Work/livelihood

We live in a culture of "busyness", feeling overwhelmed rather than truly productive and fulfilled at work. What lessons might the Buddha have for us in navigating our productivity at work? As we'll see, it involves four ways we can learn…

The Buddha praised solitude as highly beneficial, but he also warned of its dangers. How can we best balance solitude and community in our practice, and how can we cultivate solitude even in our busy everyday lives?

In early Buddhism emotions are both unproblematic features of our mental environment, and things to be cultivated or transformed, depending on the case. We will look at these aspects of emotions, and how we can work towards a healthy…

What is Buddhist karma and how does it work? It's most useful to view karma as a natural law of cause and effect, showing how our intentions shape our experiences. I'll demystify some common misconceptions of Buddhist karma, provide some…

One way dependent origination begins is through the mutual conditioning of consciousness and name-and-form. What does this mean, and how is it supposed to work? We'll look at its traditional understanding first, using the early suttas as…

Is meditation dangerous? We'll consider one recent journalistic investigation into the Goenka meditation retreat system, as well as some of the work of Brown University psychologist Willoughby Britton. Then we'll turn to the early texts…

What is Right Livelihood in Buddhism? We'll consider the five traditional "wrong livelihoods", and then turn to other manifestations of wrong livelihood mentioned in the early texts. That will help us understand what Right Livelihood…

I've failed. Many times. I'll look at some of those failures, and how we can work with failure in our lives. Failure can be frustrating and painful, but it can also be a help to us.

Right Effort in Buddhist practice has four aspects. The first of these is the effort to restrain. What does that mean, and how can we work with it?

Beliefs, views, opinions, and preferences are stressful. We can work to alleviate them with a mental technique suggested by the Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah.

How do we come to know anything, by the lights of early Buddhist dharma? We will look at this key philosophical problem, illuminated by words from one key sutta, and a more recent, deep work of 20th century commentarial analysis.

How does perception work in Buddhism? We'll look at why it's important and how it functions, as well as how it produces dukkha or suffering. I'll also suggest how we can integrate perceptions into our practice.

Buddhist notions of non-self open up possibilities for reforming who we are in more skillful ways. Those are the heart of Buddhist practice. But how does it work?

What is consciousness? I'll begin by looking at it from an early Buddhist perspective and then turn to work by contemporary philosophers like David Chalmers and Frank Jackson. In particular, I'll consider what Chalmers calls the "easy"…

The five higher fetters are five deep ways our mental processes bind us to the world of dukkha and suffering. They are a companion and addition to the five lower fetters discussed in an earlier video. We will discuss each of them and how…

How do you become a Buddha? You work at perfecting several different virtues or "pāramīs". I'll give a brief history of the practice and then go through a list of ten of them from the Theravāda tradition. Then we'll look at some…

The Buddha recommended we practice certain wholesome states of mind, such as kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy. Many of us find this work difficult. Why should we foster such emotions? I'll give some pointers by looking at what…

We'll consider a recent viewer comment that raised a number of questions about whether laypeople should really pursue early Buddhist practice, or whether such practice would be too disruptive of their lives and livelihood. To answer these…

Who was the Buddha? In this introduction to his life, we will look at how he got started, and at his struggle to attain enlightenment. Then we'll turn to his personality and major accomplishments during his mature teaching career.

Do you have a meditation practice where you do mindfulness of breathing? We'll go over five tips from a text in the early tradition that outlines five ways we can work to benefit such a practice.

A book purporting to translate poetry of the first Buddhist women was released last year to great fanfare. More recently discussion has arisen as to whether what the book presents is actually a translation, and whether instead it erases…

Gain and loss, fame and infamy, praise and blame, pleasure and pain: they orient our lives. How should we work with these conditions most skillfully? We will look at what the Buddha had to say.

We'll look at one way that karma can be said to work: how our intentions can redound upon us in the future for good or ill. But instead of doing so by way of outside influences upon us, it can also do so by the perfuming of our own…

Do you want to improve your meditation practice? We'll look at ten things you can do to make meditation easier and more productive. We'll also consider a bonus eleventh thing that may change how you view the other ten!

Sometimes words aren't enough to get us out of difficult situations. We'll look at several examples from early Buddhism where the Buddha and his disciples had to find more forceful methods. What line is too far? It's something we'll also…

How does Buddhist practice work? We will consider the Buddhist focus on dukkha or suffering/unsatisfactoriness, and how our spending time with it can paradoxically help us bring it to an end.

Today we're dealing with crimes perpetrated through centuries of racial injustice in the United States and indeed around the world. Was there anything the Buddha said that might be helpful or interesting to us? We will look at issues of…

How can we work to overcome worry and boredom in our ordinary lives, or in an extraordinary circumstance like the Coronavirus? We will look at one practice from early Buddhism: focus on the present.

Are you interested in beginning a Buddhist practice but don't know where to start? This is the video for you. I'll discuss two basic elements of Buddhist practice that we can all put to work immediately in our own lives, and point the way…

The practice of non-attachment to all things is at the heart of Buddhism. How can we work with such a practice though when it comes to those closest to us: our friends and family? We will consider this problem and how in fact a…

We will look at the Indian lawyer, economist, politician, and tireless advocate for social justice Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, his career and influence, and in particular his development of a new Buddhist path in so-called "Navayāna" Buddhism or…

Is it OK to make a living teaching the dharma? We will look at a passage from the early canon that indicates it is not. We will then consider how best to understand the lessons in this passage for teaching the dharma in the modern world,…

We'll take a look at the aid organization Buddhist Global Relief (BGR) as an example of a place we might consider practicing generosity. First we'll consider the benefits of generosity generally, and then after considering BGR in…

We all want to make the world a better place, but doing so can be at times difficult, frustrating, even stressful. Rather than turning towards cynicism, why not start making the world a better place by working with yourself?

With the advent of "engaged Buddhism", Buddhism in the modern world has taken an emphasis on political involvement. We will look at some of the history of religious involvement in politics, with a particular focus on Buddhism, and ask how…

Wow, it's hard to believe a year has already passed since publishing my first video on YouTube! In the interim we've had a busy time going through some of the dharma of early Buddhism, with a focus on contemporary practice and experience.…

We look at Buddhism as an approach to economics, following two recent books: The Buddha on Wall Street by Vaddhaka Linn and Buddhist Economics by Prof. Clair Brown. We will consider whether what they propose is really Buddhist, and…

When looking at right livelihood within Buddhism, traditionally there are five prohibited livelihoods. However there is also a great deal of interesting additional material about inappropriate livelihoods for monastics, as well as a…

What is Loving Kindness (mettā) meditation and how did it develop? Many people today practice a form that probably originated centuries after the Buddha's day. Thanks to Andy Olendzki for his work on the historical roots of mettā…