Everything Is Teaching Us
A Collection of Teachings
By Ajahn Chah
Translator’s Foreword
In April of 2001, several hundred people gathered in Portola Valley, California, for a weekend billed as ‘The Life, Times, and Teachings of Ajahn Chah.’ Monks, nuns and laypeople, disciples present and past, along with many other interested parties traveled from across the country and around the world to join the event. In two joyful and illuminating days, people gave personal recollections, read from teachings, and discussed Ajahn Chah’s way of training. It was a once-in-a lifetime moment that brought back a lot of memories for all the speakers, perhaps capped by Ajahn Sumedho’s reflection on bow ‘this one little man’ had done so much which his life for the benefit of the world .
When I was freaked-out young man, I dumped myself on the doorstep of Ajahn Chah’s orphanage. Physically debilitated, emotionally immature, and spiritually blind, I had nowhere to go in this world, no one to turn to for help. Ajahn Chah took me in and placed me under his wing. He was able to instill perfect trust and give me a feeling of safety as he nursed me along and helped me grow up. He was parent, doctor, teacher, mentor, priest, and Santa Claus, comedian and taskmaster, savior and nemesis, always waiting well ahead of me, always ready with the unimaginable, the unexpected, and the beneficial. During those years I also saw him work his magic on many others. Since then I’ve had occasion to realize how extraordinary it was to have the undistracted attention of such a great (and busy) master for so long and how uniquely gifted he was in helping sentient beings. I left the robes and Ajahn Chah in 1977, yet over the years I’ve gone back again and again, to monasteries in Thailand, England, and United States. In 1998, at the suggestion of Ajahn Pasanno of Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California, I contacted Shambhala Publications and embarked on translation of Ajahn Chah’s teaching that ended up in 2001 as Being Dharma: The essence of the Buddha’s Teachings. Since then, I’ve found myself unable to stay away from Ajahn Chah’s teachings, and I’ve had what is probably the not uncommon experience of seeing my awe, reverence, and appreciation for this great master continue to grow. So it was most welcome when I heard that friend in Melbourne, Australia, wished to publish some of these more recent translations.
‘Everything is teaching us’ summarizes Ajahn Chah’s approach quite neatly. Showing us the immediacy of the Dhamma, he demystified the concepts of Buddhism so that almost anyone who listened could get the point, be they barely literate farmers or highly educated city people, Thais or Westerners. Yet nothing was compromised, and though his unmatched skill people usually got more than bargained for.
He taught villagers how to manage their family lives and finances, yet he might be just as likely to tell them about making causes for realization of Nibbana. He could instruct a visiting group on the basics of morality, without moralizing and in a way that was uplifting, but would gently remind them of their morality at the end of infusing them with his infectious happiness; or he might scold the daylights out of local monastic and laypeople. He could start a discourse by expounding the most basic Buddhist ideas and seamlessly move on to talking about ultimate reality.
Surprises were always in store in the way he taught and the way he trained. He frequently changed the routine in his monastery. He wasn’t easy to pin down or classify. Sometimes he emphasized monastic life, pointing out its many advantages, yet he gave profound teachings to laypeople and showed real respect for anyone with a sincere interest, anyone who made effort in practice. He sometimes taught about the jhana and emphasized the need for concentration, while at other times he pointed out that mere tranquil abiding is a dead end and that for real insight practice, Samadhi need not be very great His treatment of the monastic discipline could be just puzzling. But those who stayed close to him and patiently sought out his real intent found a wholeness beyond the seeming contradictions.
Ajahn Chah’s monasteries were known for strictness as well as a certain flexibility rooted in a reverence for the path of practice laid down by the Lord Buddha, along with an intensely practical approach that sought to realize the essence of what the Buddha taught, which is liberation. This might be worth keeping in mind while reading the teachings; Ajahn Chah gives us the ‘bad news’ about the shortcomings of ordinary, worldly existence and emphasizes renunciation as the key, yet his only aim was liberation. As said, “Making offerings, listening to teachings, practicing meditation, whatever we do should be done for the purpose of developing wisdom. Developing wisdom is for the purpose of liberation, freedom from all these conditions and phenomena.” And that was what the embodied. He manifested a joyous, vibrant freedom that spoke volumes about the worth of the Buddha’s teachings.
Ajahn Chah didn’t prepare his talks or teach from notes, nor did he give series of talks. Sometimes a single talk will cover many aspects of the path. Many of the teachings have a rambling, stream of consciousness (perhaps ‘stream of wisdom’ describe it better) quality, and it is valid to open them anywhere. Some talks seem to go off on tangents, only to come back to an underlying theme, while others take time to warm up to the main theme and then develop it relentlessly. So this book need not be read from the beginning, and the individual talks need not be read beginning to end. Feel free to open the anywhere and enjoy the glow of Ajahn Chah’s wisdom. But please don’t read in hurry or merely enjoy Ajahn Chah’s rhetorical skill. He was a gifted speaker, and the flow of his words can be entertaining, even mesmerizing, but his teachings are rich in meaning, and the full import is to be had by reading and contemplating, and by coming back to read again sometime later on. Read with a discerning spirit, not taking anything on his say-so. “”These who easily believe others are said by the Buddha to be foolish,” was one of his frequent admonitions. He urged everyone to put the teaching into practice and understand them through experience rather than just taking them as an object of intellectual curiosity.
I apologize in advance for any vagueness in my translation. When ordinary people try to render the words of an enlightened master into another language, something is inevitably lost. I wish to thank Ajahn Pasanno of Abhayagori Monastery, California, for his assistance in helping me with Dhamma and language questions. If this volume can point something out to help even a few people more about their own minds and encourage them on the path to liberation, the efforts to produce it will have been most worthwhile.
About Being Careful
In a grove of bamboo, the old leaves pile up around the trees, then they decompose and become fertilizer. But it doesn’t look like anything good at all.
The Buddha taught t see the body in the body. What does this mean? We are all familiar with the parts of the body such as hair, nails, teeth and skin. So how do we see the body in the body? If we recognize all these things as being impermanent, unsatisfactory and non-self, that’s what is called ‘seeing the body in the body.’ Then it isn’t necessary to go into detail and meditate on the separate parts. It’s like having fruit in a basket. If we have already counted the piece of fruit, then we know what’s there, and when we need to, we can pick up the basket and take it away, and all the pieces come with it. We know the fruit is all there, so we don’t have to count it again.
Having meditated on the thirty-two part parts of the body, and recognized them as something not stable or permanent, we no longer need to weary ourselves separating them like this and meditating in such detail. Just as with the basket of fruit --- we don’t have to dump all the fruit out and count it again and again. But we do carry the basket along to our destination, walking mindfully and carefully, taking care not to stumble and fall.
When we see the body in the body, which means we see the Dhamma in the body, knowing our =own and others’ bodies as impermanent phenomena, then we don’t need detailed explanations. Sitting here, we have mindfulness constantly in control, knowing things as they are, and meditation then becomes quite simple. It’s the same if we meditate on Buddho --- if we understand what Buddho really is, then we don’t need to repeat the word ‘Buddho.’ It means having full knowledge and firm awareness. This is meditation.
Still, meditation is generally not well understood, we practice in a group, but we don’t know what it’s all about. Some people think meditation is really hard to do. “I come to the monastery, but I can’t sit. I don’t have much endurance. My legs hurt, my back aches, I’m in pain all over.” So they give up on it and don’t come anymore, thinking they can’t do it.
But in fact Samadhi is not sitting. Samadhi isn’t walking. It isn’t lying down or standing. Sitting, walking, closing the eyes, opening the eyes, these are all mere actions. Having your eyes closed doesn’t necessarily mean you’re practicing Samadhi. It could just mean that you’re drowsy and dull. If you’re sitting with your eye closed but you’re falling asleep, your head bobbing all over and your mouth hanging open, that’s not sitting in Samadhi. It’s sitting with your eyes closed. Samadhi and closed eyes are two separate matters. Real Samadhi can be practiced with open or eyes closed. You can be sitting, walking, standing or lying down.
Samadhi means the mind is firmly focused, with all-encompassing mindfulness, restraint and caution. You are constantly aware of right and wrong, constantly watching all conditions arising in the mind. When it shoots off to think of something, having a mood o aversion or longing, you are aware of that. Some people get discouraged: “I just can’t do it. As soon as I sit, my mind starts thinking of home. That’s evil (Thai: babh).” Hey! If just that much is evil, the Buddha never would have become Buddha. He spent five years struggling with his mind, thinking of his home and his family. It was only after six years that he awakened.
Some people feel that these sudden arising of thought are wrong or evil. You may have an impulse to kill someone. But you are aware of it in the next instant, you realize that killing is wrong, so you stop and refrain. Is there harm in this? What do you think? Or if you have a thought about stealing something and that is followed by a strong recollection that to do is wrong, and so you refrain from acting on it --- is that bad kamma? It is not that every time you have an impulse you instantly accumulate bad kamma. Otherwise, how could there be any way to liberation? Impulses are merely impulses. Thoughts are merely thoughts. In the first instance, you haven’t created anything yet. In the second instance, if you act on it with body, speech or mind, then you are creating something. Avija (ignorance) has taken control. If you have the impulse to steal and then you are aware of yourself and aware that this would be wrong, this is wisdom, and there is vijja (knowledge) instead. The mental impulse is not consummated.
This is timely awareness, of wisdom arising and informing our experience. If there is the first mind-moment of wanting to steal something and then we act on it, that is the Dhamma of delusion; the actions of body, speech and mind that follow the impulse will bring negative results
This is how it is. Merely having the thoughts is not negative kamma. If we don’t have any thoughts, how will wisdom develop? Some people simply want to sit with a blank mind. That’s wrong understanding.
I’m talking about Samadhi that is accompanied but wisdom. In fact, the Buddha didn’t wish for a lot of Samadhi. He didn’t want jhana and samapatti. He saw Samadhi as one component factor of the path. Sila, Samadhi ad panna are components or ingredient, like ingredients used in cooking. We use spices in cooking to make food tasty. The point isn’t the spices themselves, but the food we eat. Practicing Samadhi is the same, the Buddha’s teachers, Uddaka and Alara, put heavy emphasis on practicing the jhana, and attaining various kinds of powers like clairvoyance. But if you get that far, it’s hard to undo. Some places teach this deep tranquility, to sit with delight in quietude. The meditators then get intoxicated by their Samadhi. If they have sila, they get intoxicated by their sila. If they walk the path, they become intoxicated by the path, dazzled by the beauty and wonders they experience, and they don’t reach the real destination.
The Buddha said that this is subtle error. Still, it’s something correct for those on a coarse level. But actually what the Buddha wanted was for us to have an appropriate measure of Samadhi, without getting stuck there. After we train in and develop Samadhi, then Samadhi should develop wisdom.
Samadhi that is on the level of samatha --- tranquility ---- is like a rock covering grass. In Samadhi that is sure and stable, even when the eyes are opened, wisdom is there. When wisdom has been born, it encompasses and knows (‘rule’) all things. So the Teacher did not want those refines levels of concentration and cessation, because they become a diversion and the path is forgotten.
So what is necessary is not to be attached to sitting or any other particular posture. Samadhi doesn’t reside in having the eyes closed, the eyes open, or in sitting, standing, walking or lying down. Samadhi pervade all postures and activities older persons, who often can’t sit well, can contemplate especially well and practice Samadhi easily; they too can develop a lot of wisdom.
How is it that they can develop wisdom? Everything is rousing them. When they open their eyes, they don’t see things as clearly as they used. Their teeth give them trouble and fall out. Their bodies ache most of the time. Just that is the place of study. So really, meditation is easy for old folks. Meditation is hard for youngsters. Their teeth are strong, so they can enjoy their food. They sleep soundly. Their faculties are intact and the world is fun and exciting to them, so they get deluded in big way. For the old ones, when they chew on something hard they’re soon in pain. Right there the devaduta (divine messengers are talking to them; they’re teaching them every day. When they open their eyes their sight is fuzzy. In the morning their backs ache. In the evening their legs hurt. That’s it! This is really an excellent subject to study. Some of you older people will say you can’t meditate. What do you want to meditate on? Who will you learn meditation from?
This is seeing the body in the body and sensation in sensation. Are you seeing these or are you running away? Saying you can’t practice because you’re too old is only due to wrong understanding? The question is, are things clear to you? Elderly persons have a lot of thinking, a lot of sensation, a lot of discomfort and pain. Everything appears! If they meditate, they can really testify to it. So I say that meditation is easy for old folks. They can do it best. It’s like the way everyone says, “When I’m old, I’ll go to the monastery.” If you understand this, it’s true alright. You have to see it within yourself. When you sit, it’s true; when you stand up, it’s true; when you walk, it’s true. Everything is a hassle, everything is presenting obstacles --- and everything is teaching you. Isn’t this so? Can you just get up and walk so easily now? When you stand up, it’s “Oy!” Or haven’t you noticed? And it’s “Oy!” when you walk. It’s prodding you.
When you’re young can just stand up and walk, going on your way. But you don’t really know anything. When you’re old, every time you stand up it’s “Oy!” Isn’t that what you say? “Oy! Oy!” Every time you move, you learn something. So how can you say it’s difficult to meditate? Where else is there to look? It’s all correct. The devaduta are telling you something. It’s most clear. Sankhara are telling you that they are not stable or permanent, not you or yours. They are telling you this every moment.
But we think differently. We don’t think that this is right. We entertain wrong view and our ideas are far from the truth. But actually, old person can see impermanence, suffering and lack of self, and give rise to dispassion and disenchantment --- because the evidence is right there within them all the time. I think that’s good.
Having the inner sensitivity that is always aware of right and wrong is called Buddha. It’s not necessary to be continually repeating “Buddho.” You’ve counted the fruit in your basket. Every time you sit down, you don’t have to go to the trouble of spilling out the fruit and counting it again. You can leave it in the basket. But someone with mistaken attachment will keep counting. He’ll stop under a tree, spill it out and count, and put it back in the basket. Then he’ll walk on to the next stopping place and do it again. But he’s just counting the same fruit. This is craving itself. He’s afraid that if he doesn’t count, there will be some mistake. We are afraid that if we don’t keep saying “Buddho,” we’ll be mistaken. How are we mistaken? It’s only the person who doesn’t know how much fruit there is who needs to count. Once you know, you can take it easy and just leave it in the basket. When you’re sitting, you just sit. When you’re lying down, you just lie down because your fruit is all there with you.
Practicing virtue and creating merit, we say, “Nibbana paccayo hotu” --- may it be a condition for realizing Nibbana. As a condition for realizing, making offerings is good. Keeping precepts is good. Practicing meditation is good. Listening to Dhamma teachings is good. May they become conditions for realizing Nibbana.
But what is Nibbana all about anyway? Nibbana means not grasping. Nibbana means not giving meaning to things. Nibbana means letting go. Making offerings and doing meritorious deeds, observing moral precepts, and meditating on loving-kindness, all these are for getting rid of defilements and craving, for making the mind empty --- empty of self-cherishing, empty of concepts of self and other, and for not wishing for anything --- not wishing to become anything.
Nibbana paccayo hotu: make it become a cause for Nibbana. Practicing generosity is giving up, letting go. Listening to teachings is for the purpose of gaining knowledge to give up and let go, to uproot clinging to what is good and what is bad. At first we meditate to become aware of the wrong and the bad. When we recognize that, we give up and we practice what is good. Then, when some good is achieved, don’t get attached to that good. Remain halfway in the good, or above the good --- don’t dwell under the good. If we are under good then the good pushes us around, and we become slaves to it. We become the slaves, and it forces us to create all sorts of kamma and demerit. It can lead us into anything, and the result will be the same kind of unhappiness and unfortunate circumstances we found ourselves in before.
Give up evil and develop merit --- give up the negative and develop what is positive. Developing merit, remain above merit. Remain above merit and demerit, above good and evil. Keep on practicing with a mind that is giving, letting go and getting free. It’s the same no matter what you are do it with a mind of letting go, then it is a cause for realizing Nibbana. Free of desire, free of defilement, free of craving, then it all merges with the path, meaning Noble Truth, meaning saccadhamma. It is the four Noble Truths, having the wisdom that knows tanha, which is the source of dukkha. Kamatanha bhavatanha, vibhavatanha (sensual desire, desire for becoming, desire not to be): these are the origination, the source. If you go there, if you are wishing for anything or wanting to be anything, you are nourishing dukkha, bring dukkha into existence, because this is what hives birth to dukkha. These are the causes. If we create the cause of dukkha, then will come about. The cause desire and creates all sorts of kamma and working because of it, and thus suffering is born. Simply speaking, dukkha is the child desire. Desire is the parent of dukkha. When there are parents, dukkha can be born. Where there are no parents, dukkha cannot come about --- there will be no offspring.
This is where meditation should be focused. We should see all the forms of tanha, which cause us to have desires. But talking about desire can be confusing. Some people get the idea that any kind of desire, such as desire for food and the material requisites for life, is tanha. But we can have this kind of desire in an ordinary and natural way. When you’re hungry and desire food, you can take a meal and be done with it. That’s quite ordinary. This is desire that within boundaries and doesn’t have ill effects. This kind of desire isn’t sensuality. If it’s sensuality then it becomes something more than desire. There will be craving for more things to consume, seeking out flavors, seeking enjoyment in ways that bring hardship and trouble, such as drinking liquor and beer.
Some tourists told me about a place where people eat live monkey’s brains. They put a monkey in the middle of the table and cut open its skull. Then they spoon out the brain to eat. That’s eating like demons or hungry ghosts. It’s not eating in a natural or ordinary way. Doing things like this, eating becomes tanha. They say that the blood of monkey makes them strong. So they try to get hold of such animals and when they eat them they’re drinking liquor and beer too. This isn’t ordinary eating. It’s the way of ghosts and demons mired in sensual craving. It’s eating coals, eating everything everywhere. This sort of desire is what called tanha. There is no moderation. Speaking, thinking, desiring, everything such people do goes to excess. If our eating, sleeping, and other necessary activities are done in moderation, then there is no harm in them. So you should be aware of yourselves in regard to these things; then they won’t become a source of suffering. If we know how to be moderate and thrifty in our needs, we can be comfortable.
Practicing meditation and creating merit and virtue, are not really such difficult things to do, provided we understand them well. What is wrongdoing? What is merit? Merit is what is good and beautiful, not harming ourselves with our thinking, speaking, and acting. Then there is happiness. Nothing negative is being created. Merit is like this. Skillfulness is like this.
