Awareness has a mirror-like quality. We can tap into it right now, become aware of the mind and body as they are in this moment. Perhaps awareness is reflecting the feeling of sleepiness or of not knowing, the feeling of cold or heat, heaviness or lightness. Reflective consciousness can see things, even the things that are closest to us. It reflects feelings of aversion, anger, kindness, pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings – all kinds of things. This quality of seeing, of knowing this reflective mind, is neutral. There is no sense of judging or criticising; awareness merely reflects the judging or the critical mind. That is what the Buddha is talking about when he says that the Dhamma is ‘apparent here and now’; not tomorrow or yesterday, but here and now in the present moment. And the Dhamma is timeless – it is not dependent on time.

The chapters in this wonderful book are edited transcriptions of talks given by Ajahn Sundara between 2003 and 2011. Many of these talks and teachings were given at Insight Meditation Center of the Mid-Peninsula in Redwood California. Some were from public talks and retreats held at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the United Kingdom. It Can Be Very Simple is taken from an interview given to The Insight Journal of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Our Nature is from a talk given at Seattle Insight Meditation Society.

This collection of nuns’ talks, which were originally offered to the monastic communities and during meditation retreats for lay people, focus on two main themes. The first is obvious but, remarkably, overlooked by many people: our very existence as a physical presence – how that changes and how it ends. The second theme, the Buddha’s teaching, which he referred to as the Four Noble Truths, begins with what is obvious: ‘Life is stressful’, However, having enumerated the causes of this state of affairs, it quickly moves on to the supremely subtle remedy – what the late Ven. Ajahn Chah referred to as ‘letting go’.