Ajahn Brahm

In nearly thirty years as a Buddhist monk, born and educated in the West but trained in the Thai Forest Tradition, Ajahn Brahm has gathered many poignant, funny and profound stories. In this collection of teaching stories are many true-to-life tales, which are used to launch into a deeper exposition of mindfulness, wisdom, love and compassion. In each story the raw edge of truth is evident.

In 1983, he began building the monastery in Australia where he now lives, but as his stories tell the monks were so poor and in need of buildings that he used a door reclaimed from the rubbish tip for a bed and taught himself plumbing and bricklaying. More recently, he has taught the timeless Buddhist philosophy to Westerners of all walks of life, led meditation groups in Australian prisons, and counselled the distressed, the funny and the bereaved. The stories that emerge thoughtful, funny and enlightening. Told with wit and wisdom, these tales reveal the qualities of devotion, humility and diligence. They also expose moments of insight, wisdom and compassion in the lives of ordinary people. The modern tales of hope and love, forgiveness, freedom from fear, and overcoming pain cleverly relate the timeless wisdom of the Buddha's teachings and the path to true happiness.

A truly helpful and sophisticated manual of meditation written by a monk with deep and wide-ranging experience. Ajahn Brahm is one of a new generation of Westerners who have studied, practiced and mastered an important range of Buddhist teachings and now offers them to sincere practitioners across the modern world. In Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond you will find a thorough set of teachings for developing and deepening meditation, aimed particularly at attaining absorption and opening to the insights that can follow from it.

Ajahn Brahm offers a careful and subtle understanding of how to transform initial difficulties and how to incline the mind toward rapture, happiness, light and the profound steadiness of Jhana. So those of you interested in the practice of jhana and the depths of the Buddhist path: read this book carefully. And try its practices. Much will be gained from its rich and wise words and even more from the experiences it points to. And as the Buddha and Ajahn Brahm both advise, test them out, and use them, and learn from them, but do not cling to them. Let them lead you to the liberation beyond all clinging, the sure heart's release. May these teachings bring understanding, benefit and blessings to all.