It’s the same with making offering and giving charity. When we give, what I that we are trying to give away? Giving is for the purpose of destroying self-cherishing, belief in a self along with selfness. Selfishness is powerful, extreme suffering. Selfish people always want to be better than others and to get more than others. A simple example is how, after they eat, they don’t want to wash their dishes. They let someone do it. If they take off. This is selfishness, not being responsible, and it puts a burden on others. What it really amounts to is someone who doesn’t care about himself. In practicing generosity, we are trying to cleanse our hearts of this attitude. This is called creating merit through giving, in order to have a mind compassion and caring towards all ling beings without exception.
If we people can free of just this one thing, selfishness, then we will be like the Lord Buddha. He wasn’t out for himself, but sought the good of all. If we people have the path but fruit arising in our hearts like this we can certainly progress with this freedom form selfishness then all the activities of various deeds, generosity, and meditation will lead to liberation. Whoever practices like this will become free and go beyond --- beyond all convention and appearance.
The basic principles of practice are not beyond our understanding. In practicing generosity, for example, we lack wisdom there won’t be any merit. Without understanding, we think that generosity merely giving things. “When I feel like giving, I’ll give. If I feel like stealing something, I’ll steal it. Then if I feel generous, I’ll give something.” It’s like having a barrel full of water. You scoop out a bucketful, and then you pour back in a bucketful. Scoop it out again, pour it in again, scoop it out and pour it in --- like this. When will you empty the barrel? Can you see an end to it? Can you see such practice becoming a cause for realizing Nibbana? Will the barrel become empty? One scoop out, one scoop in --- can you see when it will be finished?
Going back and forth like this is vatta, the cycle itself. If we’re talking about really letting go, giving up food as well as evil, then there’s only scooping out. Even if there’s only scooping out. Even if there’s only a little bit, you scoop it out. You don’t put in anything more, and you keep scooping out. Even if you only have a small scoop to use, you do what you can and in this way the time will come when the barrel is empty. If you’re scooping out a bucket and pouring back a bucket, scooping out and then pouring back --- well, think about it. When will you see an empty barrel? This Dhamma isn’t something distant. It’s right here in the barrel. You can do it at home. Try it. Can you empty a water barrel like that? Do it all day tomorrow and see what happens.
“Giving up all evil, practicing what is good, purifying the mind.” Giving up wrongdoing first, we then start to develop the good. What is the good and meritorious? Where is it? It’s like fish in the water. If we scoop all the water out, we’ll get the fish --- that’s a simple way to put it. If we scoop out and pour back in, the fish remain in the barrel. If we don’t remove all forms of wrongdoing, we won’t see what is true and right. Scooping out the pouring back, scooping out and pouring back, we only remain as we are. Going back and forth like this, we only waste our time and whatever we do is meaningless. Listening to teachings is meaningless. Making offerings is meaningless. All our efforts to practice are in vain. We don’t understand the principles of Buddha’s way, so our actions don’t bear the desired fruit.
When the Buddha taught about practice, he wasn’t only talking about something for ordained people. He was talking about practicing well, practicing correctly. Supatipanno means those who practice well. Ujupatipanno means those who practice directly. Nayapatipanno means those who practice for the realization of path, fruition and Nibbana. Samicipatipanno are those who practice inclined towards truth. It could be anyone. These are the Sangha of true disciples (savaka) of the Lord Buddha. Laywomen living at home can be savaka. Laymen can be savaka. Bringing these qualities to fulfillment is what makes one a savaka. One can be a true disciple of the Buddha and realize enlightenment.
Most of us in the Buddhist fold don’t have such complete understanding. Our knowledge doesn’t go this far. We do our various activities thinking that we will get some kind of merit from them. We think that listening to teachings or making offering is meritorious. That’s what we’re told. But someone who gives offerings to ‘get’ merit is making bad kamma.
You can’t quite understand this. Someone who gives in order to get merit has instantly accumulated bad kamma. If you give I order to let go and free the mind, that bring you merit. If you do it to get something, that’s bad kamma.
Listening to teaching to really understand the Buddha’s way is difficult. The Dhamma becomes hard to understand when the practice the people do --- keeping precepts, sitting in meditation, giving --- is for getting something in return. We want merit, we want something. Well, if something can be gotten, then who gets it? We get it. When that is lost, whose thing is it that’s lost? The person who doesn’t have something doesn’t lose anything. And when it’s lost, who suffers over it?
Don’t you think that living your life to get things brings you suffering? Otherwise you can just go on as before trying to get everything, and yet, if we make the mind empty, then we gain everything. Higher realms, Nibbana and all their accomplishments --- we gain all of it. In making offering, we don’t have any attachment or aim; the mind is empty and relaxed. We can let go and put down, it’s like carrying a log and complaining it’s heavy. If someone tells you to put it down, you’ll say, “If you put it down, I won’t have anything.” Well, now you do have something --- you have heaviness. But you don’t have lightness. So do you want lightness, or do want to keep carrying? One person says to put it down, the other says he’s afraid he won’t have anything. They’re talking past each other.
We want happiness, we want ease, we want tranquility and peace. It means we want lightness. We carry the log, and then someone sees us doing this and tells us to drop it. We say we can’t because what would we have then? But the other person says that if we drop it, then we can get something better. The two have a hard time communicating.
If we make offerings and practice good deeds in order to get something, it doesn’t work out. What we get is becoming and birth. It isn’t a cause for realizing Nibbana. Nibbana is giving and letting go. If we are trying to get, to hold on, to give meaning to things, that isn’t a cause for realizing Nibbana. The Buddha wanted us to look here, at this empty place of letting go. This is merit. This is skillfulness.
When we practice any sort of merit and virtue, once we have done that, we should feel that our part is done. We shouldn’t carry it further. We do it for the purpose of giving up defilements and craving. We don’t do it for the purpose of creating defilements, craving and attachment. Then where will we go? We don’t go anywhere. Our practice is correct and true. Most of us Buddhists, though we follow the forms of practice and learning, have a hard time understanding this kind of talk. It’s because Mara, meaning ignorance, meaning craving --- the desire to get, to have, and to be --- enshrouds the mind. We only find temporary happiness. For example, when we are filled with hatred towards someone it takes over our minds and give us no peace. We think about the person all the time, thinking what we can do to strike out at him. The thinking never stops. Then one day we get a chance to go to this house and curse him and tell him off. That gives us some release. Does that make an end of our defilements? We found a way to let off steam and we feel better for it. But we haven’t gotten rid of the affliction of anger, have we? There is some happiness in defilement and craving, but it’s like this. We’re still storing the defilement inside and when the conditions are right, it will flare up again even worse than before. Then we will want to find someone temporary release again. Do the defilements ever get finished in this way?
It’s similar when someone’s spouse or children die, or when people suffer big financial loss. They drink to relieve their sorrow. They go to a movie to relieve their sorrow. Does it really relieve the sorrow? The sorrow actually grows; but for the time being they can forget about what happened so they call it a way to cure their misery. It’s like if you have a cut on the bottom of your foot that makes walking painful. Anything that contacts it hurts and so you limp along complaining of the discomfort. But if you see a tiger coming your way, you’ll take off and start running without thought of your cut. Fear of the tiger is much more powerful than the pain in your foot, so it’s as if the pain is gone. The fear made it something small.
You might experience problems at work or at home that seem so big. Then you get drunk and in that drunken state of more powerful delusion, those problems no longer trouble you so much. You think it solved your problems and relieved your unhappiness. But when you sober up the old problems are back. So what happened to your solution? You keep suppressing the problem with drink and they keep on coming back. You might end up with cirrhosis of the liver, but you don’t get rid of the problems; and then one day you are dead.
There is some comfort and happiness here; it’s the happiness of fools. It’s the way that fools stop their suffering. There’s no wisdom here. Theses different confused conditions are mixed in the heart that has a feeling of well-being. If the mind is allowed to follow its moods and tendencies it feels some happiness. But this happiness is always storing unhappiness within it. Each time it erupts our suffering and despair will worse. It’s like having around if we treat it on the surface but inside it’s still infected, it’s not cured. It looks okay for a while, but when the infection spreads we have to start cutting. If the inner infection is never cured we can be operating on the surface again and again with no end in sight. What can be seen from the outside may look fine for a while, but inside it’s the same as before.
The way of the world is like this. Worldly matters are never finished. So the laws of the world in the various societies are constantly resolving issues. New laws are always being established to deal with different situations and problems. Something is dealt with for a while, but there’s always a need for further laws and solutions. There’s never the internal resolution, only surface improvement. The infection still exists within, so there’s always need for more cutting. People are only on the surface, in their words and their appearance. Their words are good and their faces look kind, but their minds aren’t so good.
When we get on a train and see some acquaintance there we say, “Oh, how good to see you! I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately! I’ve been planning to visit you!” But it’s just talk. We don’t really mean it. We’re being good on the surface, but we’re not so good inside. We say the words, but then as soon as we’ve had a smoke and taken a cup of coffee with him, we split. Then if we run into him one day in the future, we’ll say the same things again: “Hey, good to see you! How have you been? I’ve been meaning to go visit you, but I just haven’t had the time.” That’s the way it is. People are superficially good, but they’re usually not so good inside.
The Great Teacher taught Dhamma and vinaya. It is complete and comprehensive. Nothing surpasses it and nothing in it need be changed or adjusted, because it is the ultimate. It’s complete, so this is where we can stop. There’s nothing to add or subtract, because it is something of the nature not to be increased or decreased. It is just right. It is true.
So we Buddhists come to hear Dhamma teachings and study to learn these truths. If we know them then our minds will enter the Dhamma; the Dhamma our minds. Whenever a person’s mind enters the Dhamma then the person has well-being, the person has a mind a peace. The mind then has a way to resolve difficulties, no way to degenerate. When pain and illness afflict the body, the mind has many ways to resolve the suffering. It can resolve it naturally, understanding this as natural and not falling into depression or fear over it. Gaining something, we don’t get lodt in delight. Losing it, we don’t get excessively upset, but rather we understand that the nature of all things is that having appeared they then decline and disappear. With such an attitude we can make our way in the world. We are lokavidu, knowing the world clearly. Then samudaya, the cause of suffering, is not created, and tanha is not born. There is vijja, knowledge of things as they really are, and it illumines the world. It illumines praise and blame. It illumines gain and loss. It illumines rank and disrepute. It clearly illumines birth, aging, illness, and death in the mind of the practitioner.
That is someone who has reached the Dhamma. Such people no longer struggle with life and are no longer constantly in search of solutions. They resolve what can be resolved, acting as is appropriate. That is how the Buddha taught: he taught those individuals who could be taught. Those who could not be taught he discarded and let go of. Even had he not discarded them, they were still discarding themselves --- so dropped them. You might get the idea from this that the Buddha must have been lacking in metta to discard people. Hey! If you toss out a rotten mango are you lacking in metta? You can’t make any use of it, that’s all. There was no way to get through to such people. The Buddha is praised as one with supreme wisdom. He didn’t merely gather everyone and everything together in a confused mess. He was possessed of the divine eye and could clearly see all things as they really are. He was the knower of the world.
As knower of the world he saw danger in the round of samsara. For us who are his follower it’s the same. If we know all things as they are, that will bring us well-being. Where exactly are those things that cause us to have happiness and suffering? Think about it well. They are only things that we create ourselves. Whenever we create the idea that something is us or ours, that is when we suffer. Things can bring us harm or benefit, depending on our understanding. So the Buddha taught us to pay attention to ourselves, to our own actions and to the creations of our minds. Whenever we have extreme love or aversion to anyone or anything, whenever we particularly anxious, that will lead us into great suffering. This is important, so take a good look at it. Investigate these feeling of strong love or aversion, and then take a step back. If you get too close, they’ll bite. Do you hear this? If you grab at and caress these things, they bite and they kick. If you’re careful when it kicks out, it won’t kick you. You have to feed it and take care of it, but you should be smart enough to do that without getting bitten. Love for children, relatives, wealth and possessions will bite. Do you understand this? When you feed it, don’t get too close. When you give it water, don’t get too close. Pull on the rope when you need to. This is the way of Dhamma, recognizing impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and lack of self, recognizing the danger and employing caution and restraint in a mindful way.
Ajahn Tongrat didn’t teach a lot; he always told us, “Be really careful! Be really careful!” That’s how he taught. “Be really careful! If you’re not really careful, you’ll catch it on the chin!” This is really how it is. Even if he didn’t say it, it’s still how it is. If you’re not really careful you’ll catch it on the chin. Please understand this. It’s not someone else concern. The problem isn’t other people loving or hating us. Others far away somewhere don’t make us create kamma and suffering. It’s our possessions, our homes, our families where we have to pay attention. Or what do you think? These days, where do you experience suffering? Where are you involved in love, hate and fear? Control yourselves take care of yourselves. Watch out you don’t get bitten. If they don’t bite they might kick. Don’t think that these things won’t bite or kick. If you get bitten, make sure it’s only a little bit. Don’t get kicked and bitten to pieces. Don’t try to tell yourselves there’s no danger. Possessions, wealth, fame, loved ones, all these can kick and bite you’re not mindful. If you are mindful you’ll be ease. Be cautious and restrained. When the mind starts grasping at things and making a big deal of them, you have to stop it. It will argue with you, but you have you put your foot down. Stay in the middle as the mind comes and goes. Put sensual indulgence on one side. Put self-torment away on the side. Love to one side, hate to the other side. Happiness to one side, suffering to the other side. Remain in the middle without letting the mind go either direction.
Like these bodies of ours: earth, water, fire and wind --- where is the person> there isn’t any person. These few different things are put together and it’s called a person. That’s a falsehood. It’s not real; it’s only real in the way of convention. When the time comes the elements return to their old state. We’ve only come to stay with them for a while so we have to let them return. The part that is earth, send back to be earth. The part that is water, send back to be water. The part that is fire, send back to be fire. The part that is wind, send back to be wind. Or will you try to go with them and keep something? We come to rely on them for a while; when it’s time for them to go, let them go. When they come, let them come. All these phenomena (sabhava) appear and then disappear. That’s all. We understand that all these things are flowing, constantly appearing and disappearing.
Making offering, listening to teachings, practicing meditation, whatever we do should be done for the purpose of developing wisdom. Developing wisdom is for the purpose of liberation, freedom from all these conditions and phenomena. When we are free then no matter what our situation, we don’t have to suffer. If we have children, we don’t have to suffer. If we work, we don’t have to suffer. If we have a house, we don’t have to suffer. It’s like a lotus in the water. “I grow in the water, but I don’t suffer because of the water. I can’t drowned or burned, because I live in the water.” When the water ebbs and flows it doesn’t affect the lotus. The water and the lotus can exist together without conflict. They are together yet separate, whatever is in the water nourishes the lotus and helps it grow into something beautiful.
Here it’s the same for us. Wealth, home, family, and all defilements of mind, they no longer defile us but rather they help us develop parami, the spiritual perfection. In a grove of bamboo the old leaves piles up around the trees and when the rain falls they decompose and become fertilizer. Shoots grow and trees develop because of the fertilizer, and we have a source of food and income. But it didn’t look like anything good at all. So be careful --- in the dry season, if you set fires in the forest they’ll burn up all the future fertilizer and the fertilizer will turn into fire that burn the bamboo. Then you won’t have any bamboo shoots to eat. So if you burn the forest you burn the bamboo fertilizer. If you burn the fertilizer you burn the trees and the grove dies.
Do you understand> you and your families can live in happiness and harmony with your homes and possessions, free of danger from floods or fire. If a family is flooded or burned it is only because of the people in that family. It’s just like the bamboo’s fertilizer. The grove can be burned because of it, or the grove can grow beautifully because of it.
Things will grow beautifully and then no beautifully and then become beautiful again. Growing and degenerating, then growing again and degenerating again --- this is the way of worldly phenomena. If we know growth and degeneration for what they are we can find a conclusion to them. Things grow and reach their limit. Things degenerate and reach they limit. But we remain constant. It’s like when there was a fire in Ubon city. People bemoaned the destruction and shed a lot of tears over it. But things were rebuilt after the fire and the new buildings are actually bigger and a lot better than we had before, and people enjoy the city more now.
This is how it is the cycles of loss and development. Everything has its limits. So the Buddha wanted us to always be contemplating. While we still live we should think about death. Don’t consider it something far away. Of you’re poor, don’t try to harm or exploit others. Face the situation and work hard to help myself. If you’re well off, don’t become forgetful in your wealth and comfort. It’s not very difficult for everything to be lost. A rich person can become a pauper in a couple of days. A pauper can become a rich person. It’s all owing to the fact that these conditions are impermanent and unstable. Thus, the Buddha said, “Appamado maccuno padam: Heedlessness is the way to death.” The heedless are like the head. Don’t be heedless! All beings and all sankhara are unstable and impermanent. Don’t form any attachment to them! Happy or sad, progressing or falling apart, in the end it all come to the same place. Please understand this.
Living in the world and having this perspective we can be free of danger. Whatever we may gain or accomplish in the world because of our good kamma, it is still of the world and subject to decay and loss, so don’t get too carried away by it. It’s like a beetle scratching at the earth. It cab scratch up a pile that’s a lot bigger than itself, but it’s still only a pile of dirt. If it works hard it makes a deep hole in ground, but it’s still a hole in dirt. If a buffalo drops a load of dung there, it will be bigger than the beetle’s pile of earth, but isn’t anything that reaches to the sky. It’s all dirt. Worldly accomplishments are like this. No matter how the beetles work, they’re just involved in dirt, making holes and piles.
People who have good worldly kamma have the intelligence to do well in the world. But no matter how well they do they’re still living in the world. All the things they do are worldly and have their limits, like the beetle scratching away at the earth. The hole may go deep, but it’s in the earth. The pile may get high, but it’s just a pile of dirt. Doing well, getting a lot, we’re just doing well and getting a lot in the world.
Please understand this and try to develop detachment. If you don’t gain much, be contented, understanding that’s only the worldly. If you gain a lot, understand that it’s only the worldly. Contemplate these truths and don’t be heedless. See both sides of things, not getting stuck on one side. When something delights you, hold part of yourself back in reserve, because that delight won’t last. When you are happy, don’t go completely over to its side because soon enough you’ll be back on the other side with unhappiness.
