Summary
Can you find peace by wanting it less?
In this episode of the Handful of Leaves podcast, hosts Cheryl and Angela sit down together for the first time since attending a March meditation retreat led by Ajahn Jayasaro, to unpack what the experience taught them once they brought it back into ordinary life. Both arrived quietly depleted — Angela nursing work burnout, Cheryl anxious and adrift after a company restructuring — and what follows is a candid conversation about what happened when they sat with that depletion instead of running from it.
Angela describes the central shift: meditation isn’t about arriving at a peaceful feeling, but about learning to observe whatever feeling is actually present, including grief over her mother’s recent passing. Cheryl admits her own retreat was “quite horrible” until she realized, on the very last day, that her craving for peace was itself the obstacle. From there, the conversation moves through doomscrolling, “not good enough” narratives, and the habit of comparing themselves to others — reframed not as personal failings but as patterns that can be noticed and gently changed.
By the end, both hosts land somewhere unexpected — not on having achieved permanent calm, but on having built a little more patience, and a little more trust that discomfort can be sat with rather than escaped. The retreat held real suffering, they agree, but also real joy.
About the Speaker
🧘 Ajahn Jayasaro is a British-born monk of the Thai Forest Tradition and one of its most widely respected living teachers. Born Shaun Michael Chiverton on the Isle of Wight in 1958, he first joined Ajahn Sumedho’s monastic community in the UK in 1978 before travelling to Thailand the following year to train under the renowned meditation master Ajahn Chah (Luang Por Chah) at Wat Nong Pah Pong. He received novice ordination in 1979 and higher ordination in 1980.
From 1997 to 2002, Ajahn Jayasaro served as abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat, the international forest monastery founded by Ajahn Chah, guiding monastics from around the world under the tradition’s strict standards of discipline and meditation. He is also widely recognized as Ajahn Chah’s official biographer, having spent over twenty years researching and writing Stillness Flowing, the definitive 800-page account of his teacher’s life and teachings.
Since 2003, Ajahn Jayasaro has lived in a hermitage near Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. Over more than four decades of practice, he has become one of the most respected contemporary voices of the Thai Forest Tradition, known internationally for his meditation retreats, talks, and writing.
https://www.jayasaro.panyaprateep.org/en/about-us
Key Takeaways
🌊 “This wanting is not getting me anywhere.”
Craving peace can itself be the thing standing between you and peace — the retreat’s hardest lesson for Cheryl was learning to stop chasing a feeling and start simply observing what was there.
🪞 We are a function of who we compare ourselves to.
Both superiority and inferiority are forms of conceit; the fix isn’t to stop comparing yourself to others, but to choose a wholesome idol — someone whose compassion and skill you want to grow into, not just their achievements.
🔁 It’s actually just a habit — and a habit that can be stopped.
From doomscrolling to a nagging “I’m not good enough,” the patterns that feel like personality flaws are really just loops with a trigger and a reward, which means they can be noticed, named, and gradually reshaped.
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Editors and Transcribers of this episode:
Azraf Mahir, Tan Si Jing, Ng Yah Tyng, Cheryl Cheah
Visual and Sound Effects
Anton Thorne, Tan Pei Shan, Ang You Shan
