May your struggles and sorrows be eased. May you hold yourself in great compassion. May you be safe and protected. May your heart be at peace. May your life be at peace.

Tonight I had planned to talk about Thich Nhat Hanh, the great and wise Zen master and teacher who died recently at age 95. But it seems critical to also acknowledge the grief of the war in Ukraine. As it says in the Buddhist teachings (and in other wisdom teachings), in this world, hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. There has to be a better game than war for human beings. We have to look at the war within ourselves as well. Thich Nhat Hanh’s instruction was to stop—stop making enemies. Make prayers. Make blessings. This is our moral task.

This is the initial sitting meditation instruction for a month long retreat. It supports people in settling in, finding the body and its sensations, and identifying a primary object/anchor.

Sariputta equated the stream of liberation to being the very same 8 fold path of the Buddha's main teachings. The 8 fold path can be summed up as the three higher trainings: training in Sīla, Samādhi, and Pañña. To stay in the stream which only flow in one direction - liberation - we only need to embrace Sīla (ethical attunement), Samādhi (cultivating beautiful aspects of heart), and Pañña (living with wise perspective). Whether you wear robes on the outside of your body or if you are a lay person, we want to ordain our hearts to wear the inner robes of Sīla, Samādhi, and Pañña.

Your practice affects everyone around you. When you see your practice in this wider context, it evokes a whole dimension of inspiration and “joyful responsibility“ to cultivate wisdom and compassion within us. In this world with so much suffering—including the climate crisis and injustice in the world—more than ever we need to keep this in mind and see ourselves as “bodhisattvas in training“.