It Can Be Done
So we will have the exact same feeling about our existence in this world. But we will not cry over things. We will not be tormented or burdened by them..
At this time please determine your minds to listen to the Dhamma. Today is the traditional day of dhammasavana. It is the appropriate time for us, the host of Buddhists, to study the Dhamma in order to increase our mindfulness and wisdom. Giving and receiving the teachings is something we have been doing for a long time. The activities we usually perform on this day, chanting homage to the Buddha, taking moral precepts, meditating and listening to teachings, should be understood as methods and principles for spiritual development. They are not anything more than this.
When it comes to taking precepts, for example, a monk will proclaim the precepts and the laypeople will vow to undertake them. Don’t misunderstand what is going on. The truth is that morality is not something that can be given. It can’t really be requested or received from someone. We can’t give it to someone else. In our vernacular we hear people say, “The venerable monk gave the precepts” and “we received the precepts.” We talk like this here in the countryside and so it has become our habitual way of understanding. If we think like this, that we come to receive precepts from the monks on the lunar observance days and that if the monks won’t give precepts then we don’t have morality, that is only a tradition of delusion that we have inherited from our ancestors. Thinking in this way means that we give up our own responsibility, not having firm trust and conviction in ourselves. Then it gets passed down to the next generation, and they too come to ‘receive’ precepts from the monks. And the monks come to believe that they are the ones who ‘give the precepts to the laity. In fact morality and precepts are not like that. They are not something to be ‘given’ or ‘received’; but on ceremonial occasions of making merit and the like we use this as a ritual from according to tradition and employ the terminology.
In truth morality resides with the intentions of people. If you have the conscious determination to refrain from harmful activities and wrongdoing by way of body and speech then morality is coming about within you. You should know it within yourself. It is okay to take the vows with another person. You can also recollect the precepts by yourself. If you don’t know what they are then you can request them from someone else. It is not something very complicated or distant. So really whenever we wish to receive morality and Dhamma we have them right then. It is just like the air that surrounds us everywhere. Whenever we breathe we take in. all manner of good and evil is like that. If we wish to do good, we can do it anywhere, at anytime. We can do it alone or together with others. Evil is the same. We can do it with a large or small group, in hidden or open place. It is like this.
These are things that are already in existence. But as for morality, this is something that we should consider normal for all humans to practice. A person who has no morality is no different from an animal. If you decide to live like an animal then of course there is no good or evil for you, because an animal doesn’t have any knowledge of such things. A cat catches mice, but we don’t say it is doing evil, because it has n no concepts or knowledge of good or bad, right or wrong. These beings are outside the circle of human beings. It is the animal realm. The Buddha pointed out that this group is just living according to the animal kind of kamma. Those who understand right and wrong, good and evil, are humans. The Buddha taught his Dhamma for humans. If we people don’t have morality and knowledge of these things then we are not much different from animals, so it is appropriate that we study and learn about them and make ourselves able. This is taking advantage of the precious accomplishment of human existence and bringing it to fulfillment.
The profound Dhamma is the teaching that morality is necessary. Then when there is morality, we have a foundation on which we can progress in Dhamma. Morality means the precepts as to what is forbidden and what is permissible. Dhamma refers to humans knowing about nature --- how things exist according to nature. Nature is something we do not compose. It exists as it is according to its conditions. A simple example is animals. A certain species, such as peacock, is born with its various patterns and colours. They were not created like that by human or modified by humans; they are just born that way according to nature. This is a little example of how it is in nature.
All things of nature are existing in the world --- this is still talking about understanding from a worldly viewpoint. The Buddha taught Dhamma for us to know nature, to let go of it and let it exist according to its conditions. This is talking about the external material world. As to namadhamma, meaning the mind, it cannot be left to follow it own condition. It has to be trained. In the end we can say that mind is the teacher of the body and speech, so it needs to be well trained. Letting it go according to its natural urges just makes one an animal. It has to be instructed and trained. It should come to know nature, but should not merely be left to follow nature.
We are born into this world and all of us will naturally have the afflictions desire, anger and delusion. Desire makes us crave after various things and causes the mind to be in a state of imbalance and turmoil. Nature is like that. It will just not to let the mind go after these impulses of craving. It only leads to heat and distress. It is better to train in Dhamma, in truth.
When aversion occurs in us we want to express anger towards people; it may even get to the point of physically attacking or killing people. But we don’t just ‘let it go’ according to its nature. We know the nature of what is just occurring. We see it for what it is, and teach the mind about it. This is studying Dhamma.
Delusion is the same. When it happens we are confused about things. If we just leave it as it is, then we remain in ignorance. So the Buddha told us to know nature, to teach nature, to train and adjust nature, to know exactly what nature is.
For example, people are born with physical form and mind. In the beginning these things are born, in the middle they change and in the end they are extinguished. This is ordinary; this is their nature. We cannot do much to alter these facts. We train our minds as we can and when the time comes we have to let go of it all. It is beyond the ability of humans to change this or get beyond it. The Dhamma that the Buddha taught is something to be applied while we are here, for making actions, words and thoughts correct and proper. It means he was teaching the minds of people so that they would not be deluded in regard to nature, and to conventional reality and supposition. The Teacher instructed us to see the world. His Dhamma was a teaching that is above and beyond the world. We are in the world. We were born into this world; he taught us to transcend the world and not to be a prisoner to worldly ways and habits.
It is like a diamond that falls into a muddy pit. No matter how much dirt and filth covers it, that does not destroy its radiance, the hues and the worth of it. Even though the mud is stuck to it the diamond does not lose everything, but is just as it originally was. These are two separate things.
So the Buddha taught to be above the world, which means knowing the world clearly. By ‘the world’ he did not mean so much the earth and sky and elements, but rather the mind, the wheel of samsara within the hearts of people. He meant this wheel, this world. This is the world that the Buddha knew clearly; when we talk about knowing the world clearly we are talking about these things. If it were otherwise, then the Buddha would have had to be flying everywhere to ‘know the world clearly.’ It is not like that. It is a single point. All Dhammas come down to one single point. Like people, which means men and women. If we observe one man and one woman, we know the nature of all people in the universe. They are not that different.
Or learning about that heat. If we just know this one point, the quality of being hot, then it does not matter what the source or cause of the heat is; the condition of ‘hot’ is much. Knowing clearly this one point, then wherever there may be hotness in the universe, we know it is like this. So the Buddha knew a single point and thus his knowledge encompassed the world. Knowing coldness to be a certain way, when he encountered coldness in the world, he already knew it. He taught a single point, for beings living in the world to know the world, to know the nature of the world. Just like knowing people. Knowing men and women, knowing the manner of existence of beings in the world. His knowledge was such. Knowing one point, he knew all things.
The Dhamma that the Teacher expounded was for going beyond suffering. What is the ‘going beyond suffering’ all about? What would we do to ‘escape from suffering’? It is necessary for us to do some study; we need to come and study the thinking and feeling in our hearts. Just that. It is something we presently unable to change. If we can change it we can be free of all suffering and unsatisfactoriness in life, just by changing this one point: our habitual world view, our way of thinking and feeling. If we come to have a new sense of things, a new understanding, then we transcend the old perceptions and understanding.
The authentic Dhamma of the Buddha is not something pointing far away. It teaches about atta, self, and that things are not really self. That is all. All the teachings that the Buddha gave were pointing out that ‘this is not a self, this does not belong to a self, there is no such things as ourselves or others.’ Now, when we contact this, we can’t really read it, we don’t ‘translate’ the Dhamma correctly. We still think ‘this is me, this is mine.’ We attach to things and invest them with meaning. When we do this, we can’t yet disentangle from them; the involvement deepens and the mess gets worse. If we know that there is no self, that body and mind are really anatta as the Buddha taught, then when we keep on investigating, eventually we will come to realization of actual condition of selflessness. We will genuinely realize that there is no self or other. Pleasure is merely pleasure. Feeling is merely feeling. Memory is merely memory. Thinking is merely thinking. They are all things that are ‘merely’ such. Happiness is merely happiness; suffering is merely suffering. Good is merely good, evil is merely evil. Everything exists merely thus. There is no real happiness or real suffering. There are just the merely existing conditions. Merely happy, merely suffering, merely hot, merely a being or a person. You should keep looking to see that things are only so much. Only earth, only water, only fire, only wind. We should keep on ‘reading’ these things and investigating this point. Eventually our perception will change; we will have a different feeling about things. The tightly held conviction that there is self and things belonging to self will gradually come undone. When this sense of things is removed then the opposite perception will keep increasing steadily.
When the realization of anatta comes to full measure then we will be able to relate to the things of this world --- to our most cherished possessions and involvements, to friends and relations, to wealth, accomplishments and status --- just the same as we do to our clothes. When shirts and pants are new we wear them; they get dirty and we wash them; after some time they are worn out and we discard them. There is nothing out of the ordinary there; we are constantly getting rid of the old things and starting to use new garments.
So we will have the exact same feeling about our existence in this world. We will not cry or moan over things. We will not be tormented or burdened by them. They remain the same things as they were before, but our feeling and understanding of them has changed. Now our knowledge will be exalted and we will see truth. We will have attained supreme vision and authentic knowledge of the Dhamma that we ought to know. The Buddha taught the Dhamma that we ought to know and to see. Where is the Dhamma that we ought to know and see? It is right here within us, this body and mind. We have it already; we should come to know and see it.
For example, all of us have been born into his human realm. Whatever we gained by that we are going to lose. We have seen people born and seen them die. We just see this happening, but don’t really see clearly. When there is a birth, we rejoice over it; when people die, we cry for them. There is no end. It goes on in this way and there is no end to our foolishness. Seeing birth we are foolhardy. Seeing death we are foolhardy. There is only this unending foolishness. Let’s take a look at all this. These things are natural occurrences. Contemplate the Dhamma here, the Dhamma that we should know and see. This Dhamma is existing right now. Make up your minds about this. Exert restraint and self-control. Now we are amidst the things of this life. We shouldn’t have fears of death. We should fear the lower realms. Don’t fear dying; rather be afraid of falling into hell. You should be afraid doing wrong while you still have life. These are old things we are dealing with, not new things. Some people are alive but don’t know themselves at all. They think, “What’s the big deal about what I do now; I can’t know what is going to happen when I die.” They don’t think about the new seeds they are creating for the future. They only see the old fruit. They fixate on present experience, not realizing that if there is fruit it must have come from a seed, and that within the fruit we have now are the seeds of future fruit. These are just waiting to be planted. Actions born of ignorance continue the chain in this way, but when you are eating the fruit you don’t think about all the implications.
Whenever the mind has a lot of attachment, just there will we experience intense suffering, intense grief, intense difficult. The place we experience the most problem is the place we have the most attraction, longing and concern. Please try to resolve this. Now, while you will still have life and breath, keep on looking at it and reading it until you are able to ‘translate’ it and solve the problem.
Whatever we are experiencing as part of our lives now, one day we will be parted from it. So don’t just pass the time. Practice spiritual cultivation. Take this parting, this separation and loss as your object of contemplation right now in the present, until you are clever and skilled in it, until you can see that it is ordinary and natural when there sis anxiety and regret over it have the wisdom to recognize the limits of this anxiety and regret, knowing what they are according t the truth. If you can consider things in this way then wisdom will arise. Whenever suffering occurs, wisdom can arise there, if we investigate. But people generally do not want to investigate.
Wherever pleasant or unpleasant experience happens, wisdom can arise there. If we know happiness and suffering for what they really are then know the Dhamma. If we know the Dhamma, we know the world clearly; if we know the world clearly, we know the Dhamma.
Actually, for most of us, if something is displeasing we don’t really want to know about it. We get caught in the aversion to it. If we dislike someone we don’t want to look at his face or get anywhere near him. This is the mark of foolish, unskillful person; this is not the way of good person. If we like someone the of course we want to be close to him, we make every effort to be with him, taking delight in his company. This also is foolishness. They are actually the same, like the palm and back of the hand. When we turn the hand up and see the palm, the back of the hand is hidden from sight. When we turn it over then the palm is not seen. Pleasure hides and pain hides pleasure from our sight. Wrong covers up right, right covers wrong. Just looking at one side our knowledge is not complete. Let’s do things completely while have life. Keep on looking at things, separating truth from falsehood, nothing how things really are, getting to the end of it, reaching peace. When the time comes we will be able to cut through and let go completely. Now we have to firmly attempt to separate things --- and keep trying to cut through.
The Buddha taught about hair, nails, skin and teeth. He taught us to separate here. A person who does not know about separating only knows about holding to himself. Now while we have not yet parted from these we should be skilful in meditating on them. We have not yet left this world, so we should be careful. We should contemplate a lot, make copious charitable offerings, recite the scripture a lot, practice a lot; develop insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness. Even if the mind does not want to listen we should keep on breaking things up like this and come to know in the present. This can most definite be done. One can realize knowledge that transcends the world. We are stuck in the world. This is a way to ‘destroy’ the world, though contemplating and seeing beyond the world so that we can transcend the world in our being. Even while we are living in this world our view can be above the world.
In a worldly existence one creates both good and evil. Now we try to practice virtue and give up evil. When good results come then you should not be under that good, but be able to transcend it. If you do not transcend it then you become a slave to virtue and to your concepts of what is good. It puts you in difficulty, and there will be not an end to your tears. It does not matter how much good you have practiced, if you are attached to it then you are still not free and three will be no en to tears. But one who transcends good as well as evil has no more tears to shed. They dried up. There can be an end. We should learn to use virtue, not be used by virtue.
In nutshell, the point of the teaching of the Buddha is to transform one’s view. It is possible to change it. It only requires looking at things and then it happens. Having been born we will experience aging, illness, death and separation. These things are right here. We don’t need to look up at the sky or down at the earth. The Dhamma that we need to see and to know how can be seen right there within us, every moment of every day. When there is a birth, we are filled with joy. When there is death, we grieve. That’s how we spend our lives. These are the things we need to know about, but we still have not really looked into them and seen the truth. We are stuck deep in this ignorance. We ask, “When will we see the Dhamma,” but it is right here to be seen in the present.
This is the Dhamma we should learn about and see. This is what the Buddha taught about. He did not teach about gods and demons and naga, protective deities, jealous demigod, nature spirit and the like. He taught the things that one should know and see. These are truths that we really should be able to realize. External phenomena are like this, exhibiting the three characteristics. Internal phenomena, meaning this body, are like this too. The truth can be in their hair, nails, skin and teeth. Previously they flourished. Now they are diminished. The hair thins and become grey. It is like this. Do you see? Or will you say it is something you can’t see? You certainly should be able to see with a little investigation.
If we really take an interest in all of this and contemplate seriously we can gain genuine knowledge. If this were something that could not be done the Buddha would not have bothered to talk about it. How many tens and hundreds of thousands of his followers have come to realization? If one is really keen on looking at things one can come to know. The Dhamma is like that.
We are living in this world. The Buddha wanted us to know the world. Living in the world, we gain our knowledge from the world. The Buddha is said to be lokavidu, one who knows the world clearly. It means living in the world but not being stuck in the ways of the world, living among attraction and aversion but not stuck in attraction and aversion. This can be spoken about and explained in ordinary language. This is how the Buddha taught.
Normally we speak in terms of atta, self, talking about me and mine, you and yours, but the mind can remain uninterruptedly in the realization of anatta, selflessness. Think about it. When we talk to children we speak in one way; when dealing with adults we speak in another way. If we use word appropriate to children to speak with adults, or use adults’ words to speak with children, it won’t work out. In proper use of conventions we have to know when we talking to children. It can be appropriate to talk about me and mine, you and yours and so forth, but inwardly the mind is Dhamma, dwelling in realization of anatta. You should have this kind of foundation.
So the Buddha said that you should take the Dhamma as your foundation, your basis. Living and practicing in the world, will you take yourself, your ideas, desire and opinions as a basis? That is not right. The Dhamma should be your standard. If you take yourself as the standard you become self-absorbed. If you take someone else as your standard you are merely infatuated with that person. Being enthralled with ourselves or with another person is not the way of Dhamma does not incline to any person or follow personalities. It follows the truth. It does not simply accord with the likes and dislike of people; such habitual reactions have nothing to do with the truth of things.
If we really consider all of this and investigate thoroughly to know the truth, then we will enter the correct path. Our way of living will become correct. Thinking will be correct. Our actions and speech will be correct. So we really should look into all of this. Why is it that we have suffering? Because of lack of knowledge, not knowing where things begin and end, not understanding the causes; this is ignorance. When there is this ignorance then various desires arise, and being driven by them we create the causes of suffering. Then the result must be suffering. When you gather firewood and light a match to it, expecting not to have any heat, what are your chances? You are creating a fire, aren’t you? This is origination itself.
If you understand these things then morality will be born here. Dhamma will be born here. So prepare yourselves. The Buddha advised us to prepare ourselves. You needn’t have too many concerns or anxieties about things. Just look here. Look at the place without desires, the place without danger. Nibbana paccayo hotu --- the Buddha taught, let it be a cause for Nibbana. If it will be a cause for realization of Nibbana then looking at the place where things are empty, where things are done with, where they reach their end, where they are exhausted. Look at the place where there are no more causes, where there is no more self or other, me or mine. This looking becomes a cause or condition, a condition for attaining Nibbana. Then practicing generosity becomes a cause for realizing Nibbana. Practicing morality becomes a cause for realizing Nibbana. Listening to the teachings becomes a cause for realizing Nibbana. Thus we can dedicate all our Dhamma activities to become cause for Nibbana. But if we are not looking towards Nibbana, if we are looking at self and other and attachment and grasping without end, this does not become a cause for Nibbana.
When we deal with others and they talk about self, about me and mine, about what is ours, then we immediately agree with this viewpoint. We immediately think, “Yeah, that’s right!” But it’s not right. Even if the mind is saying, “Right, right” we have to exert control over it. It’s same as a child who afraid of ghosts. Maybe the parents are afraid too. But it won’t do for the parents to talk about it; if they do then the child will feel he has no protection or security. “No, of Daddy is not afraid. Don’t worry, Daddy is here. There are no ghosts. There’s nothing to worry about.” Well the father might really be afraid too. If he starts talking about it then they will all get so worked up about ghosts that they’ll jump up and run away --- father, mother and child --- and end up homeless.
