The ancient teachings of the Buddha encourage us to cultivate five mental faculties—confidence, effort, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. With these faculties appropriately balanced, our meditation practice can bear great fruit.

Pioneering mountaineering routes in Utah’s greatest national park had unintended consequences that would force me to consider my relationship with the wilderness.

James Bond Island, a giant solid gold Buddha statue, grilled cockroaches, and stifling heat! It’s summertime in Thailand!

A Texas rumor of a Thai “supermonk” came full circle as I searched for a place to meditate in Bangkok.

Aliens? UFOs? Nothing whatsoever? We take a peek into the top secret military base called Area 51.

Flicked off by a cabbie, witnessing a misbehaving monkey, and finding a statue of the great master. These were just a few of our adventures in the expat wonderlands of Pattaya and Phuket.

A meditation community in the Vietnamese Zen tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh would shape the course of my meditation practice and the meditation community I would eventually develop.

The Buddhist teaching of Abhidharma—the “higher doctrine”—explains that which is real, an understanding of which is the only path to enlightenment.

Wandering Bangkok during the water festival and sampling the best and worst of fruits were precursors to a visit to the ancient Siamese capitol of Ayutthaya.

Recalling the life of my master—Las Vegas Sayādaw—a renowned master of insight meditation.