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Meditation changes your character by a process of sensitization, by making you deeply aware of your own thoughts, words and deeds.
Bhante Gunaratana
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Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don't have to be swept away by your feeling. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity.
Bhante Gunaratana
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Any action that comes from a mind not currently filled with greed, hatred, or delusion brings happiness to the doer and to the receiver. Such an action is, therefore, skillful or right.
Henepola Gunaratana
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The Buddha’s message was simple but profound. Neither a life of self-indulgence nor one of self-mortification can bring happiness. Only a middle path, avoiding these two extremes, leads to happiness.
Bhante Gunaratana
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The irony of it is that real peace comes only when you stop chasing it—another Catch-22.
Bhante Gunaratana
About the Bhavana Society

Traditions, Monastics & Community

The Bhavana Society is a community of monastics and lay people living according to the precepts and practices laid down by the Buddha, Siddhattha Gotama, over 2500 years ago.

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bhavana community
Bhavana Community
 
Ordained Monks
The Experience of Ordination
 
Pali cannon from Kuthodaw Myanmar
Theravada Buddhism
 

Articles

Rare Things In The World
Rare Things In The World

There are eight rare things in the world.

World Peace Through Buddhist Philosophy

The Buddha as a realistic physician diagnosed that we are sick. He found the cause of our sickness…

Painting of Buddha teaching a group of monks and a King
The Buddha Through the Eyes of His Contemporaries

Buddha taught freedom of thought and freedom from all samsāric bonds in order to attain…

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Community News

Bhante Gunaratana: A Special Teaching on Mindfulness

Wisdom publication podcast episode with Bhante Gunaratana

Commemoration of the International Day of the Vesak at United Nations

A sermon was delivered by a scholar monk, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.

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Current & Upcoming Events

  • Volunteering
    16 Aug 2018
    Fall Family Work Weekend Retreat

    Registration opens on Monday, July 16th at 9:00 a.m. This is an opportunity for families and friends to come to Bhavana and help with maintenance chores, painting, clearing paths, and working on… Read More

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