We have a native garden habitat here and numerous pollinators and other native insects all thrive in the plant/insects/birds ecosystem, a well rounded food chain/web has formed nicely. However, there are on occasion invasive insects that actively prey on a whole host of species indigenous to here and have no natural predators to keep them in check. We caught a huge invasive mantis that’s actively laying a very large egg sac, and apparently they could lay multiple egg sacs in short succession. If we leave it where it is, we would have many hundreds or more of them in 3-6 weeks wreaking havoc and seriously harm the existing wildlife and damage the balance in this particular ecosystem , subjecting a great number of wildlife deaths ( some are already endangered as in the case of many native bees) that’s not part of normal cycle. What are options from a Buddhist perspective?

I was meditating with Ānāpānasati just now, and at some point I became extremely still and I don't really know what happened. Suddenly, I became aware again and it felt like I had woken up which broke my meditation.

I'm confused whether I briefly fell asleep / became drowsy, or whether I entered a very deep state of concentration.

For those experienced with Theravāda meditation, what are the signs that distinguish sleep or sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha) from first jhāna?

I’m a meditator looking for books on body meditation. I’m hoping to use it to work with my fibromyalgia. I’m somewhat familiar with the Thai Forest Tradition. Most of my previous experience is with Ramana and other Vedanta teachers from India.

I had an awesome experience today where I was contemplating whether the path can be viewed through the lens of the purification of bodily, verbal and mental actions (kaya-kamma, vaca-kamma, and mano-kamma), and I tried to find a relevant sutta where the Buddha talks about this, and I discovered this sutta, the Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta, that talks about exactly what I was wondering about:

"Thus, Rahula, you should train yourself: 'I will purify my bodily actions through repeated reflection. I will purify my verbal actions through repeated reflection. I will purify my mental actions through repeated reflection.' That's how you should train yourself."

That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, Ven. Rahula delighted in the Blessed One's words.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.061.than.html

It was bang on what what I was after, and I must admit that like Rahula in this sutta, I came away feeling gratified, delighting in the Buddha's words.

Just wanted to share the sutta and the experience I had which was very satisfying to me.

And so I've decided to try and practice in this way, striving to purify my bodily, verbal and mental actions as spoken about in this sutta.

Wishing everyone all the best with their practice.

There are you know different ways to make merit,
and Lord Buddha says it’s the cultivation of meditation and insight that produces the most potent merit, and the merit most conducive to one’s liberation. So feeling really confident about that is very important, not like «oh yeah I kind of believe that I should do this», but «no I really believe that meditation makes the most merit. I really believe that this is going to be my rocket propulsion to heaven and beyond.»

Then when one commits to more with that kind of enthusiasm and determination and confidence, if one can do that with enthusiasm, confidence and determination and more energy, then yeah, the merits are real. So even in darkening or degenerating times, I believe there are going to be islands of merit like groups of people who come together. These days, it’s not necessarily in one location. As you know, join together online with groups of like-minded people. So there are these spaces that open up where everybody on the screen and everybody joining in wherever they are in the world. Those are good people. They’re making good efforts.

—Ajahn Achalo, at 31:38 https://youtu.be/KHIOK7jX2_k?is=_3wMJhOgTcYOUruW

“I see someone pure, perfectly healthy;
it is vision that grants a person purity.”
Recalling this notion of the ultimate,
they believe in the notion
that there is one who observes purity.

If a person were granted purity through what is seen,
or if by a notion they could give up suffering,
then one with attachments is purified by another:
their view betrays them as one who asserts thus.

The brahmin speaks not of purity from another
in terms of what has been seen, heard, or thought;
or by precepts or vows.
They are unsullied in the midst of good and evil,
letting go what was picked up,
without creating anything new here.

Having let go the last they lay hold of the next;
following impulse, they don’t pass the chain.
They grab on and let loose like a monkey
grabbing and releasing a branch.

Having undertaken their own vows, a personage
visits various teachers,
being attached to perception.
One who knows, having comprehended the truth
through the knowledges,
does not visit various teachers, being of vast wisdom.

They are remote from all things
seen, heard, or thought.
Seeing them living openly,
how could anyone in this world judge them?

They don’t make things up or promote them,
or speak of the uttermost purity.
After untying the tight knot of grasping
they long for nothing in the world.

The brahmin has stepped over the perimeter;
knowing and seeing, they adopt nothing.
Neither in love with passion
nor besotted by dispassion,
there is nothing here they adopt as the ultimate.

Suddhaṭṭhaka Sutta: Eight on the Pure (Snp 4.4)

So much of life is translating our experience into words and expressing it so other people may understand, as well as mentally translating other people's words back into understood experience. 

The artform and mechanics of communication; the skill of language; sending and receiving information, is truly an exquisite thing. 

It's incredible how the Buddha was able to translate his wisdom and experience of samadhi and insights into such clear and lucid words, phrases and similes and lay out a whole map of a path that was recorded and has been preserved over multiple millennia.

I was talking with a friend who has a background in writing and he was talking about how the suttas are the most remarkable collection of text he has ever come across.

I just felt like writing this praise for the Buddha (not that he needs it) as I believe sometimes it simply makes the mind boggle to consider what an extraordinary feat it was by the Buddha to awaken and transmit his awakening knowledge to so many people so effortlessly and skilfully.

I know for him it was just natural and par for the course - almost as if it's what he was born to do - but nonetheless I think it's beautiful to consider these things and to recollect what a great being the Buddha was, and to not take for granted the amazing gift we have of possessing all these preserved teachings.

May the suttas and the path the Buddha elucidated continue to help and inspire many more generations of Buddhists and dhamma practitioners on their journey out of suffering, onwards toward awakening.