https://anthonylee.me/blog Personal writing, mostly on Theravāda Buddhism and practice. en https://anthonylee.me/blog/thus-have-i-heard https://anthonylee.me/blog/thus-have-i-heard Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Ānanda spent twenty-five years at the Buddha’s side and remembered more of the teaching than anyone alive. He was still not awakened when the council convened to recite it. The gap between hearing and knowing, in the person who heard the most. Theravāda Buddhism Ānanda https://anthonylee.me/blog/kamma-is-intention-not-a-ledger https://anthonylee.me/blog/kamma-is-intention-not-a-ledger Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Buddha defined kamma as intention, and explicitly rejected the idea that everything you experience was caused by past action. What the law of kamma actually claims — and the three things people are sure it says that it does not. Theravāda Buddhism Kamma https://anthonylee.me/blog/nobody-can-purify-another https://anthonylee.me/blog/nobody-can-purify-another Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Theravāda names attachment to rites and rituals as one of the first three things to fall away — not an advanced obstacle, an early one. Why that landed hard for someone raised in a tradition built on them. Theravāda Buddhism Practice https://anthonylee.me/blog/thirty-one-realms https://anthonylee.me/blog/thirty-one-realms Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Theravāda maps thirty-one planes of existence, from hells to formless absorptions lasting aeons. Read as a menu of destinations it is bewildering. Read as an argument that there is no good destination, it snaps into focus. Theravāda Buddhism Rebirth https://anthonylee.me/blog/why-buddhism-still-holds https://anthonylee.me/blog/why-buddhism-still-holds Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT It holds — as a description of how wanting actually works, not as a tradition worth being polite about. Which parts still bite, which part got harder, and where the popular version drops half of it. Buddhism Theravāda Attention https://anthonylee.me/blog/leaving-the-palace-twice https://anthonylee.me/blog/leaving-the-palace-twice Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Siddhattha Gotama gave up everything he had to become a wandering ascetic. Six years later he gave that up too, and the second renunciation is the one I keep thinking about. Theravāda Buddhism Renunciation https://anthonylee.me/blog/the-sixteen-steps https://anthonylee.me/blog/the-sixteen-steps Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Mindfulness of breathing gets summarised as watching the breath. The instruction in the sutta is far more specific than that — sixteen steps in four groups, in an order that turns out to be the point. Theravāda Meditation Buddhism https://anthonylee.me/blog/why-the-breath-comes-first https://anthonylee.me/blog/why-the-breath-comes-first Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Three Theravāda texts I'd been reading separately — a meditation practice, a teaching about how to decide what to accept, and an argument with a materialist prince — that turn out to be closer to one continuous thought than three. Theravāda Meditation Buddhism