Upāli was one of the most intelligent and renowned followers of the Jains. He was so confident of his faith in the Jain teachings that he decided to debate the Buddha. He was determined to prove, once and for all, that the Buddha’s teachings on Kamma were incorrect.

Since childhood I have been fascinated by time-lapse photography. I have loved to watch natural processes unobservable by the naked eye unfolding on a screen – gracefully, magically – over the course of a few minutes. These short films encouraged me to question the apparent solidity of the world I lived in.

To investigate an apple, we might look at it in terms of its taste, its colour and its smell. In the apple itself, however, these qualities are inseparable. Similarly, we can distinguish three characteristics of existence.

Some time ago I was discussing the design of a building with its architect. He explained the choices he had made in the design using such words as ‘honest’ and ‘sincere’. For me, as a monk, it was interesting to hear ethical terms used to justify the number of windows in a wall, or the placing of pipes.

There are two sides to a human life: the ‘somebody’ side and ‘nobody’ side.

The somebody side includes things like physical appearance, personality, image in the eyes of others, likes and dislikes, virtues and vices. Our somebody side has a lot of issues to deal with.

The world of the senses seems very real. It demands our attention. It is intoxicating and addictive. It leads us to believe that the only alternative to sensory stimulation is deprivation and death.

The non-harming of self and others has always been one of the defining features of Buddhism. There is not a single sentence of the Buddha’s teachings that can be interpreted in such a way as to support violence of any kind.

When someone says they don’t believe in a religious teaching they usually sound (and see themselves) as reasonable and rational. The implication is that they don’t believe in this thing because they have chosen to live their lives based on scientific principles.

The Monastic Discipline states that a monk who speaks abusive words commits an offence entailing confession. When announcing the rule the Buddha told a charming story:

We have a dysfunctional relationship with our mental states. Through ignorance of the true nature of phenomena we identify with mental states, we grasp onto them. This is the cause of much unnecessary suffering.

One day, shortly after I had delivered the Uposatha Day Dhamma Talk to the local villagers in our monastery, a middle-aged man approached me reverently, his face radiant.

In 1978, I spent the Rains Retreat with Ajahn Sumedho’s small monastic community in the English countryside, close to Oxford. Shortly before I left to seek ordination as a monk in Thailand, a man called B. arrived to take the place I was vacating. Until recently, B. had been a Zen trainee in Japan. On his return to England he had felt drawn towards Theravāda.

On a bitterly cold night in December 1980, seated on the wicker seat under his kuti, Ajahn Chah gave a Dhamma talk to his Western disciples. As I sat amongst his audience on the frigid floor that night in my thin cotton robe, struggling not to shiver, I was in heaven.

The heart of our practice lies in letting go. Through our training in silā, we let go of unwise actions and speech. Through our training in samādhi, we let go of the hindrances. Through our training in paññā, we let go of the attachments that conceal the true nature of things, and that bind us to the wheel of birth-and-death.

Mindfulness of speech is a challenging practice, because at the same time that we try to be aware of our own speech we also have to try to be aware of our reactions to the other person’s speech.

Our responses to the person we are talking to may be improved by memorising the following checklist.

Meditation is the cultivation of wakefulness. It begins with us learning how to be awake to our meditation object, moment by moment. As it progresses we learn to be awake to the whole of our body and mind.

Be flexible in your approach. Ajahn Chah once said: ‘If obstacles come low, jump over them. If they come high, duck under them.

One of the questions that Ajahn Chah would sometimes ask his students was ‘Do you know how to be right?’ The way he posed this question made clear that he was not inquiring whether they know how to find the right answers to problems.

Most people find public speaking very stressful. The night before having to speak in front of a large audience, they often sleep badly. They may even feel like vomiting before going onto the stage.

Recently, a monk told me about an experience he had while walking through the countryside in Europe. He said that one day, an almsround in a small town, a man approached him with money in his hand. The man assumed that the monk’s bowl lid must have a slit in it like a piggy bank, and intended to make a donation.