sex and the dharma
The dharma does not pretend sexuality is not there. It asks: does this action come from clarity or from craving? The third precept is not a rulebook. It is a mirror. Use it without shame, but use it.
My apprentice asked yesterday why we grind mineral pigments by hand when synthet…
My apprentice asked yesterday why we grind mineral pigments by hand when synthetic ones are available. I said: because the grinding is the practice. The thangka begins long before the brush.
Walked the Plum Village walking path this winter. Thay’s voice is everywhere, ev…
Walked the Plum Village walking path this winter. Thay’s voice is everywhere, even though he is no longer. The lineage moves through the trees.
The first precept, slowly
Non-harming begins with the housefly. If you cannot let the fly out the window without irritation, the cosmic compassion talks are premature. Start small. The Buddha did.
Geshe examinations completed this week for the new batch. The debates went well.…
Geshe examinations completed this week for the new batch. The debates went well. The Geshes will go on to teach. The dharma extends one generation further. This is enough for today.
Drought in California again. The earth witnesses our forgetting. The cushion is …
Drought in California again. The earth witnesses our forgetting. The cushion is a small place to begin remembering.
Daimoku for the dying tonight. Three people, three lineages, one chant. The Lotu…
Daimoku for the dying tonight. Three people, three lineages, one chant. The Lotus Sutra holds them all.
What is this? The question has not changed in two decades. Only the silence arou…
What is this? The question has not changed in two decades. Only the silence around it has deepened.
On forest practice: the monastery is not the forest. The forest is the monastery…
On forest practice: the monastery is not the forest. The forest is the monastery. The forest knows what to teach you. Show up, sit down, listen.
Visited the Tiger’s Nest at sunrise. The climb hurts. The view forgives. I sat i…
Visited the Tiger’s Nest at sunrise. The climb hurts. The view forgives. I sat in the cave where Padmasambhava sat. I do not know what I sat through. Something opened.