Buddhist Teachings

  Concentration, Insight and Loving-Kindness: The Swiss Army Knife of Meditation Practice Today I want to shine a light on basic meditation practices, how they work and why you should use them. I would consider this to be the tip of the iceberg and just a first introduction. There are basically 3 types of meditations for different purposes, which I would consider to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of meditation. Just like this multi tool has different blades for different purposes, these 3 meditation techniques have certain use cases. And like a Swiss Army Knife, they should be seen as a package, they last you a life time and never go out of fashion.  1) Concentration Meditation helps you to focus, relax and enjoy yourself (Samatha) Concentration Meditation (Samatha) uses an object to focus the attention on. It is like one of those old school Maglite flashlights, which you can twist at the top to bundle all of the light in one spot in the distance. There are various objects that ca...

It's a virtual jungle out there, and if you type in "Buddhism" in google, you get more than 200 million hits. Yes, thats a 2 with 8 zeros. Trying to understand a new subject pretty much depends on the learning type of the person. Are you a reader, a listener or a watcher? Do you like to dive into subjects like an autodidact or do you need a structured approach with a clear curriculum?  I picked out 5 ways for you, that might be the right choice to start your Buddhism journey: 1) Watch the documentary "The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha" For those of you who do prefer visual content, I would start with the well made 2 hour PBS documentary "The Buddha" released in 2010. Richard Gere narrates the life story of Siddhartha Gotama and how he became the Buddha. The IMDB Rating is 7,5 out of 10 which I would consider as rather high. The footage, music and animations throughout the movie make it very pleasurable to watch. It is a movie that I do like to watch...

When I started out my journey into the Buddhist world, I felt completely lost. What is Buddhism? Simple question, but somehow it seemed like there are just too many answers to a simple question.  Then we have different interpretations of Buddhism with different distribution routes and lineages. And on top, we have different sects within a country. All too confusing for a beginner.  So I somehow started to dive in and put together all the pieces to the puzzle and managed to get a grip over where to find buddhist teachings, where monasteries are located, how to find retreat centers and how to find local meditation groups, what meditation apps are good to use, etc. It felt sometimes like an excursion through a jungle - without a proper framework or tools to assist the journey.  To make your life a little easier, I am compiling a spread sheet with the most important resources I have stumbled upon over my explorations. So here it is. I call it the Buddhist Journey Companion. P...

Five years ago, I started the YouTube channel  Buddhist Teachings  where I uploaded a collection of 108 talks from the famous Theravada monk Ajahn Sumedho with the intent to make these gems available for as many people as possible. I wanted to do the same with the 58 talks of the collected teachings of Ajahn Sumedho's teacher Ajahn Chah, whom I have the utmost gratitude and respect for. I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Wat Pah Nanachat - the international monastery of Ajahn Chah in Thailand - as well as meeting Ajahn Sumedho in 2019 in person in Switzerland. Since life is sometimes life, I did not finish uploading the talks. 4 years later, I realized that some of Ajahn Sumedho's and Ajahn Chah's talks have had some significant views. Of course I am not speaking about millions of views, just a few thousand times. To me those numbers were quite unexpectedly high and I wanted to pick up where I left off: dedicate some time to make Buddhist Teachings - and especiall...