This is not being clever. You have to look at tings clears and learn how to deal with them. Even when you feel that deluded appearances are real, you have to tell yourself that they are not. Go against it like this. Teach yourself inwardly. When the mind is experiencing the world in terms of self, saying, “It’s not true.” You should be floating above the water, not be submerged by the floodwaters of worldly habit. The water is flooding our hearts if we run after things; do we ever look at what is going on? Will there be anyone ‘watching the house’?
Nibbana paccayo hoyu --- one need not aim at anything or wish for anything at all. Just aim for Nibbana. All manner of becoming and birth, merit and virtue in te worldly way, do not reach there. Making merit and skilful kamma, hoping it will cause us to attain to some better state, we don’t need to be wishing for a lots of things; just directly for Nibbana. Wanting sila, wanting tranquility, we just end up in the same old place. It’s not necessary to desire these things --- we should just wish for the place of cessation.
It is like this. Throughout all our becoming and birth, all of us are so terribly anxious so many things. When there is separation, when there is death, we cry and lament. I can only think, how utterly foolish this is. What are we crying about? Where do you think people going anyhow? If they are still bound up in becoming and birth they are not really going away. When children grow up and move to the big city if Bangkok they still think of their parents. They won’t be missing someone else’s parents, just their own. When they return they will go to their parents’ home, not someone else’s. And when they go away again they will think about their home in Ubon. Will they be homesick other place? What do you think? So when the breath ends and we die, no matter through how many lifetimes, if the causes for becoming and birth still exist the consciousness is likely to try and take birth in a place it is familiar with. I think we are just too fearful about all of this. So please don’t go crying about it too much. Think about this. Kammam satte vibhajjati --- kamma drives beings into their various births --- they don’t go far. Spinning back and forth through the round of births, that is all, just changing appearances, appearing with a different face next time, but we don’t know it. Just coming and going, going and returning in the round of samsara, not really going anywhere. Just staying there. Like a mango that is shaken off the tree, like the snare that does not get the wraps’ nest and fall to the ground: it is not going anywhere. It is just staying there. So the Buddha said, Nibbana paccayo hotu: let your only aim be Nibbana. Strive hard to accomplish this; don’t end up like the mango falling to the ground and going no where.
Transform your sense of things like this. If you can change it you will know great peace. Change, please; come to see and know. These are things one should indeed see and know. If you do see and know, then where else do you need to go? Morality will come back to be. Dhamma will come to be. It is nothing far away; so please investigate this.
When you transform your view, then you will realize that it is like watching leaves fall from the trees. When they get old and dry, the fall from the tree. And when the season comes, they begin to appear again. Would anyone cry when leaves fall, or laugh when they grow? If you did, you would be insane, wouldn’t you? It is just this much. If we can see things in this way, we will be okay. We will know that this is just the natural order of things. It doesn’t matter how many births we undergo, it will always be like this. When one studies Dhamma, gains clear knowledge and undergoes a change of world view like this, one will realize peace and be free of bewilderment about the phenomena of this life.
But the important point really, is that we have life now, in the present. We are experiencing the results of past deeds right now. When beings are born into the world, this is the manifestation of past actions. Whatever happiness or suffering beings have in the present is the fruit of what they have done previously. It is born of the past and experienced in the present. Then this present experience becomes the basis for the future as we create further causes under its influence and so future experience becomes the results. The movement from one birth to next also happens in this way. You should understand this.
Listening to the Dhamma should resolve your doubts. It should clarify your view of things and alter your way of living. When doubts are resolved, suffering can end. You stop creating desires and mental afflictions. Then whatever you experience, if something is displeasing to you, you will not suffer over it because you understand its changeability. If something is pleasing to you, you will not get carried away and become intoxicated by it because you know the way to let go of things appropriately. You maintain a balanced perspective, because you understand impermanence and know how to resolve things according to Dhamma. You know that god and bad conditions are always changing. Knowing internal phenomena you understand external phenomena. No attached to the external, you are not attached to the internal. Observing things within yourself or outside of yourself, it is all completely the same.
In this way we can dwell in a natural state, which is peace and tranquility. If we are criticized, we remain undisturbed. If we are praised. We are undisturbed. Let things be in this way; don’t be influenced by others. This is freedom. Knowing the two extremes for what they are one can experience well-being. One does not stop at either side. This is genuine happiness and peace, transcending all things of the world. One transcends all good and evil. Above cause and effect, beyond birth and death. Born into this world, one can be transcend the world. Beyond the world, knowing the world --- this is the aim of the Buddha’s teaching. He did not aim for people to suffer. He desires people to attain to peace, to know the truth to things and realize wisdom. This is Dhamma, knowing the nature of things. Whatever exists in the world is nature. There is no need to be in confusion about it. Wherever you are, the same laws apply.
The most important point is that while we have life, we should train the mind to be even in regard to things. We should be able to share wealth and possessions. When the time comes we should give a portion to those in need, just as if we were giving things to our own children. Sharing things like this we will feel happy; and if we can give away all our wealth, then whenever our breath may stop there will be no attachment or anxiety because everything is gone. The Buddha taught to ‘die before you die,’ to be finished with things before they are finished. Then you can be are ease. Let things break before there are broken, let them finish before they are finished. This is the Buddha’s intention in teaching the Dhamma. Even if you listen to teachings for a point you won’t be able to undo your suffering and you will not find peace. You will not see the Dhamma. But understanding these things according to the Buddha’s intention and being able to resolve things is called seeing the Dhamma. This view of things can make an end of suffering. It can relieve all heat and distress. Whoever strives sincerely and is diligent in practice, who can endure, who trains and develops themselves to the full measure, those persons will attain to peace and cessation. Wherever they stay, they will have no suffering. Whether they are young or old they will be free of suffering. Whatever their situation, whatever work they have to perform, they will have no suffering because their minds have reached the place where suffering is exhausted, where there is peace. It is like this. It is a matter of nature.
The Buddha thus said to change one’s perceptions, and there will be the Dhamma. When the mind is harmony with Dhamma, then Dhamma enters the heart. The mind and the Dhamma become indistinguishable. This is something to be realized by those who practice, the changing of one’s view and experience of thing. The entire Dhamma is paccattam (to be known personally). It cannot be given by anyone; that is an impossibility. If we hold it to be difficult then it will be something difficult. If we take it to be easy then it is easy. Whoever contemplates it and sees the one point does not have to know a lot of things. Seeing the one point, seeing birth and death, the arising and passing away of phenomena according to nature, one will know all things. This is a matter of truth.
This is the way of Buddha. The Buddha gave his teachings out of the wish to benefit all beings. He wished for us to go beyond suffering and to attain peace. It is not that we have to die first in order to transcend suffering. We shouldn’t think that we will attain this after death; we can go beyond suffering here and there now, in the present. We transcend within our perception of things, in this very life, through the view that arises in our minds. Then, sitting, we are happy; lying down, we are happy; wherever we are, we are happy. We become without fault, experience no ill results, and live in a state of state of freedom. The mind is clear, bright, and tranquil. There is no more darkness or defilement. This is someone who has reached the supreme happiness of the Buddha’s way. Please investigate this for yourselves. All of you lay followers, please contemplate this to gain understanding and ability. If you suffer, then practice to alleviate your suffering. If it is great, make it little, and if it is little, make an end of it. Everyone has to do this for themselves, so please make an effort to consider these words. May you prosper and develop.
Free From Doubt
Tranquility is stillness; flowing is wisdom. We practice meditation to calm the mind and make it still; then it can flow..
Staying or going is not important, but our thinking is. So all of you, please work together, cooperate and live in harmony. This should be the legacy you create here at Wat Pah Nabachat Bung Wai, the International Forest Monastery of Bung Wai District. Don’t let it become Wayt Pah Nanachat Woon Wai, the International Forest Monastery of Confusion and Trouble. Whoever comes to stay here should be helping create this legacy.
We want to do it right, but somehow we can’t get there yet; our own faculties are not sufficiently mature. Our parami (spiritual perfections) are not complete. It’s like fruit that’s still growing on the tree. You can’t force it to be sweet --- it’s still unripe, it’s mall and sour, simply because it hasn’t finished growing. You can’t force it to be bigger, to be ripe --- have to let it ripen according to its nature. As time passes and things change, people may come to spiritual maturity. As time passes the fruit will grow, ripen and sweeten of its own accord. With such an attitude you can be at ease. But if you are impatient and dissatisfied, you keep asking, “Why isn’t this mango sweet yet? Why is it sour?” It’s still sour because it’s not ripe. That’s the nature of fruit.
The people in the world are like that. It makes me think o the Buddha’s teaching about four kinds of lotus. Some are still in the mud, some have grown out of the mud but are under the water, some are at the surface of the water, and some have risen above the water and bloomed. The Buddha was able to give his teachings to so many various beings because he understood their different levels of spiritual development. We should think about this and not feel oppressed by what happens here. Just consider yourselves to be like someone selling medicine. Your responsibility is to advertise it and make it available. If someone get sick they are likely to come and by it. Likewise, if people’s spiritual faculties mature sufficiently, one day they are likely to develop faith. It’s not something we can force them to do. Seeing in this way, we will be okay.
Living here in this monastery is certainly meaningful. It’s not without benefit. All of you, please practice together harmoniously and amicably. When you experience obstacles and suffering, recollect the virtues of the Buddha. What was the knowledge the Buddha realized? What did the Buddha teach? What does the Dhamma point out? How do the Sangha practice? Constantly recollecting the qualities of the Three Jewels brings a lot of benefit.
Whether you are Thais or people from other countries is not important. It’s important to maintain harmony and work together. People come from all over to visit this monastery. When folks come to Wat Pah Pong, I urge them to come here, to see the monastery, to practice here. It’s a legacy you are creating. It seems that the populace have faith and are gladdened by it. So don’t forget yourselves. You should be leading people rather than being led by them. Make your best effort s to practice well and establish yourselves firmly, and good results will come.
Are there any doubts about practice you need to resolve now?
Question: When the mind isn’t thinking much, but is in a sort of dark and dull state, is there something we should do to brighten it? Or should we just sit with it?
Ajahn Chah: Is this all the time or when you are sitting in meditation? What exactly is the darkness like? Is it a lack of wisdom?
Question: When I sit to meditate, I don’t get drowsy, but my mind feels dark, sort of dense or opaque.
Ajahn Chah: So you would like to make your mind wise, right? Change your posture, and do a lot of waking meditation. That’s one thing to do. You can walk for three hours at a time, until you’re really tired.
Question: I do walking meditation a couple of hours a day, and I usually have a lot of thinking when I do it. But what really concerns me is this dark state when I sit. Should I just try to be aware of it and let go, or is there some means I should use to counter it?
Ajahn Chah: I think maybe your postures aren’t balanced. When you walk, you better have a lot of thinking. So you should do a lot of discursive contemplation; then the mind can retreat from thinking. I won’t stick there. But never mind. For now, increase the time you spend on walking meditation. Focus on that. Then if the mind is wandering, pull it out and do some contemplation, such as, for example, investigation of the body. Have you ever done that continuously rather than as an occasional reflection? When you experience this dark state, do you suffer over it?
Question: I feel frustrated because of my state of mind. I’m not developing Samadhi or wisdom.
Ajahn Chah: When you have this condition of mind the suffering comes from about because of not knowing. There is doubt as to why the mind is like this. The important principle in meditation is that whatever occurs, don’t be in doubt over it. Doubt only adds to the suffering. If the mind is bright and awake, don’t doubt that. It’s a condition of mind. If it’s dark and dull, don’t doubt about that. Just continue to practice diligently without getting caught up in reactions to that state. Taking note and being aware of your state of mind, don’t have doubts about it. It is just what it is. When you entertain doubts and start grasping at it and giving it meaning, then it is dark.
As you practice, these states are things you encounter as you progress along. You needn’t have doubts them. Notice them with awareness and keep letting go. How about sleepiness? Is your sitting more sleepy or awake?
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Maybe it’s hard to recall if you have been sleepy! If this happens meditate with yr eye open. Don’t close them. Instead, you can focus on your gaze on one point, such as the light on a candle. Don’t close your eyes! This is one way to remove the hindrance of drowsiness.
When you’re sitting you can close you eyes from time to time and if the mind is clear, without drowsiness, you can then continue to sit with your eyes closed. If it’s dull and sleepy, open your eye and focus on the one point. It’s similar to kasina meditation. Doing this, you can make the mind awake and tranquil. The sleepy mind isn’t tranquil; it’s obscured by hindrance and it’d in darkness.
We should talk about sleep also. You can’t simply go without sleep. That’s the nature of the body. If you’re meditating and you get unbearably, utterly sleepy, then yourself sleep. This is one way to quell the hindrance when it’s overwhelming you.
Otherwise you practice along, keeping the eyes open if you have this tendency to get drowsy. Close your eyes after a while and check your state of mind. If it’s clear, you can practice with eyes closed. Then after some time you take a rest. Some people are always fighting against sleep. They force themselves not to sleep, and the result is that they sit are always drifting off to sleep and falling over themselves, sitting in unaware state.
Question: Can we focus on the trip of the nose?
Ajahn Chah: That’s fine. Whatever suits you, whatever you feel comfortable with and helps you fix your mind, focus on that.
It’s like this: if we get attached to the ideal and take the guidelines that we are given in the instructions too literally, it can be difficult to understand. When doing a standard meditation such as mindfulness of breathing, first we should make the determination that right now are we are going to do this practice, an we are going to make mindfulness of breathing our foundation. We only focus on the breath at three points, as it passes through the nostrils, the chest and the abdomen. When the air enters it first passes the nose, then through the chest then, to the end point of the abdomen. As it leaves the body, the beginning is the abdomen, the middle is the chest, and the end is the nose. We merely note it. This is a way to start controlling the mind, trying awareness to these points at the beginning, middle and end of the inhalations and exhalations.
Before we begin we should first sit and let the mind relax. It’s similar to sewing robes on a treadle sewing machine. When we are learning to use the sewing machine, first we just sit in front of the machine to get familiar with it and feel comfortable. Here, we just sit and breathe. Not fixing awareness on anything, we merely take note that we are breathing. We take note of whether the breath is relaxed or not and how long or short it is. Having noticed this, then we begin focusing on the inhalation and exhalation at the three points.
We practice like this until we become skilled in it and it goes smoothly. The next stage is to focus awareness only on the sensation of the breath at the trip of the nose or the upper lip. At this point we aren’t concerned with whether the breath is long or short, but only focus on the sensation of entering and existing.
Different phenomena may contact the senses, or thoughts may arise. This is called initial thought (vitakka). The mind brings up some idea, be it about the nature of compounded phenomena (sankhara), about the world, or whatever. Once the mind has brought it up, the mind will want to get involved and merge with it. If it’s an object that is wholesome then let the mind take it up. If something unwholesome, stop it immediately. If it is something wholesome then let the mind contemplate it, and gladness, satisfaction and happiness will come about. The mind will be bright and clear; as the breath goes in and out as the mind takes up theses initial thoughts. Then it becomes discursive thought (vicara). The mind develops familiarity with the object, exerting itself and merging with it. At this point, there is no sleepiness.
After an appropriate period of this, take your attention back to the breath. Then as you continue on there will be initial thought and discursive thought, initial thought and discursive thought. If you are contemplating skillfully on an object such as the nature of sankhara, then the mind will experience deeper tranquility and rapture is burn. There is the vitakka and vicara, and that leads to happiness of mind. At this time there won’t be any dullness drowsiness. The mind won’t be dark if we practice like this. It will be gladdened and enraptured.
This rapture will start to diminish and disappear after a while, so you can take up the initial thought again. The mind will become firm and certain with it --- undistracted. Then you go to discursive thought again, the mind becoming one with it. When you are practicing a meditation the suits your temperament and doing it well, then whenever you take up the object, rapture will come about: the hairs of the body stand on end and the mind is enraptured and satiated.
When it’s like this there can’t be any dullness or drowsiness. You won’t have any doubts. Back and forth between initial and discursive thought, initial and discursive thought, over and over again and rapture comes. Then there is sukka (bliss).
This takes place in sitting practice. After sitting for a while, you can get up and do walking meditation. The mind can be the same in the walking. Not sleepy, it has the vitakka and vicara, vitakka nad vicara, then rapture. There won’t be any of the nivarana, *(Nivarana are the five hindrance: desire, anger, restlessness and agitation, sloth and torpor, doubt.) and the mind will be unstained. Whatever takes place, never mind; you don’t need to doubt about any experiences you may have, be they of light, of bliss, or whatever. Don’t entertain doubts these conditions of mind. If the mind is dark, if the mind is illuminated, don’t fixate on these conditions, don’t be attached to them. Let go, discard them. Keep walking keep nothing what is taking place without getting bound or infatuated. Don’t suffer over these conditions of mind. Don’t have doubts about them. They are just what they are, following the way of the mental phenomena. Sometimes the mind will be joyful. Sometimes it will be sorrowful. There can be happiness or suffering; there can be obstruction. Rather than doubting, understand that conditions of mind are like this; whatever manifest is coming about due to causes ripening. At this moment this condition is manifesting; that’s what you should recognize even if the mind is dark you don’t need to upset over that. If it becomes bright, don’t be excessively gladdened by that. Don’t have doubt about these conditions of mind, or about your reactions to them.
Do your walking meditation until you are really tires, then sit. When you sit determine your mind to sit; don’t just play around. If you get sleepy, open your eyes and focus on some object walk until the mind separates itself from thoughts and is still, then sit. If you are clear and awake, you can close you eyes. If you get sleepy again, open your eyes and look at an object.
Don’t try just to do this all day and all night. When you’re in need of sleep let yourself sleep. Just as with our food: once a day we eat. The time comes and we give food to the body. The need for sleep is the same. When the time comes, give yourself some rest. When you’ve had an appropriate rest, get up. Don’t let the mind languish in dullness, but get up and get to work. --- start practicing. Do a lot of walking meditation. If you walk slowly and the mind becomes dull, then walk fast. Learn to find the right pace for yourself.
Question: Are vitakka and vicara the same?
Ajahn Chah: You’re sitting and suddenly the thought of someone pops into your head --- that vitakka, the initial thought. Then you take that idea of the person and start thinking about them in detail. Vitakka is picking it up, vicara is investigating it. For example, we pick up the idea of death and then we start considering it: “I will die, other will die, every living being will die; when they die where will they go…? Then stop! Stop and bring it back again. When it gets running like that, stop it again; and then go back to mindfulness of the breath. Sometime the discursive thought will wander off and not come back, so you have top it. Keep at it until the mind is bright and clear.
