"When I reflect on my life as a Buddhist monk, I found one of the most significant turning points was when I started experiencing gratitude (kataññū-katavedī). Gratitude arises spontaneously when one reflects on one’s parents, who made it possible for one to exist as a human being, Luang Por Chah, the teacher, whose wisdom was always directly pointing to the way out of suffering, and the Lord Buddha’s teaching giving direction for one’s life."

This book is compiled from talks given mostly in 2001 by Ajahn Sumedho. The first edition was originally published in 2004, but has long since been out of print. This new edition has been reviewed for typographical errors and redesigned, and some re- editing has been done. However, the Dhamma content has not been changed. The talks were transcribed, edited and proofread by various members of the sangha as well as people from the broader community, and a variety of people helped with the creation of the front cover. The editors wish to express their deep gratitude for all of the generous and kind-hearted effort put into making these teachings available in book format.

The title of this book refers to the image of the Buddha’s teaching, the Wheel of Truth (or Dhamma). It is a wheel that he set rolling in his first discourse by proclaiming the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path of practice. This teaching remains as the axis of Ajahn Sumedho’s teaching and personal contemplative work. This particular collection of his Dhamma talks and dialogues is composed of material that has appeared in various newsletters and magazines before; it derives from different periods in Ajahn Sumedho’s teaching career, but it has been gathered into three parts to address overarching themes.

The aim of this book is to provide instruction and reflection on Buddhist meditation as taught by Ajahn Sumedho, using material extracted from talks he gave in the early 1980s. These talks were almost all given to monastics who were familiar with the language and terms of Theravada Buddhism – but Ajahn Sumedho’s approach is not technically intricate, and so we felt that many more people could benefit from these instructions than the small gatherings in the monasteries. You are therefore invited to make use this book for your own spiritual practice.

This book contains a collection of teachings of Ajahn Sumedho given to people who are familiar with the conventions of Theravada Buddhism and have some experience of meditation. Most of the chapters are edited from talks given during retreats for lay people for Ajahn Sumedho’s monastic (ordained) disciples, so they require some careful attention and are best read in sequence.

In the monastic retreats Ajahn Sumedho develops a theme from the Buddha’s teaching over a couple of months, linking it to other aspects of the Dhamma, embellishing it with accounts of his personal experiences, demonstrating its relevance to the society in general, or using it as an exhortation to the Sangha to live up to their aspiration of enlightenment. Although it is not possible to render the tonal depth and variety of these talks in a printed work, the mixture of short exhortations and pointers, longer contemplative reflections mingled with the chants that the monks and nuns will be reciting daily (and have been doing so for years) may suggest the atmosphere and scope within which the teachings are offered.