Aug 24, 2026 · 29 min · 11 segments
 This Dhamma talk was offered on August 08, 2026 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.
And so that could even be thought of as giving ourselves to the practice or giving ourselves just the opportunity to learn from any situation, to be able to learn from the situations that we're in.
It's like a meditation retreat.
It's said that we don't judge a meditation retreat based on how much happiness we had during the retreat.
So say there's a meditation retreat.
Say we go on to either solitary retreat or we do a vipassana retreat or have some sort of meditation retreat.
And then we experience a lot of bliss during the retreat.
So pretend we experience a lot of bliss during that retreat.
And then that doesn't necessarily mean we had a good retreat.
Because we might experience a lot of bliss, a lot of happiness during a retreat, and then after the retreat we lose it.
And then we suffer, sometimes immensely.
Or we might do a retreat and then suffer a lot during the retreat.
It doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad retreat.
So we don't judge a period of meditation or a retreat based on how much happiness or suffering we experienced.
But if we learned something, then it was a good retreat.
So the value of the retreat is based on if we learned something.
And if we learned something, then we can use that period of practice, use that retreat for our daily life moving forward and allow it to continue to inform us about how to live our lives in a way that we do experience a little bit more ease and well-being and a little bit less suffering.
But it's something that can sustain itself.
So when we learn, then that's wisdom, that's panya.
So then that's something that can actually sustain itself, sustain us moving forward.
And so that could even be thought of as giving ourselves to the practice or giving ourselves just the opportunity to learn from any situation, to be able to learn from the situations that we're in.
It's like a meditation retreat.
It's said that we don't judge a meditation retreat based on how much happiness we had during the retreat.
So say there's a meditation retreat.
Say we go on to either solitary retreat or we do a vipassana retreat or have some sort of meditation retreat.
And then we experience a lot of bliss during the retreat.
So pretend we experience a lot of bliss during that retreat.
And then that doesn't necessarily mean we had a good retreat.
Because we might experience a lot of bliss, a lot of happiness during a retreat, and then after the retreat we lose it.
And then we suffer, sometimes immensely.
Or we might do a retreat and then suffer a lot during the retreat.
It doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad retreat.
So we don't judge a period of meditation or a retreat based on how much happiness or suffering we experienced.
But if we learned something, then it was a good retreat.
So the value of the retreat is based on if we learned something.
And if we learned something, then we can use that period of practice, use that retreat for our daily life moving forward and allow it to continue to inform us about how to live our lives in a way that we do experience a little bit more ease and well-being and a little bit less suffering.
But it's something that can sustain itself.
So when we learn, then that's wisdom, that's panya.
So then that's something that can actually sustain itself, sustain us moving forward.
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