If you practice vicara with an object that you are suited to, you may experience the hairs of your body standing on end, tears pouring from your eyes, a state of extreme delight, many different things as rapture comes.
Question: Can this happen with any kind of thinking, or is it only in a state of tranquility that happens?
Ajahn Chah: It’swhen the mind is tranquil. It’s not ordinary mental proliferation. You sit with a calm mind and then the initial thought comes. For example, I think of my brother who just passed away. Or I might think of some other relatives. This is when the mind is tranquil --- the tranquility isn’t something certain, but for the moment the mind is tranquil. After this initial thought comes then I go into discursive thought. If it’s a line of thinking that’s skillful and wholesome, it leads to ease of mind and happiness, and there is rapture with its attendant experience. This rapture came from the initial and discursive thinking that took place in a state of calmness. We don’t have to give it names such as first jhana, second jhana and so forth. We just call it tranquility.
The next factor is bliss (sukha). Eventually we drop the initial and discursive thinking as tranquility as tranquility deepens. Why? The state of mind is becoming more refined and subtle. Vitakka and vicara are relatively coarse, and they ill vanish. There will remain just the rapture accompanied by bliss and one-pointedness of mind. When it reaches full measure there won’t be anything, the mind is empty. That’s absorption concentration.
We don’t need to fixate or dwell on any of these experiences. They will naturally progress from one to the next. At first there is initial and discursive thought, rapture, bliss and one-pointedness. Then initial and discursive thinking are thrown off, leaving rapture, bliss and one-pointedness. Rapture is thrown off then bliss, and finally only one-pointedness and equanimity remain. It means the mind becomes more and more tranquil, and its objects are steadily decreasing until there is nothing but one-pointedness and equanimity.
When the mind is tranquil and focus this can happen. It is the power of mind, the state of the mind that has attained tranquility. When it’s like this won’t be any sleepiness. It can’t enter the mind; it will disappear. As for the other hindrances of sensual desire, aversion, doubt and restlessness and agitation, they won’t just be present. Though they may still exist latent in the mind of the meditator, they won’t occur at this time.
Question: Should we be closing our eyes so as to shut out the external environment or we just deal with things as we see them? Is it important whether we open or close the eyes?
Ajahn Chah: when we are new to training, it’s important too much sensory input, so it’s better to close the eyes. Not seeing objects that can distract and effect us, we build up the mind’s strength. When the mind is strong then we can open the eyes and whatever we see won’t sway us. Open or closed won’t matter.
When you rest you normally close your eyes. Sitting in meditation with eyes closed is the dwelling place for a practitioner. We find enjoyment and rest in it. This is an important basis for us. But when we are not sitting in meditation will we be able to deal with things? We sit with eyes closed and we profit from that. When we open our eyes and leave the formal meditation, we can handle whatever we meet. Things won’t get out of hand. We won’t be at a loss. Basically we are just handling things. It’s when we go back to our sitting that we really develop greater wisdom.
This is how we develop the practice. When it reaches fulfillment then it doesn’t matter whether we open or close our eyes, it will be the same. The mind won’t change or deviate. At all times of the days --- morning, noon or night --- the state of mind will be the same. We dwell thus. There is nothing that can shake the mind. When happiness arises, we recognize, “It’s not certain,” and it passes. Unhappiness arises and we recognize, “It’s not certain,” and that’s that. You get the idea that you want to disrobe. This is not certain. But you think it’s certain. Before you wanted to be ordained, and you were so sure about that. Now you are sure you want to disrobe. It’s all uncertain, but you don’t see it because of you darkness of mind. You mind is telling you lies, “Being here, I’m on wasting time.” If you disrobe and go back to the world, you won’t waste time here? You don’t think about that. Disrobing to work in the fields and gardens, to grow beans or raise pigs and goats, won’t that be a waste of time?
There was once a large pond full of fish. As time passed, the rainfall decreased and the pond became shallow. One day a bird showed up at the edge of the pond. He told the fish, “I really feel sorry for you fish. Here you barely have enough water to keep you back wet. Do you know that not very far from here there’s a big lake, several meters deep where the fish swim happily?”
When the fish in shallow pond heard this, they got excited. They said to the bird, “It sounds good. But how could we get there?”
The bird said, “No problem. I can carry you in my bill, one at a time.”
The fish discuss it among themselves. “It’s not so great here anymore. The water doesn’t even cover our heads. We ought to go.” So they lined up to be taken by the bird.
The bird took one fish at a time. As soon as he flew out of sight of the pond, he landed and ate the fish. Then he would return to the pond and tell them, “Your friend is right this moment swimming happily in the lake, and asks when you will be joining him!”
It sounded fantastic to the fish. They couldn’t wait to go, so they started pushing to get to the head of the line.
The bird finished off the fish like that. Then he went back to the pond to see if he could find any more. There was only one crab there. So the bird started his sales pitch about the lake. The crab was skeptical. He asked the bird how he could get there. The bird told him he would carry him in his bill. But this crab had some wisdom. He told the bird, “Let’s do it like this --- I’ll sit on your back with my arms around your neck. If you try any tricks, I’ll choke you with my claws.”
The bird felt frustrated by this, but he gave it a try thinking he might still somehow to eat the crab. So the crab got on his back and they took off.
The bird flew around looking for a good place to land. But as soon as he tried to descend, the crab started squeezing his throat with his claws. The bird couldn’t even cry out. He just made a dry, croaking sound. So in the end he had to give up and return the crab to the pond.
I hope you can have the wisdom of the crab! If you are like those fish, you will listen to the voices that tell you how wonderful everything will be if you go back to the world. That’s an obstacle ordained people meet with. Please be careful about this.
Question: Why is it that unpleasant states of mind are difficult to see clearly, while pleasant states are easy to see? When I experience happiness or pleasure I can see that it’s something impermanent, but when I’m unhappy that’s harder to see.
Ajahn Chah: You are thinking in terms of your attraction and aversion and trying to figure it out, but actually delusion is the predominant root. You feel that unhappiness is hard to see while happiness is easy to see. That’s just the way your afflictions work. Aversion is hard to let go of, right? It’s a strong feeling. You say happiness is easy to let go of. It’s not really easy; it’s just that it’s not so overpowering. Pleasure and happiness are things people like and feel comfortable with. They’re not so easy to let go of. Aversion is painful, but people don’t know how to let go of it. The truth is that they are equal. When you contemplate thoroughly and get a certain point you will quickly recognize that they’re equal. If you had a scale to weigh them that weight would be the same. But we incline towards the pleasurable.
Are you saying that you can let go of happiness easily, while unhappiness is difficult to let go of? You think that the things we like are easy to give up, but you’re wondering why the things we dislike are hard to give up. But if they’re not good, why are they hard to give up? It’s not like that. Think anew. They are completely equal. It’s just that we don’t incline to them equally. When there is unhappiness we feel bothered, we want it to go away quickly and so we feel it’s hard to get rid of. Happiness doesn’t usually bother us, so we are friend with it and feel we can let go of it easily. It’s not like that; it’s not oppressing and squeezing our hearts, that’s all. Unhappiness oppresses us. We think one has more value or weight than the other, but in truth they are equal. It’s like heat and cold. We can be burned to death by fire. We can also be frozen by cold and we die just the same. Neither is greater than the other. Happiness and suffering are like this, but in our thinking we give them different value.
Or consider praise and criticism. Do you feel that praise is easy to let go of and criticism is hard to let go of? They are really equal. But when we are praised we don’t feel disturbed; we are pleased, but not a sharp feeling. Criticism is painful, so we feel it’s hard to let go of. Being pleased is also hard to let go of, but we are partial to it so we don’t have the same desire to get rid of it quickly. The delight we take in being praised and the sting we feel when criticized are equal. They are the same. But when our minds meet these things we have unequal reactions to them. We don’t mind being close to some of them.
Please understand this. In our meditation we will meet with the arising pf all sort of mental afflictions. The correct outlook is to be ready to let go of all of it, whether pleasant or painful. Even though happiness is something we desire and suffering is something we don’t desire, we recognize they are of equal value. These are things that we will experience.
Happiness is wished for by people in the world. Suffering is not wished for. Nibbana is something beyond wishing or not wishing. Do you understand? There is no wishing involved in Nibbana. Wanting to get happiness, wanting to be free of suffering, wanting to transcend happiness and suffering --- there are none of these things. It is peace.
As I see it, realizing the truth doesn’t happen by relying on others. You should understand that all doubt will be resolved by our own efforts, by continuous, energetic practice. We don’t get free of doubt by asking others. We will only end doubt through our own unrelenting efforts.
Remember this! It’s an important principle in practice. The actual doing is what will instruct you. You will come to know all right and wrong. “The Brahmin shall reach exhaustion of doubt through unceasing practice.” It doesn’t matter wherever we go – everything can be resolved through our own ceaseless efforts. But we can’t stick with it. We can’t bear difficulties we meet; we find it hard to face up to our suffering and not to run away from it. If we do face it and bear with it, then we gain knowledge, and the practice starts instructing us automatically, teaching us about right and wrong and the way things really are. Our practice will show us the faults and ill results of wrong thinking. It really happens like this. But it’s hard to find people who can see it through. Everyone wants instant awakening. Rushing here and there following your impulses, you only end up worse off for it. Be careful about this.
I often taught that tranquility is stillness; flowing is wisdom. We practice meditation to calm the mind and make it still: then it can flow.
In the beginning we learn what still water is like and what flowing water is like. After practicing for a while will see how these two support each other. We have to make the mind calm, like still water. Then it flows. Both being still and flowing: this is not easy to contemplate.
We can understand that still water doesn’t flow. We can understand that flowing water isn’t still. But when we practice we take hold of both of these. The mind of a true practitioner is like still water that flows, or flowing water that’s still. Whatever takes place in the mind of a Dhamma practitioner is like flowing water that is still. To say that it is only flowing is not correct. Only still is not correct. But originally, still water is still and flowing water flows. But when we experience of practice, our mind will be in this condition of flowing water that is still.
This is something we’ve never seen. When we see flowing water it is just flowing along. When we see still water, it doesn’t flow. But within our minds, it will really be like this; like flowing water that is still. In our Dhamma practice we have Samadhi, or tranquility, and wisdom mixed together. We have morality, meditation and wisdom. Then wherever we sit the mind is still and it flows. Still, flowing water. With meditative stability and wisdom, tranquility and insight, it’s like this. The Dhamma is like th9s. If you have reached the Dhamma, then at all times you will have this experience. Being tranquil and having wisdom: flowing, yet still. Still, yet flowing.
Whenever this occurs in the mind of one who practices, it is something different and strange; it is different from the ordinary mind that one has known all along. Before when it was flowing, it flowed. When it was still, it didn’t flow, but was only still --- the mind can be compared to water in this way. Now it has entered condition that is like flowing water being still. Whether standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, it is like water that flows yet is still. Making our minds like this there is both tranquility and wisdom.
What is the purpose of tranquility? Why should we have wisdom? They are only for the purpose of freeing ourselves from suffering, nothing else. At present we are suffering, living with dukkha, or not understanding dukkha, and therefore holding onto it. But if the mind is as I’ve been speaking about then there will be many kinds of knowledge. One will know suffering, know the cause of suffering, know the cessation of suffering and know the way of practice to reach the end of suffering. These are the Noble Truths. They will appear of themselves when there is still, flowing water.
When it is like this then no matter what we are doing we will have no heedlessness; the habit of heedlessness will weaken and disappear. Whatever we experience we won’t fall into heedlessness because the mind will naturally hold fast to the practice. It will be afraid of losing the practice. As we keep on practicing and learning from experience we will be drinking of the Dhamma more and more, and our faith will keep increasing.
For one who practices it has to be like this. We shouldn’t be the kind of people who merely follow others: If our friends aren’t doing the practice we won’t do it either because we would feel embarrassed. If they stop, we stop. If they do it, we do it. If the teacher tells us to do something, we do it. If he stops, we stop. This is not a very quick way to realization.
What’s the point of our training here? It’s so that when we are alone, we still be able to continue with the practice. So now while living together here, when there are morning and evening gatherings to practice, we join in and practice with the others. We build up the habit so that the way of practice is internalized in our hearts, and then we will be able to live anywhere and still practice in the same way.
Giving Up Good And Evil
The truth is that in this world of our there is nothing to be anxious about. Nothing is inherently tragic or delightful. One who truly has a feel for the Dhamma doesn’t need to take hold of anything and dwell in ease.
It sticks on the skin and goes into the flesh; from the flesh it gets into the bones. It’s like an insect on a tree that ears through the bark, into the wood and then into the core, until finally the tree dies.
We’ve grown u like that. It gets buried deep inside. Our parent taught us grasping and attachment, giving meaning to things, believing firmly that we exist as a self-entity and that things belongs to us. From our birth that’s what we are taught. We hear this over and over again, and it penetrates our hearts and stays there as our habitual feeling. We taught to get things, to accumulate and hold on to them, to see them as important and as ours. This is what our parents know, and this is what they teach us. So it gets into our minds, into our bones.
When we taken an interest in meditation and hear the teaching of spiritual guide it’s not easy to understand. It doesn’t really grab us. We’re taught not to see and to do things the old way, but when we hear the teaching, it doesn’t penetrate the mind; we only hear it with our ears. People just don’t know themselves.
So we sit and listen to teachings, but it’s just sound entering the ears. It doesn’t get inside and affect us. It’s like we’re boxing and we keep hitting the other guy but he doesn’t go down. We remain stuck in our self-conceit. The wise have said that moving a mountain from one place to another is easier than moving the self-conceit of people.
We can use explosive to level a mountain and then move the earth. But the tight grasping of our self-conceit --- oh man! The wise can teach us our dying day, but they can’t get rid if it. It remains hard and fast. Our wrong ideas and bad tendencies remain so solid and unbudging, and we’re even aware of it. So the wise have said that removing this self-conceit and turning wrong understanding into right understanding is about the hardest thing to do.
For us puthujjana (worldly beings) to progress on to being kalyanajana (virtuous beings) is so hard. Puthujjna means people who are thickly obscured, who are dark, who are stuck deep in this darkness and obscuration. The kalyanajana has made things lighter. We teach people to lighten, but they don’t want to do that because they don’t understand their situation, their condition of obscuration. So they keep on wandering in their confuse state.
If we come across a pile of buffalo dung we won’t think it’s ours and we won’t want to pick it up. We will just leave it where it is because we know what it is. It’s like that. That’s what’s good in the impure. Evil is the food of bad people. If you teach them about doing good they’re not interested, but prefer to stay as they are because they don’t see the harm in it. Without seeing the harm there’s no way things can be rectified. If you recognize it, then you think, “Oh! My whole pile of dung doesn’t have the value of a small piece of gold!” And then you will want gold instead; you won’t want the dung anymore. If you don’t recognize this you remain the owner of a pile of dung. Even if you are offered a diamond or a ruby, you won’t be interested.
That’s the ‘good’ of the impure. Gold, jewels and diamonds are considered something good in the realm of humans. The foul and rotten is good for flies and other insects. If you put perfume on it they would all free. What those with wrong view, for the defiled. It doesn’t smell good, but if we tell them it stinks they’ll say it’s fragrant. They can’t reverse this view very easily. So it’s not easy to teach them.
If you gather fresh flowers the flies won’t be interested in them. Even if you tried to pay them, they wouldn’t come. But wherever there’s a dead animal, wherever there’s something rotten, that’s where they’ll go. You don’t need to call them --- they just go. Wrong view is like that. It delights in that kind of the thing. The stinking and rotten is what smell good to it. It’s bogged down and immersed in that. What’s sweet smelling to a bee is not sweet to a fly. The fly doesn’t see anything good or valuable in it and has no craving for it.
There is difficulty in practice, but in anything we undertake we have to pass through difficulty to reach ease. In Dhamma practice we begin with the truth of dukkha, the pervasive unsatisfactoriness of existence. But as soon as we experience this we lose heart. We don’t want to look at it. Dukkha is really the truth, but we want to get around it somehow. It’s similar to the way we don’t like to look at old people, but prefer to look at those who are young.
If we don’t want to look at dukkha we will never understand dukkha, no matter how many births we go through. Dukkha is noble truth. If we follow ourselves to face it then we will start to seek a way out of it. If we are trying to go somewhere and the road is blocked we will think about how to make a pathway. Working at it day after day we can get through. When we encounter problems we develop wisdom like this. Without seeing dukkha we don’t really look into and resolve our problems; we just pass them by indifferently.
My way of training people involves some suffering, because suffering is the Buddha’s path to enlightenment. He wanted us to see suffering and to see origination, cessation and the path. This is the way out of all the ariya, the awakened ones. If you don’t go this way there is no way out. The only way is knowing suffering, knowing the cause of suffering, knowing the cessation of suffering and knowing the path of practice leading to cessation of suffering. This is the way that the ariya, beginning with Stream Entry, were able to escape. It’s necessary to know suffering.
If we know suffering, we still will see it in everything we experience. Some people feel that they don’t really suffer much. Practice in Buddhism is for the purpose of freeing ourselves fro suffering. What should we do not suffer anymore? When dukkha arises we should investigate to see the causes of its arising. Then once we know that, we can practice to remove those causes. Suffering, origination, cessation, --- in order to bring it to cessation we have to understand the path of practice. Then once we travel the path to fulfillment, dukkha will no longer arise. In Buddhism, this is the way out.
Opposing our habits creates some suffering. Generally we are afraid of suffering. If something will make us suffer, we don’t want to do it. We are interested in what appears to be good and beautiful, but we feel that anything involving suffering is bad. It’s not like that. Suffering is saccadhamma, truth. If there is suffering in the heart it becomes the cause that makes you think about escaping. It leads you to contemplate. You won’t sleep so soundly because you will be intent on investigating to find out what is really going on, trying to see causes and their results.
Happy people don’t develop wisdom. They are asleep. It’s like a dog that eats its fill. Afterwards it doesn’t want to do anything. It can sleep all day. It won’t bark if a burglar comes --- it’s too full, too tired. But if you only give it a little food it will be alert and awake. If someone tries to comes sneaking around, it will jump and start barking. Have you seen that?
