Situations
Some of what people bring, each with the passages of the Pāli canon that bear on it and, where a passage has one, a note on where it stops. They sit under the six directions of DN 31, and a seventh, inward.
Family
- A family fight over money or an inheritance
- A family member's addiction
- A parent who still criticizes you
- After someone has died
- Deciding about care for an aging parent
- Dreading a family gathering
- Estranged from a parent
- Expecting a baby and afraid: of the birth, or of bringing a child into the world
- Resentment while caring for a parent
- Trouble with in-laws
- When a parent is aging or dying
- When politics divides the family
- When you can't get along with a sibling
- When your family doesn't understand your practice
- When your parents disapprove of how you live
Teachers
- A student has a crush on me
- A teacher who claims to be awakened
- Being asked to teach or lead a group
- Disagreeing with a teacher's instruction
- Doubting a teacher or the path
- Leaving a teacher
- Looking for a teacher
- Reading the suttas on your own
- Wanting a teacher's approval
- When a teacher dies or stops teaching
- When a teacher in your community is found to have done harm
- When a teacher's feedback stings
- When therapy and practice seem to pull different ways
Partner & children
- A new parent with no time to practise
- A teenager pulling away
- After a breakup or divorce
- Attracted to someone other than your partner
- Jealousy in a relationship
- Losing your temper with your children
- Sexual desire and practice
- Wanting a partner and not finding one
- When a partner has been unfaithful
- When an adult child won't speak to you
- When anger keeps coming up with a partner
- When your partner isn't interested in practice
Friends
- A friend asks to borrow money
- A friend who always complains
- A friendship that is fading
- Caught up in gossip
- Envying a friend
- Keeping a friend's secret
- Lonely, even around people
- Old friends and a changed life
- Practising without a sangha or dharma friends
- When a friend apologizes and you can't let it go
- When a friend is in trouble and you don't know how to help
- When a friend is seriously ill
- When a friend lets you down
- Whether to end a friendship
Work
- A coworker you can't stand
- Ambition and practice
- Burned out at work
- Criticized at work
- Having to let someone go
- Losing a job
- Money worry that won't quiet
- Passed over for a promotion
- Retiring and not knowing who you are
- Running a small business
- When success comes
- When work asks you to bend
- Whether to leave a job
- Worn out by a caring job
Spiritual life
- Arguing about the dharma online
- Conflict inside your sangha
- Drinking and the fifth precept
- How much to give
- Not sure about rebirth
- Practising alongside another faith
- Wanting to go on retreat when home needs you
- Wanting to ordain or go much deeper
- When a sutta says something you can't accept
- When faith has gone dry
- Whether to eat meat
- Which tradition to follow
- Wondering whether it's your kamma
- Wondering whether wanting awakening is just more craving
Inward
- A habit you can't stop
- Afraid of dying
- Anxiety that won't stop
- Being hard on yourself
- Falling asleep when you sit
- Getting older
- Living with chronic illness or pain
- Not keeping a daily practice
- Noticing spiritual pride
- Overwhelmed by the news
- Putting things off
- Regretting the life you didn't live
- Restlessness in practice after a retreat
- Something you did and can't forgive yourself for
- When you can't put the phone down
Or bring your own.