Waking up requires us to make some space, to find somewhere safe and quiet in our lives to explore. We need some stability from which to practise.

If we can broaden our concept of practice so that it’s not just about finding time to sit once a day, it changes everything. We find that in every moment that we’re fully present to life with our hearts open, there’s nothing missing. We have everything we need.

Awakening doesn’t require perfect conditions. It only requires a willingness to practise, to cultivate, to open up to that possibility.

It's possible to see the path as a process of refinement, of perfecting even, but it’s a good idea to leave our perfectionist tendencies behind if we can. We can train ourselves, get to know ourselves, explore our inner lives and cultivate peace, all of which will help us.

But there's not even an ounce of happiness to be had from trying to create a perfect self.

A great deal of our mental bandwidth is taken up with craving. We don’t recognise how much it organises our lives. It externalises happiness and makes us perpetually restless, a hostage to conditions.

One skilful way of responding to craving when it arises is simply to bring it into awareness. We can then start to question it and understand it better.

This is a recording of a talk for Insight North East from May 2024.

Our inner struggles often go on longer than they need to, but eventually they fade. Like everything, they’re impermanent.

Our clinging and reacting can’t be sustained indefinitely. The ability to notice that, to watch our reactivity fade, is a powerful practice. We can’t always observe it arising because we’re too caught up in it, but we can notice its fading.

According to the Therigatha, the verses of the elder nuns, the Buddha showed concern and respect for women when no-one else did.

Since then, Buddhist lineages have tended to view men as being spiritually superior to women. Masculine energies and modes of practice have taken precedence over feminine ones. Despite this, many people are now actively working for change and exploring how they can restore the balance.

It’s helpful every so often to ask ourselves what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. What habits are we reinforcing and what kind of life are we building for ourselves? What it is that we’re cultivating? And if we have a spiritual practice of any kind, maybe to ask ourselves whether that practice is helping us to respond to our world more skilfully.

The Buddha’s teachings encourage us to hold our practice lightly. To apply what we’ve learned in a practical way, not to encumber ourselves with it.

Often the path requires us to embrace apparent contradictions. Some of our practice has to be understood from different perspectives, depending on how we’re going to apply it.

Training ourselves to stay with the opposites helps us keep our minds pliable and open. It counteracts our tendency to fit everything we hear into our existing world view.