We human are trapped and imprisoned in this world and have troubles in such abundance, and we are always full of doubts, confusion and worry. This is no game. It’s really something difficult and troublesome. So there’s something we need to get rid of. According to the way of spiritual cultivation we should give up our bodies, give up ourselves. We have to resolve to give our lives. We can see the example of great renunciants, such as the Buddha. He has a noble of the warrior caste, but he was able to eave it all behind and not turn back. He was the heir to riches and power, but he could renounce them.
If we speak the subtle Dhamma, most people will be frightened by it. They won’t dare to enter it/ even saying “Don’t do evil,” most people can’t follow this. That’s how it is. So I’ve sought all kinds of means to get this across. One thing I often say is, no matter if we are delighted or upset, happy or suffering, shedding tears or singing songs, never mind --- living in this world we are in a cage. We don’t get beyond this condition of being in a cage. Even if you are rich, you are living in a cage. If you are poor, you are living in a cage. If you sing and dance, you’re singing and dancing in a cage. If you watch a movie, you’re watching it in a cage.
What is this cage? It is the cage of birth, the cage of aging, the cage of illness, the cage of death. In this way, we are imprisoned in the world. “This is mine.” “That belongs to me.” We don’t know what we really are or what we’re doing. Actually all we are doing is accumulating for ourselves. It’s not something far away that causes our suffering but we don’t look at ourselves. However much happiness and comfort we may have, having been born we cannot avoid aging, we must fall ill and we must die. This is dukkha itself, here and now.
We can always be afflicted with pain or illness. It can happen at any time. It’s like we’ve stolen something. They could come to arrest us at any time because we’ve done the deed. That’s our situation. There is danger and trouble. We exist among harmful things; birth, aging and illness reign over our lives. We can’t go elsewhere and escape them. They can come catch us at any time --- it’s always a good opportunity for them. So we have to cede this to them and accept the situation. We have to plead guilty. If we do, the sentences won’t be so heavy. If we don’t, we suffer enormously. If we plead guilty, they’ll go easy on us. We won’t be incarcerated too long.
When the body is born it doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s like our meditation hall. After it’s built spiders come to stay in it. Lizards come to stay in it. Snakes may come to live in it. Anything may come to live in it. It’s not only our hall; it’s everything’s hall.
These bodies are the same. They aren’t ours. People come to stay in and depend on them. Illness, pain and aging come to reside in them and we are merely residing along with them. When these bodies reach the end of the pain and illness, and finally break up and die, that is not us dying. So don’t hold on to any of this. Instead, you have to contemplate the matter and then your grasping will gradually be exhausted. When you see correctly, wrong understanding will stop.
Birth has created this burden for us. But generally, we people can’t accept this. We think that not being born be the greatest evil. Dying and not being born would be the worst thing of all. That’s how we view things. We usually only think about how much we want in the future. And then we desire further: “In the next life, may I be born among the gods, or may I be born as a wealthy person.”
We’re asking for an even heavier burden! But we think that will bring happiness. To really penetrate the Dhamma purely is thus very difficult. We need to rely on serious investigation.
Such thinking is entirely differently way from what the Buddha teaches. That way is heavy. The Buddha said to let go of it and cast it away. But we think, “I can’t let go.” So we keep carrying it and it keeps getting heavier. Because we were born we have this heaviness.
Going a little further, do you know if craving has its limits? At what point will it be satisfied? Is there such a thing? If you consider it you will see that tanha, blind craving, can’t be satisfied. It keeps on desiring more and more; even if this brings such suffering tat we are nearly dead, tanha will keep on wanting things because it can’t be satisfied.
This is something important. If we people could think in a balanced and moderate way --- well, let’s talk about clothes. How many sets do we need? And food --- how much do we eat? At the most, for one meal we might eat two plates and that’s enough for us. If we know moderation w=then we will be happy and comfortable, but this is not very common.
The Buddha taught ‘The Instructions for the Rich.’ What this teaching points to is being content with what we have. That is rich person. I think this kind of knowledge is really worth studying. The knowledge taught in the Buddha’s way is something worth learning, worth reflecting on.
Then, the pure Dhamma of practice goes beyond that. It’s a lot deeper. Some of you may not be able to understand it. Just take the Buddha’s words that there is no more birth for him, that birth and becoming are finished. Hearing this makes you uncomfortable. To state it directly, the Buddha said that we should not be born, because that is suffering. Just this one thing, birth, the Buddha focused on, contemplating it and realizing its gravity. Being born, all dukkha comes along with that. It happens simultaneously with birth. When we come into this world we get eyes, a mouth, a nose. It all comes along only because of birth. But if we hear about dying and not being born again, we feel it would be utter ruination. We don’t want to go there. But the deepest teaching of the Buddha is like this.
Why are we suffering now? Because we were born. So we are taught to put an end to birth. This is not just talking about the body being born and the body dying. That much is easy to see. A child can understand it. The breath comes to an end, the body dies and then it just lies there. This is what we usually mean when we talk about death. But a breathing dead person? That’s something we don’t know about. A dead person who can walk and talk and smile is something we haven’t thought about. We only know about the corpse that’s no longer breathing. That’s what we call death.
It’s the same with birth. When we say someone has been born, we mean that a woman went to the hospital and gave birth. But the moment of the mind taking birth --- have you noticed that, such as when you upset over something at home? Sometimes love is born. Sometimes aversion is born. Being pleased, being displeased --- all sort of states. This is all nothing but birth.
We suffer just because of this. When the eyes see something displeasing, dukkha is born. When the ears hear something that you really like, dukkha is also born. There is only suffering.
The Buddha summed it up by saying that there is only a mass of suffering. Suffering is born and suffering cease. That’s all there is. We pounce on and grab at it again and again --- pouncing on arising, pouncing on cessation, never really understanding it.
When dukkha arises we call that suffering. When it ceases we call that happiness. It’s all of stuff and ceasing. We are taught to watch body and mind arising and ceasing. There’s nothing else outside of this. To sum it up, there is no happiness; there’s only dukkha. We recognize suffering as suffering when it arises. Then when it ceases, we consider that to be happiness. We see it and designate it as such, but it isn’t. It’s just dukkha ceasing. Dukkha arises ad ceases, arises and ceases, and we pounce on it and catch hold of it. Happiness and we are please. Unhappiness appears and we are distraught. It’s really all the same, mere arising and ceasing. When there is arising there’s something, and when there is ceasing, is gone. This is where we doubt. Thus it’s taught that dukkha arises and ceases, and outside of that, there is nothing. When you come down to it, there is only suffering. But we don’t see clearly.
We don’t recognize clearly that there is only suffering, because when it stops we see happiness there. We seize on it and get stuck there. We don’t really see the truth that everything is just arising and ceasing.
The Buddha summed things up by saying that there is only arising and ceasing, and nothing outside of that. This is difficult to listen to. But one ho truly has a feel for the Dhamma doesn’t need to take to take hold of anything and dwells in ease. That’s the truth.
The truth is that in this world of ours there is nothing that does anything to anybody. There is nothing to be anxious about. There’s nothing worth crying over, nothing to laugh at. Nothing is inherently tragic or delightful. But such experiencing is what’s ordinary for people.
Our speech can be ordinary; we relate to orders according to the ordinary way of seeing things. That’s okay. But if we are thinking in the ordinary way, that leads to tears.
In truth, if really know the Dhamma and see it continuously, nothing is anything at all; there is only arising and passing away. There’s no real happiness or suffering. The heart is at peace then, when there is no happiness or suffering. When there is happens and suffering, there is becoming and birth.
We usually create one kind of kamma, which is the attempt to stop suffering and produce happiness. That’s what we want. But what we want is not real peace; it’s happiness and suffering. The aim of the Buddha’s teaching is to practice to create a type of kamma that leads beyond happiness and suffering and that will bring peace. But we aren’t able to think like that. We can only think that having happiness will bring us peace. If we have happiness, we think that’s good enough.
Thus we humans wish for things in abundance. If we get a lot, that’s good. Generally that’s how we think. Doing good is supposed to bring good results, and if we get that we’re happy. We think that’s all we need to do and we are stop there. But where does good come to conclusion? It doesn’t remain. We keep going back and forth, experiencing good and bad, trying day and night to seize on to what we feel is good.
The Buddha’s teaching is that first we should give up evil and give up the goods as well, not attachment to it because that is also one kind of fuel. When there is something that is fuel it will eventually burst into flame. Good is fuel. Bad is fuel.
Speaking on this level kills people. People aren’t able to follow it. So we have to turn back to the beginning and teach morality. Don’t harm each other. Be responsible in you work and don’t harm or exploit others. The Buddha taught this, but just this much isn’t enough to stop.
Why do we find ourselves here, in this condition? It’s because of birth. As the Buddha said in his first teaching, the Discourse on Turning the Wheel of Dhamma: “Birth is ended. This is my final existence. There is no further for the Tathagata.”
Not many people really come back to this point and contemplate to understand according to the principles of the Buddha’s way. But if we have faith in the Buddha’s way, it will repay us. If people genuinely rely on the Three Jewels than practice is easy.
Wholehearted Training
We lived with fever, we faced death and we all survived. But it was never a concern.
In every home and every community, whether we live in the city, the countryside, the forests or the mountains, we are the same in experiencing happiness and suffering. So many of us lack a place of refuge, a field or garden where can cultivate positive qualities of heart. We experience this spiritual poverty because we don’t really have commitment; we don’t have clear understanding of what this life is all about and what we ought to be doing. From childhood and youth until adulthood, we only learn to seek enjoyment and take delight in the things of the senses. We never think that danger will threaten us as we go about our lives, making a family and so on.
If we don’t have land to till and a home to live in, we are without and external refuge and our lives are filled with difficulty and distress. Beyond that, there is the inner lack of not having sila and Dhamma in our lives, of not going to hear teachings and practice Dhamma. As a result there is a little wisdom in our lives and everything regresses and degenerates. The Buddha, our Supreme Teacher, had metta (loving-kindness) for beings. He lead sons and daughter of good family to be originated, to practice and realize the truth, to establish and spread the Dhamma to show people how to live in happiness in their daily lives. He taught the proper ways to earn a livelihood, to be moderate and thrifty in managing finances, to act without carelessness in all affairs.
But when we are lacking in both ways, externally in the material supports for life and internally in spiritual supports as well, then as time goes by and the number of people grows, the delusion and the poverty and difficulty become cause for us to grow further and further estranged from Dhamma. We aren’t interested in seeking the Dhamma because of our difficult circumstances. Even if there is a monastery nearby, we don’t feel much like going to listen to teachings because we obsessed with our poverty and troubles and the difficulty of merely supporting our lives. But the Lord Buddha taught that no matter how poor we may be, we should not let it impoverish our hearts and starve our wisdom. Even if there are flood inundating our fields, our villages and our homes to the point where it is beyond our capability to do anything, the Buddha taught us not to let it flood and overcome the heart. Flooding the heart means that we lose sight of and have no knowledge of the Dhamma.
There is the ogha (flood) of sensuality, the flood of becoming, the flood of views and the flood of ignorance. These four obscure and envelop the hearts of beings. They are worse than water that floods our field, our village or towns. Even if water floods our field again and again over the years, or fire burns down our homes, we still have our minds. If our minds have sila and Dhamma we can use our wisdom and find ways to earn a living and support ourselves. We can acquire land again and make a new start.
Now when we have our means of livelihood, our homes and possessions, our minds can be comfortable and upright, and we can have energy of spirit to help and assist each other. If someone is able to share food and catching and provide shelter to those in need, that us an act of loving-kindness. The way I see it, giving things in a spirit of loving-kindness is far better than selling them to make a profit. Those who have metta aren’t wishing for anything for themselves. They only wish for others to live in happiness.
If we really make up our minds and commit ourselves to the right way, I think there shouldn’t be any serious difficulty. We won’t experience extreme poverty --- we won’t be like earthworms. We still have a skeleton, eyes and ears, arms and legs. We can eat things like fruits; we don’t have to eat dirt like an earthworm. If you complain about poverty, if you become mires in feeling how unfortunates you are, the earthworm will ask, “Don’t feel too sorry for yourself. Don’t you still have arms and legs and bones? I don’t have those things, yet I don’t feel poor.” The earthworm will shame us like this.
One day a pig farmer came to see me. He was complaining, “Oh man, this year it’s really too much! The price of feed is up. The price of pork is down. I’m losing my shirt!” I listened to his laments, then I said, “Don’t feel too sorry for yourself, Sir. If you were a pig, then you’d have good reason to feel sorry for yourself. When the price of pork is high, the pigs are slaughtered. When the price of pork is low, the pigs are still slaughtered. The pigs really have something to complain about. The people shouldn’t be complaining. Think about this seriously, please.”
He was only worried about the prices he was getting. The pigs have a lot more to worry about, but we don’t consider that. We’re not being killed, so we can still try to find a way to get by.
I really believe that if you listen to the Dhamma, contemplating it and understanding it, you can make an end of your suffering. You know what is right to do, what you need to do, what you need to use and spend. You can live your life according to sila and Dhamma, applying wisdom to worldly matters. Buy most of us are far from that. We don’t have morality or Dhamma in our lives are filled with discord and friction. There is discord between husbands and wives, discord between children and parents. Children don’t listen to their parents, just because of lack of Dhamma in the family. People aren’t interested in hearing the Dhamma and learning anything, so instead of developing good sense and skillfulness, they remain mires in ignorance, and taught the result is lives suffering.
The Buddha taught Dhamma and set out the way of practice. He wasn’t trying to make our lives difficult. He wanted us to improve, to become better and more skillful. It’s just that we don’t listen. This is petty bad. It’s like a little child who doesn’t want to take a bath in the middle of winter because it’s too cool. The child starts to stink so much that the parents can’t even sleep at night, so they grab hold of the child and give him a bath. That makes the child mad, and he cries and curses the father and the mother.
The parents and the child see the situation differently. For the children it’s too uncomfortable to take bath in the winter. For the parents the child’s smell is unbearable. The two views can’t be reconciled. The Buddha didn’t simply want to leave us as we are. He wanted us to be diligent and work hard in ways that are good and beneficial, and enthusiastic about the right path. Instead of being lazy, we have to make efforts. His teaching is not something that will make us foolish or useless. He teaches us how to develop and apply wisdom to whatever we are doing, working, farming, raising a family, managing our finances, being aware of all aspects of these things. If we live in the world, we have to pay attention and know the ways of the world. Otherwise we end up in dire straits.
We live in a place where the Buddha and his Dhamma are familiar to us. But then we get the idea that we all need to do is go hear teachings and then take I easy, living our lives as before. This is badly mistaken. How would the Buddha have attained any knowledge like that? There would never have been a Buddha.
He taught about the various kinds of wealth: the wealth of human life, the wealth of the heaven realm, the wealth of Nibbana. Those with Dhamma, even though they are living in the world, are not poor. Even though they may be poor, they don’t suffer over it. When we live according to Dhamma, we feel no distress when looking back on what we have done. We are only creating good kamma. If we are creating bad kamma, then the result later on will be misery. If we haven’t created bad kamma, we won’t suffer such results in the future. But if we don’t try to change our habits and puts a stop to wrong actions, our difficulties go on and on, both the mental distress and the material troubles. So we need to listen and contemplate, and then we can figure out where the difficulties come from. Haven’t you ever carried things to the fields on a pole over your shoulders? When the load is too heavy in front, isn’t that uncomfortable to carry? When it’s too heavy in back, isn’t that uncomfortable to carry? Which way is balanced and which way is imbalanced? When you’re doing it, you can see. Dhamma is like that. There is cause and effect, there is common sense. When the load is balanced, it’s easier to carry. We can manage our lives in balance way, with an attitude of moderation. Our family relations and our work can be smoother. Even if you aren’t rich, you can still have ease of mind; you don’t need to suffer over that.
If a family is not hard working then they fall on difficulty and when they see others with more than they have, they start to feel covetousness, jealousy and resentment, and it may lead to stealing. Then the village becomes an unhappy place. It’s better to work at benefiting yourselves and your families, for this life and also for future lives. If your material needs are met through your efforts, then you mind is happy and at ease, and that is conducive to listening to Dhamma teachings, to learns about right and wrong, virtue and demerit., and to keep on changing your lives for the better. You can learn to recognize how doing wrong deeds only creates hardship, and give up such actions and keep improving. Your way of working will change and your mind will change too. From being someone ignorant you will become someone with knowledge. From being someone with bad habits you will become someone with a good heart. You can teach what you know to your children and grandchildren. This is creating benefit for the future by doing what is right in the present. But those without wisdom don’t do anything of benefit in the present, and only end up bringing hardship upon themselves. If they become poor, they just think about gambling. Then that finally leads them to becoming thieves.
We haven’t died yet, so now is the time to talk about these things. If you don’t hear Dhamma when you are a human being there won’t be any other chance. Do you think animals can be taught the Dhamma? Animal life is a lot harder than ours, being born as a toad or a frog, a pig or a dog, a cobra or a viper, a squirrel or a rabbit. When people see them, they only think about killing or beating them, catching them or raising them for food.
We have this opportunity as humans. It’s much better! We’re still alive, so now is the time to look into this and mend our ways. If things are difficult, try to bear with the difficulty for the time being and live in the right way until one day you can do it. Practicing the Dhamma is like that.
I’d like to remind you all of the need for having a good mind and living your lives in an ethical way. However you may have been doing things up to now, you should take a look and examine to see whether that is good or not. If you’ve been following wrong ways, give them up. Give up wrong livelihood. Earn your living in a good and decent way that doesn’t harm others and doesn’t harm yourself or society. When you practice right livelihood, then you can live with a comfortable mind.
We monks and nuns rely on the layfolk for all our material needs. And we rely on contemplation so that we are able to explain the Dhamma to the laypeople for their own understanding and benefit, enabling them to improve their lives. Whatever causes misery and conflict, you can learn to recognize and remove it. Make efforts to get along with each other, to have harmony in your relations rather than exploiting or harming each other.
These days things are petty bad. It’s hard for folks to get along. Even when a few people get together for a little meeting, it doesn’t work out. They just look at each other’s face three time and they’re ready to start killing each other. Why is it like this? It’s only because people have no sila or Dhamma in their lives.
In the time of our parents it was a lot different. Just the way people looked at each other that they felt love and friendship. It’s not anything like that now. If a stranger shows up in the village as evening comes everyone will be suspicious:
“What’s he doing coming here at night?” Why should we be afraid of a person coming into the village? If a strange dog comes into the village, nobody will give it a second thought. So is a person worse than a dog? “It’s an outsider, a stranger person!” how can anyone be an outsider? When someone comes to the village, we ought to be glad: they are in need of shelter, so they stay with us and we can take care of them and help them out. We will have some company.
