Aryajaya explores the first seven verses of the Cetokhila Sutta (‘The Wilderness of the Heart’), looking at the conditions that make spiritual growth possible or impossible. The focus here is on the 5 wildernesses (or wastelands) that need to be abandoned: being doubtful, uncertain, undecided and unconfident in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, and the training and being angry or displeased with one’s companions in the spiritual life. Excerpted from the talk entitled Standing In...

In the telling of the story of ‘The Buddha’s 4 Sights’, Bodhinaga invites us to contemplate the people and events that have inspired us to change. What was The Buddha really like? We are told that the Buddha broke through into a radically different state of being, transcending ordinary human consciousness. What might it have been like to encounter that? There was something magnetic, awesome, mysterious, and powerful about The Buddha. Some people even ‘WOKE UP!’...

This is a quietly passionate talk by Jinapriya on the quicksilver nature of the Enlightenment experience - impossible to pin down, utterly transformative. His main theme within the frame of such a big question - ‘What is Enlightenment?’ - is the struggle to live our lives in the present moment, especially in the face of pain. Excerpted from the talk entitled What is Enlightenment? given at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2003.

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