Acknowledgements

Many people have read earlier versions of these essays and have kindly offered suggestions for improvements. In particular, I would like to thank the monks here at the monastery, as well as Jane Yudelman, Barbara Wright, Olivia Vaz, Mary Talbot, Donald Swearer, Clark Strand, Ralph Steele, Larry Rosenberg, Xiaoquan Osgood, Nate Osgood, Hope Millholland, Bok-Lim Kim, Gil Fronsdal, Eugene Cash, John Bullitt, and Michael Barber. Any mistakes that remain, of course, are my own responsibility.

Some of these essays, in earlier incarnations, have appeared in Tricycle, Buddhadharma, Inquiring Mind, and Insight Journal. I would like to thank the editors of these journals for their help in making the writing clearer and more coherent. The fact that the essays were originally intended for different audiences explains the overlap that occasionally occurs among them, as well as the inconsistent use of Sanskrit and Pali terms: dharma, karma, and nirvana in some essays; dhamma, kamma, and nibbana in others. I hope that this poses no difficulties.

These and other essays on Buddhist practice are available on the Internet at www.dhammatalks.org.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

(Geoffrey DeGraff)