But nowadays there’s no tradition of hospitality and good will anymore. There is only fear and suspicion. In some villages I’d say there aren’t any people left --- there are only animals. There’s suspicion about everything, possessiveness over every bush and every inch of ground, just because there is no morality, no spirituality. When there is no sila and no Dhamma, then we live lives of unease and paranoia. People go to sleep at night and soon they wake up, worrying about what’s going on or about some sound they heard. People in the villages don’t forget a long or trust each other. Parents and children don’t trust each other. Parents and children don’t trust each other. Husband and wife don’t trust east other. What’s going on?
All of this the result of being far from the Dhamma and living lives bereft of Dhamma. So everywhere you look it’s like this, and life is hard. Of a few people show up in the village and request shelter for the right now they’re told to go find a hotel. Everything is business now. In the past no one would think of sending away like that. The whole village would join in showing hospitality. People would go and invite their neighbors and everyone would bring food and drink to share with the guest. Now that can’t be done. After people eat their dinner, they lock the doors.
Wherever we look in the world now, this is the way things are going. It means that the non-spiritual is proliferating and taking over. We people are generally not very happy and we don’t trust anyone very much. Some people even kill their parents now. Husbands and wives may cut each other’s throats. There is a lot of pain in society and it’s simply because of this lack of sila and Dhamma. So please try to understand this and don’t discard the principles of virtue. With virtue and spirituality, human life can be happy. Without them we become like animals.
The Buddha was born in the forest. Born in the forest, he studied Dhamma in the forest. He taught Dhamma in the forest, beginning with the Discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma. He entered Nibbana in the forest.
It’s important for those of us who live in the forest to understand the forest. Living in the forest doesn’t mean that our mind become wild, like those of forest animals. Our minds can become elevated and spiritually noble. This is what the Buddha said. Living in the city we live among distraction and disturbance. In the forest, there is quiet and tranquility. We can contemplate things clearly and develop wisdom. So we take this quiet and tranquility as our friend and helper. Such an environment is conductive to Dhamma practice, so we take it as our dwelling place; we take the mountains and caves for our refuge. Observing natural phenomena, wisdom comes about in such places. We learn from and understand trees and everything else, and it brings about a state of joy. The sounds of nature we hear don’t disturb us. We hear the birds calling, as they will, and it is actually a great enjoyment. We don’t react with any aversion harshly or acting aggressively towards anyone or anything. Hearing the sounds of forest gives delight to the mind; even as we are hearing sounds the mind is tranquil.
The sounds of people on the other hand are not peaceful. Even when people speak nicely it doesn’t bring my deep tranquility to the mind. The sounds that people like, such as music, are not peaceful. They cause excitement and enjoyment, but there is no peace in them. When people are together and seeking pleasure in this way it will usually lead to mindless and aggressive, contentious speech, and the condition of disturbance keeps increasing.
The sounds of humans are like this. They do not bring real comfort of happiness, unless words of Dhamma are being spoken.
Generally, when people live together in society, they are speaking out of their own interests, upsetting each other, taking offense and accusing each other, and the only result is confusion and upset. Without Dhamma people naturally tend to be like that. The sounds of humans lead us into delusion. The sounds of music and the words of songs agitate and confuse the mind take look at this. Consider the pleasure sensations that come from listening to music. People feel it’s really something great, that it’s so much fun. They can stand out in the hot sun when they’re listening to a music and dance show. They can stand there until they’re baked to a crisp, but still they feel they’re having fun. But then if someone speaks harshly, criticizing or cursing them, they are unhappy again. This is how it is with the ordinary sounds of humans. But if the sounds of humans become the sounds of Dhamma, if the mind is Dhamma and we are speaking Dhamma, that something worth listening to, something to think about, to study and contemplate.
That kind of sound is good, not in any excessive, unbalanced way, but in a way that brings happiness and tranquility. The ordinary sounds of human generally only bring confusion, upset and torment. They lead to the arising of lust, anger and confusion, and they incite people to be covetous and greedy, to want to harm and destroy others. But the sounds of the forest aren’t like that. If we hear the cry of a bird it doesn’t cause us to have lust or anger.
We should be using our time to create benefit right now in the present. This was the Buddha’s intention: benefit in this life, benefit in future lives. In this life, from childhood we need to apply ourselves to study, to learn at least enough to be able to earn a living so that we can support ourselves and eventually establish a family and not live in poverty. But we generally don’t have such a responsible attitude. We only want to seek enjoyment instead. Wherever there’s a festival, a play or a concert, we’re on our way there, even when it’s getting near harvest time. The old folks will drag the grandchildren along to hear the famous singer.
“Where are you off to, Grandmother?”
“I’m taking the kids to the concert!”
I don’t know if Grandma is taking the kids, or the kids are taking her. It doesn’t matter how long or difficult a trip it might be. And they go again and again. They say they’re taking the grandchildren to listen, but the truth is they just want to go themselves. To them, that’s what a good time is. If you invite them to come to the monastery to listen to Dhamma and learn about right and wrong, they’ll say, “You go ahead. I want to stay home and rest,” or “I’ve got a bad headache, my back hurts, my knees are sore, I really don’t feel well….” But if it’s a popular singer or an exciting play, they’ll rush to round up the kids and nothing bothers them then.
That’s how folks are. They make such efforts yet all they’re doing is bringing suffering and difficulty on themselves. They’re seeking out darkness, confusion and intoxication on this path of delusion. The Buddha is teaching us to create benefit for ourselves in this life, ultimate benefit, spiritual welfare. We should do it now, in this life. We should be seeking out the knowledge that will help us do that, so that we can lives well, making good use of our resources, working with diligence in ways of right livelihood.
After I was ordained, I started practicing --- studying and then practicing --- and faith came about. When I first started practicing I would think about the lives of beings in the world. It all seemed very heartrending and pitiful. What was so pitiful about it? All the rich people would soon die and have to leave their big houses behind, leaving the children and grandchildren to fight over the estate. When I saw such things happening, I thought, hmmm… it got to me. It made me feel pity towards rich and poor alike, towards the wise and the foolish --- everyone living in this world was in the same boat.
Reflecting on our bodies, about the condition of the world and the lives of sentient beings about weariness and dispassion. Thinking about the ordained life, that we have taken up this way of life to dwell and practice in the forest, and developing a constant attitude of disenchantment and dispassion, our practice will process. Thinking constantly about the factors of practice, rapture comes about. The hairs of the body stand on end. There is a feeling of joy in reflecting on the way we live, in comparing our live previously with our lives now.
The Dhamma caused such feelings to fill my heart. I didn’t know who to talk about. I was awake and whatever situations I met, I was awake and alert. It means I had some knowledge of Dhamma. My mind was illuminated and I realized many things. I experienced bliss, a real satisfaction and delight in my way of life.
To put it simply, I felt I was different from others. I was a full grown, normal man, but I could live in the forest like this. I didn’t have any regrets or see any loss in it. When I saw others having families, I though that was truly regrettable. I looked around and thought, how many people can live like this? I cam to have real faith and trust in the path of practice I had chosen and this faith has supported me right up to the present.
In the early days of Wat Pah Pong, I had four or five monks living here with me. We experienced a lot of difficulties. From what can I see now, most of us Buddhists are pretty deficient in our practice. These days, when you walk into a monastery you only see the kutis (monk’s dwellings), the temple hall, the monastery grounds and the monks. But as to what is really the heart of the Buddha’s way (Buddhasasana), you won’t find that. I’ve spoken about this often; it’s a cause for sadness.
In the past I had one Dhamma companion who became more interested in study than in practice. He pursued the Pali and Abhidharma studies, going to live in Bangkok after a while, and last year he finally completed his studies and received a certificate and titles commensurate with his learning. So now he has a brand name. Here, I don’t have any brand name. I studied outside the models, contemplating things and practicing, thinking and practicing. So I don’t get the brand label like the others. In this monastery we had ordinary monks, people who didn’t have a lot of learning but who were determined to practice.
I originally came to this place at the invitation of my mother. She was the one who had cared for me and supported me since my birth, but I hadn’t gotten an opportunity to repay her kindness, so I thought this would be the way to do that, coming here to Wat Pah Pong. I had some connection with this place. When I was a child, I remember hearing my father say that Ajahn Sao *(A highly respected monk of the forest tradition, considered to be an Arahant and a teacher of Ajahn Mun.) came to stay here. My father went to hear the Dhamma from him. I was a child, but the memory stayed with me; it stuck in my mind always.
My father was never ordained, but he told me how he went to pay respects to his meditation monk. It was the first time he saw a monk eating out of his bowl, putting everything together in the one almsbowl --- rice, curry, sweet, fish, everything. He’d never seen such a thing, and it made him wonder what kind of monk this might be. He told me about this when I was a little child; that was a meditation monk.
Then he told me about getting Dhamma teaching from Ajahn Sao. It wasn’t the ordinary way of teaching; he just spoke what was on his mind. That was the practice monk who came to stay here once. So when I went off to practice myself, I always retained some special feeling about this. When I would think back to my home village, I always thought about this forest. Then, when the time came to return to this area, I came to stay here.
I invited one high-ranking monk from Piboon district to come stay here too. But he said he couldn’t. He came for a while and said, “This is my place.” He told this to the local people. Another Ajahn came to stay here for a while and left. But I remained.
In those days this forest was really remote. It was far from everything and living here was very hard. There were mango trees the villagers and planted and the fruit often ripened and went bad. Yams were growing here too and they would just rot on the ground. But I wouldn’t dare to take any of it. The forest was really dense. When you arrived here with your bowl, there wouldn’t be any place to put it down. I had to ask the village to clear some spaces in the forest. It was a forest that people didn’t dare enter --- they were very afraid of this place.
Nobody really knew what I was doing here. People didn’t understand the life of meditation monk. I stayed here like this for a couple of years then the first few monk disciples followed me here.
We lived very simply and quietly in those days. We got sick with malaria, all of us nearly dying. But we never went to a hospital. We already had our safe refuge, relying on the spiritual power of the Lord Buddha and his teachings. At night it would be completely silent. Nobody ever came in here. The only sound you heard was the sound of insects. The kutis were far apart in the forest.
One night, about nine o’clock I heard someone walking out of the forest. One monk was extremely ill with fever and was afraid he would die. He didn’t want to die alone in the forest. I said, “That’s good. Let’s try to find someone who isn’t ill to watch the one who is; how can one sick person take care of another?” That was about it. We didn’t have medicine.
We had borapet (an extremely bitter medicine vine). We boiled it t drink. When we talked about “preparing a hot drink” in the afternoon, we didn’t have to think much about it; it only meant borapet. Everyone had fever and everyone drank borapet. We didn’t have anything else and we didn’t request anything of anyone. If any monks got really suck, I told them, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry. If you die, I’ll cremate you myself. I’ll cremate you right here in the monastery. You wont need to go anywhere else.” This is how I dealt with it. Speaking like this gave them strength of mind. There was a lot of fear to deal with.
Conditions were pretty rough. The laypeople don’t know much. They would bring us plab rah (fermented fish, a staple of local diet), but it was made with raw fish, so we didn’t eat it; I would stir it and take a good look at it to see what it was made from and just leave it sitting there.
Things were very hard then and we don’t have those kinds of conditions these days --- nobody knows about it. But there is some legacy remaining in the practice we have now, in the monks from those days who are still here. After the rains retreat, w could go tudong (wandering) right here within the monastery. We went and sat deep in the quiet of the forest. From time to time we would gather, I would give some teaching and then everyone returned into the forest to continue meditating, walking and sitting. We practiced like this in the dry season; we didn’t need to go wandering in search of forests to practice in because we had the right conditions here. We maintained the tudong practices right here.
Now, after the rains everyone wants to take off somewhere. The result is usually that their practice gets interrupted. It’s important to keep at it steadily and sincerely so that you come to know your defilements. This way of practice is something good and authentic. In the past it was much better. It’s like the saying that we practice to no longer be a person: the person should die in order to become a monk. We adhere to the vinaya strictly and everyone had a real sense of shame about their actions. When doing chores, hauling water or sweeping the grounds, you didn’t hear monks talking. During bowl washing, it was completely silent. Now, some days I have no send someone to tell them to stop talking and find out what all the commotion is about. I wonder if they’re boxing out there; the noise is so loud I can’t imagine what’s going on. So again and again I have to forbid them to chat.
I don’t know what they need to talk about. When they’ve eaten they become heedless because of the pleasure they feel. I keep on saying, “When you come back from almsround, don’t talk!” If someone asks why you don’t want to talk, tell them, “My hearing is bad.” Otherwise it becomes like a pack of barking dogs. Chattering brings about emotions, and can even end up in a fistfight, especially at that time of day when everyone is hungry --- the dogs are hungry and defilements are active.
This is what I’ve noticed. People don’t enter the practice wholeheartedly. I’ve seen it changing over the years. Those who trained in the past got some results and can take care of themselves, but now hearing about the difficulties would scare people away,. It’s too hard to conceive of. If you make things easy then everyone is interested, but what’s the point? The reason we were able to realize some benefit in the past is that everyone trained together wholeheartedly.
The monks who lived here then really practiced endurance to the utmost. We saw things through together, from the beginning to the end. They have some understanding about the practice. After several years of practicing together, I thought it would be appropriate to send them out to their home village to establish monasteries.
Those of you who came later can’t really imagine what it was like for us then. I don’t know who to talk to about it. The practice was extremely strict. Patience and endurance were the most important things we lived by. No one complained about the conditions. If we only had plain rice to eat, n one complained. We ate in complete silence, never discussing whether or not the food was tasty. Borapet was what we had for our hot drink.
One of the monks went to central Thailand and drank coffee there. Someone offered him some to bring back here. So we had coffee once. But there was no sugar to put in it. No one complained about that. Where would we get sugar? So we could say we really drank coffee, without any sugar to sweeten the taste. We depended on others to support us and we wanted to be people who were easy to support, so of course we didn’t make requests of anyone. Like that, we were continually doing without things and enduring whatever conditions we found ourselves in.
One year the lay supporters Mr. Puang and Mrs. Daeng came to be ordained here. They were from the city and had never lived like this, without things, enduring hardship, eating as we do, practicing under the guidance of an Ajahn and performing the duties outlines in the rules of training. But they heard about their nephew living here so they decided to come and be ordained. As soon as they were ordained, a friend was bringing them coffee and sugar. They were living in the forest to practice meditation, but they had the habit of getting up early in the morning and making milk coffee to drink before doing anything else. So they stocked their kutis of sugar and coffee. But here, we would have our morning chanting and meditation, then immediately the monks would prepare to go for alms, so they didn’t have a chance to make coffee. After a while it started to sink in. Mr. Puang would pace back and forth, thinking what to do. He didn’t have anywhere to make his coffee and no one was coming to make it and offer it to him, so he ended up bringing it all to the monastery kitchen and leaving it there.
Coming to stay here, actually seeing the conditions in the monastery and the way of life meditation monks, really got him down. An elderly man, he was an important relative to me. That same year he disrobed; it was appropriate from him, since his affairs were not yet settled.
After that we first got ice here. We saw some sugar once in a while too. Mrs. Daeng had gone to Bangkok. When she talked about the way we lived, she would start crying. People who hadn’t see life of meditation monks had no idea what it was like. Eating once a day, was that making progress of falling behind? I don’t know what to call it.
On almsround, people would make little packages of chili sauce to put in our bowls in additions to the rice. Whatever we got we would bring it back, share it out and eat. Whether we had different items that people liked or whether the food was tasty or not was never something we discussed; we just ate to be full ad that was it. It was really simple. There were no plates or bowls --- everything went into the almsbowl.
Nobody came here to visit. A night everyone went to their kutis to practice. Even dogs couldn’t bear to stay here. The kutis were far apart and from the meeting place. After everything was done at the end of the day, we separated and entered the forest to go to our kutis. That made the dogs afraid they wouldn’t have any safe place to stay. So they would follow the monks into the forest, but when they went up into their kutis, the dogs would be left alone and left afraid, so they would try to follow another monk, but that monk would also disappear into his kuti.
So even dogs couldn’t live here --- this was our life of practicing meditation. I thought abut this sometimes: even the dogs can’t bear it, but still live here! Pretty extreme. It made me a little melancholy too.
All kids of obstacle… we lived with fever, but we faced death and we all survived. Beyond facing death we had to live with difficult conditions such as poor food. But it was never a concern. When I look back to that time compared to the conditions we have now, they are so far apart.
Before, we never had bowls or plates. Everything was put together in the almsbowl. Now that can’t be done. So if one hundred monks are eating, we need five people to wash dishes afterwards. Sometimes they are still washing when it’s time for the Dhamma talk. This kind of thing makes for complications. I don’t know what to do about it; I’ll just leave it to you use your own wisdom to consider.
It doesn’t have an end. Those who like to complain will always find something else to complain about, no matter how good the conditions become. So the result is that the monks have become extremely attached to flavors and aromas. Sometimes I overhear them talking about their ascetic wandering. “Oh boy, the food is really great there! I went tudong to the south, by the coast, and I ate lots of shrimp! I ate big ocean fish!” This is what they talk about. When the mind is taken up with such concerns, it’s easy to get attached and immersed in desire for food. Uncontrolled minds are roaming about and getting stuck in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, physical sensations and ideas, and practicing Dhamma become difficult. It becomes difficult for an Ajahn to teach people to follow the right way, when they are attached to tastes. It’s like raising a dog. If you just feed it plain rice, it will grow strong and healthy. But give it some tasty curry on stop of its rice for a couple of days and after that won’t look at the plain rice anymore.
Sights, sounds, smells and tastes are the undoing of the Dhamma practice. They can cause a lot of harm. If each one of us does not contemplate the use of our four requisites --- robes, almsfood, dwelling and medicines --- the Buddha’s way cannot flourish. You can look and see that however much material progress and development there is in the world, the confusion and suffering of humans increase right along with it. And after it goes on for some time, it’s almost impossible to find a solution. Thus I say that when you go to a monastery you see the monks, the temple and the kutis, but you don’t see the Buddhasasana. The sasana is in decline like this. It’s easy to observe.
The sasana, meaning the genuine and direct teaching that instructs people to be honest and upright, to have loving-kindness towards each other, has been lost and turmoil and distress are taking its place. Those whop went through the years of practice with me in the past have still maintained their diligence, but after twenty-five years here, I see how the practice has become slack. Now people don’t dare to push themselves and practice too much. They are afraid. They fear it will be the extreme of self-mortification. In the past we just went for it. Sometimes monks fasted for several days or week. They wanted to see their minds, to train their minds: if it’s stubborn, you whip it. Mind and body work together. When we are not yet skilled in practice, if the body is too fat and comfortable, the mind gets out of control. When a fire starts and the wind blows, it spreads the fire and burns the house down. It’s like that. Before, when I talked about eating little, sleeping little and speaking little, the monks understood and took it to heart. But now such talk is likely to be disagreeable to the minds of practitioners. “We can find our way. Why should we suffer and practice so austerely? It’s the extreme of self-mortification; it’s not agrees. They are hungry. So what can I say to them? I keep on trying to correct this attitude, but this is the way it seems to be now.
So all of you, please make your minds strong and firm. Today you have gathered from the different branch monasteries to pay your respects to me as your teacher, to gather as friend in Dhamma, so I am offering some teaching about the path of practice. The practice of respect is a supreme Dhamma. There can be no disharmony, people will not fight and kill each other when there is true respect. Paying respects to a spiritual master, to our preceptors and teachers, cause us to flourish; the Buddha spoke of it as something auspicious.
People from the city like to eat mushrooms. They ask, “Where do the mushrooms come from?” Someone tells them, “They grow in the earth.” So they pick up a basket and go walking out into the countryside, expecting the mushrooms will be lined up along the side of the road for them to pick. But they walk and walk, climbing hills and trekking hills and trekking through fields, without seeing any mushrooms. A village person has gone picking mushrooms before and knows where to look for them; he knows which part of which forest to go to. But the city folk only have the experience of seeing mushrooms in their plate. They heard they grow in the earth and got the idea that they would be easy to find, but it didn’t work out that way.
Training the mind in Samadhi is like this. We get the idea it will e easy. But when we sit, our legs hurt, our back hurts, we feel tired, we get hot and itchy. Then we start to feel discouraged, thinking that Samadhi is far from us as the sky from the earth. We don’t know what to do and become overwhelmed by the difficulties. But if we can receive some training, it will get easier little by little.
So you who come here to practice Samadhi feel it’s difficult. I had my troubles with it, too. I trained with an Ajahn, and when we were sitting I’d open my eyes to look: “Oh! Is Ajahn ready to stop yet?” I’d close my eyes again and try to bear a little longer. I felt like it was going to kill me and I kept opening my eyes, but he looked so comfortable sitting there. One hour, two hours, I would be in agony but the Ajahn didn’t move. So after a while I got to fear the sittings. When it was time to practice Samadhi, I’d feel afraid.
When we are new to it, training in Samadhi is difficult. Anything is difficult when we don’t know how to do it. This is our obstacle. But training at it, this can change. That which is good can be eventually overcome and surpass that which is not good. We tend to become fainthearted as we struggle --- this is a normal reaction and we all go through it. So it’d important to train for some time. It’s like making a path through the forest. At first it’s rough going, with a lot of obstructions, but returning to it again and again, we clear the way. After some time we have removed the branches and stumps, and the ground becomes firm and smooth from being walked on repeatedly. Then we have a good path for walking through the forest.
This is what it’s like when we train the mind. Keeping at it, the mind becomes illumined. For example, we country people grow up eating rice and fish. Then when we come to learn Dhamma we are told to refrain from harming: we should not kill living creatures. What can we do then? We feel we are really in a bind. Our market is in the fields. If the teachers are telling us not to kill, we won’t eat. Just this much and we are at our wits’ ends. How will we feed ourselves? There doesn’t seem to be any way for us rural people. Our marketplace is the field and the forest. We have to catch animals and kill them in order to eat.
I’ve been trying to teach people ways to deal with this issue for many years. It’s like this: farmers eat rice. For the most part, people who work in the fields grow and eat rice. So what about a tailor in town? Does he eat sewing machines? Does he eat cloth? Let’s just consider this first. You are farmer so you eat rice. If someone offers you another job, will you refuse, saying, “I can’t do it --- I won’t have rice to eat”?
Matches that you use in your home --- are you able to make them? You can’t; so how do you come to have matches? It is only the case that those who can make matches have matches to use? What about the bowls you eat from? Here in the villages, does anyone know to make them? But do people have them in their houses? So where do you get them from?
There are plenty of things we don’t know how to makes, but still we can earn more money to buy them. This is using our intelligence to find a way. In meditation we also need to do this. Look at the Buddha and his disciples. Once they were ordinary beings, but they developed themselves to progress through the stages of Stream Entry on up to Arahant. They did this through training. Gradually wisdom grows. A sense of shame towards wrongdoing comes about.
I once taught a sage. He was a lay patron who came to practice and keep precepts on the observances days, but he would still go fishing. I tried to teach him further but couldn’t solve this problem. He said he didn’t kill fish; they simply came to swallow his hook.
I kept at it, teaching him until he felt some contrition over this. He was ashamed of it, but he kept doing it. Then his rationalization changed. He would put the hook in the water and announce, “Whichever fish has reached the end of its kamma to be alive, come and eat my hook. If your time has not yet come, do not eat my hook.” He had changed his excuse, but still the fish came eat. Finally he started looking at them, their mouths caught on the hook, and he felt some pity. But he still couldn’t resolve his mind. “Well, I told them not to eat the hook if it wasn’t time; what can I do if they still come?” And then he’d think, “But they are dying because of me.” He went back and forth on this until finally he could stop.
But then there were the frogs. He couldn’t bear to stop catching frogs to eat. “Don’t do this!” I told him. “Take a good look at them… okay, if you can’t stop killing them, I won’t forbid you, but please just look at them before you do that.” So he picked up a frog and looked at it. He looked at his face, its eyes, its legs. “Oh man, it looks like my child: it has arms and legs. Its eyes are open, it’s looking at me…” He felt hurt. But still he killed them. He looked at each one looked this and then killed it, feeling he was doing something bad. His wife was pushing him, saying they wouldn’t have anything to eat if he didn’t kill frogs.
Finally he couldn’t bear it anymore. He would catch them but wouldn’t break their legs like before; previously he would break their legs so they couldn’t hop away. Still, he couldn’t make himself let them go. “Well, I’m just taking care of them, feeding them here. I’m only raising them; whatever someone else might do, I don’t know about that.” But of course he knew. The others were still killing them for food. After a while he could admit this to himself. “Well, I’ve cut my bad kamma by 50 percent anyhow. Someone else do the killing.”
This was starting to drive him crazy but he couldn’t yet let go. He still kept the frogs at home. He won’t break their legs anymore, but his wife would. “It’s my fault. Even if I don’t do it, they do it because of me.” Finally he gave it up altogether. But then his wife was complaining. “What are we going to do? What should we eat?”
He was really caught now. When he went to the monastery, the Ajahn lectured him on what he should do. When he returned home, his wife lectured him on what he should do. The Ajahn was telling him to stop doing that and his wife egging him on to continue doing. What to do? What a lot of suffering. Born into this world, we have to suffer like this.
In the end, his wife had to let go too. So they stopped killing frogs. He worked in his field, tending his buffaloes. Then he got the habit of releasing fish and frogs. When he saw fish caught in nets he would set them free. Once he went to a friend’s house and saw some frog in a pot and he set them free. Then his fiend’s wife came to prepare dinner. She opened the lid of the pot and saw the frogs were gone. They figured out what had happened. “It’s that guy with the heart of merit.”
She did manage to catch one frog ad make a chili paste with it. They sat down to eat and as he went as he went to dip his ball of rice in the chili, she said, “Hey, heart of merit! You shouldn’t eat that! It’s frog chili paste.”
This was too much. What a lot of grief, just being alive and trying to feed oneself! Thinking about it, he couldn’t see any way out. He was already an old man, so he decided to ordain.
He prepared the ordination gear, shaved his head and went inside the house. As soon as his wife saw his shaved head, she started crying. He pleaded with her: “Since I was born, I haven’t had the chance to be ordained. Please give me your blessing to do this. I want to be ordained, but I will disrobe and return home again.” So his wife relented.
He was ordained in the local monastery and after the ceremony he asked the preceptor what he should do. The preceptor told him, “If you’re really doing this seriously, you ought to just go to practice meditation. Follow a meditation master; don’t stay here near the houses.” He understood and decided to do that. He slept one night in the temple and in the morning took his leave, asking where she could find Ajahn Tongrat. *(Ajahn Tongrat was a well-known meditation teacher during Ajahn Chah’s early years.)
He shouldered his bowl and wandered off, a new monk who couldn’t yet put on his robes very neatly. But he found his way to Ajahn Tongrat.
“Venerable Ajahn, I have no other aim in life. I want to offer my body and my life to you.”
Ajahn Tongrat replied, “Very good! Lots of merits! You almost misses me. I was just about to go my way. So do your prostrations and take a seat there.”
The new monk asked, “Now that I’m ordain, what should I do?”
It happened that they were sitting by an old tree stump. Ajahn Tongrat pointed to it said, “Make yourself like this tree stump. Don’t do anything else, just make yourself like this tree stump.” He taught him meditation in this way.
So Ajahn Tongrat went on his way and the monk stayed there to contemplate his words. “Ajahn taught to make myself like tree stump. What am I supposed to do?” He pondered this continuously, whether walking, sitting or lying down to sleep. He thought about the stump first being a seed, how it grew into a tree, got bigger and aged and was finally cut down, just leaving this stump. Now that it is a stump, it won’t be growing anyone and nothing will bloom from it. He kept on discussing this in his mind, considering it over and over, until it became his meditation object. He expanded it to apply to all phenomena and was able to turn inwards and apply it to himself. “After a while, I am probably going to be like this stump, a useless thing.”
Realizing this gave him the determination not to disrobe.
His mind was made up at this point; he had the conditions come together to get to this stage. When the mind is like this, there won’t be anything that can stop it. All of us are in the same boat. Please think about this and try to apply it to your practice. Being born as humans is full of difficulties. And it’s not just that it’s been difficult for us so far --- in the future there will be also be difficult. Young people will grow up, grown-ups will age, aged one will fail ill, ill people will die. It keeps on going like this, the cycle o ceaseless transformation that never comes to an end.
So the Buddha taught us to meditate. In meditation, first we have to practice Samadhi, which means making the mind still and peaceful. Like water in a basin. If we keep putting things in it and stirring it up, it will always be murky. If the mind is always allowed to be thinking and worrying over things, we can never see anything clearly. If we let the water in the basin settle and become still, then we can see all sorts of things reflected in it. When the mind is settled and still, wisdom will be able to see things. The illuminating light of wisdom surpasses any other kind of light.
What was the Buddha’s advice on how to practice? He taught to practice like the earth; practice like water; practice like fire; practice like wind.
Practice like the ‘old things,’ the things we are already made of: the solid element of earth, the liquid element of water, the warming element of fire, the moving element of wind.
If someone digs the earth, the earth is not bothered. It can be shoveled, tilled or watered. Rotten things can be buried in it. But the earth will remain indifferent. Water can be boiled or frozen or used to wash something dirty; it is not affected. Fire can be burn beautiful and fragrant things or ugly and foul things --- it doesn’t matter to the fire. When wind blows on all sorts of things, fresh and rotten, beautiful and ugly, without concern.
The Buddha used this analogy. The aggregation that is us merely a coming together of the elements of earth, water, fire and wind. If you try to find an actual person, you can’t. There are only these collections of elements. But for all our lives, we never thought to separate them like this to see what is really there; we have only thought, “This is me, that is mine.” We have always seen everything in terms of a self, never seeing that there is merely earth, water, fire and wind. But the Buddha teaches in this way. He talks about the four elements and urges us too see that this is what we are. There are earth, water, fire and wind; there is no person here. Contemplate these elements to see that there is no being or individual, but only earth, water, fire and wind.
It’s deep, isn’t it? It’s hidden deep --- people will look but they can’t see this. We are used to contemplating things in terms of self and other all the time. So our meditation is still not very deep. It doesn’t teach the truth and we don’t get beyond the way these things sorry appear to be. We remain stuck in the conventions of the world and being stuck in the world means remaining in the cycle of transformation: getting things and losing them, dying and being born, being born and dying, suffering in the realm of confusion. Whatever we wish for and aspire to doesn’t really work out the way we want, because we are seeing things wrongly.
Our grasping attachments are like this. We are still far, very far from the real path of Dhamma. So please get to work right now. Don’t say, “After I’m aged, I will start going to the monastery.” What is aging? Young people have aged as well as old people. From birth, they have been aging. We like to say, “When I’, older, when I’m older…” Hey! Young folks are older, older than they were. This is what ‘aging’ means. All of you please take a look at this. We all have this burden; this is a task for all of us to work on. Think about your parents or grandparents. They were born, then they aged in end they passed away. Now we don’t know where they’re gone.
So the Buddha wanted us to seek the Dhamma. This kind of knowledge is what’s most important. Any form of knowledge or study that does not agree with the Buddhist way is learning that involves dukkha. Our practice of Dhamma should be getting us beyond suffering; if we can’t fully transcend suffering, then we should at least be able to transcend it a little, now, in the present for example, when someone speaks harshly to us, if we don’t get angry with them we have transcended suffering. If we get angry, we have not transcended dukkha.
When someone speaks harshly to us, if we reflect on Dhamma, we will see it just heaps pf earth. Okay, he is criticizing me --- he’s just criticizing a heap of earth. One heap of earth is criticizing another heap of earth. Water is criticizing water. Wind is criticizing wind. Fire is criticizing fire.
But if we really see things in this way then others will probably call us mad. “He doesn’t care anything. He has no feeling.” When someone dies we won’t get upset and cry, and they will call us crazy again. Where can we stay?
It really has to come down to this. We have to practice to realize for ourselves. Getting beyond suffering does not depend on others’ opinions of us, but on our individual stage of mind. Never mind what they will say --- we experience the truth for ourselves. Then we can dwell at ease.
But generally we don’t take it this far. Youngsters will go to the monastery once or twice. Then when they go home their friends make fun of them: “Hey, Dhamma Dhammo!” They feel embarrassed and they don’t feel like coming back here. Some of them have told me that they came here to listen to teachings and gained some understanding, so they stopped drinking and hanging out with the crowd. But their friends belittled them: “You go to the monastery and now you don’t want to go out drinking with us anymore. What’s wrong with you?” So they get embarrassed and eventually end up doing the same old things again. It’s hard for people to stick to it.
So rather than aspiring too high, let’s practice patience and endurance. Exercising patient and restraint in our families is already pretty good. Don’t quarrel and fight --- if you can get along, you’ve already transcended suffering for the moment and that’s you’ve already transcend suffering for the moment and that’s good. When things happen, recollect Dhamma. Think of what your spirit guides have taught you. They teach you to let go, to give up, to refrain, to put things down; they teach you to strive and fight in this way to solve your problems. The Dhamma that you come to listen to is just for solving your problems.
What kind of problems are we talking about? How about your families? Do you have any problem with your children, your spouses, your friends, your work and other matters? All these things give you a lot of headaches, don’t they? These are the problems we are talking about; the teachings are telling you that you can resolve the problems of daily life with Dhamma.
We have been born as human beings. It should be possible to live with happy minds. We do our work according to our responsibilities. It things get difficult we practice endurance. Earning a livelihood in the right way is one sort of Dhamma practice, the practice of ethical living. Living happily and harmoniously like this is already pretty good.
But we are usually taking a loss. Don’t take a loss”! If you come here on the observance day to take precepts and then go home and fight, that’s a loss. Do you hear what I am saying, folks? It’s just a loss to do this. It means you don’t see Dhamma even a tiny little bit --- there’s no profit at all. Please understand this.
Now you have listened to the Dhamma for an appropriate length of time today.
Seeking The Source
The enlightened mind is unmoving and thus cannot be recognized. We can develop wisdom and remove our doubts only through practice, nothing else.
All things have need of a way of release. Contemplation is not a matter of holding on and sticking to things. It’s a matter of releasing. A mind that can’t release phenomena is in a state of intoxication. In practice, it’s important not to be intoxicated. When practice really seem to be good, don’t be intoxicated by that good. If you’re intoxicated by it, it becomes something harmful and your practice is no longer correct. We do our best, but it’s important not to become drunk on our efforts, otherwise we are out of harmony with Dhamma. This is the Buddha’s advice. Even the good is not something to get intoxicated by. Be aware of this when it happens.
A dam needs a sluiceway so that the water can run off. It’s the same for us in practice. Using will power to push ourselves and control the mind is something we can do at times, but don’t get drunk on it. We want to be teaching the mind, not merely controlling it, so that it becomes aware. Too much forcing will make you crazy. What’s vital is to keep on increasing awareness and sensitivity. Our path is like this.
There are many points for comparison. We could talk about construction work and bring it back to the way of training the mind.
There is a lot of benefit to be had from practicing meditation, from watching over your mind. This is the first and foremost thing. The teaching you can study in the scriptures and commentaries are true and valuable, but they are secondary. They are people’s explanation of truth. But there is actual truth that surpasses the words. Sometimes the expositions that are derived seem uneven or are not so accessible, and with the passing of time they can become confusing. But the actual truth they are based on remains the same and isn’t affected by what anyone says or does. It is the original, natural state of things that does not change or deteriorate. The explanations people compose are secondary or tertiary, one or two steps removed, and though they can be good and beneficial and flourish for some time, they are subject to deterioration because they are still in the realm of concepts.
It’s like the way the population keeps increasing and troubles increase along with. That’s quite natural. The more people there are, the more issues there will be deal with. Then leaders and teachers will try to show us the right way to live, to do good and solve problems. That can be valid and necessary, but it’s still not the same as the reality those ideas of good are based on. The true Dhamma that is the essence of all good has no way to decline or deteriorate because it is immutable. It is the source, the saccadhamma, existing as it is. All the followers of the Buddha’s way who practice the Dhamma must strive to realize this. Then they may find different means to illustrate it. Over time the explanation lose their potency, but the source remains the same.
So the Buddha taught to focus your attention and investigation. Practitioners in search of the truth, do not be attached to your view and knowledge. Don’t be attached to the knowledge of others. Don’t be attached to anyone’s knowledge. Rather, develop special knowledge; allow the saccadhamma to be revealed in full measure.
In training the mind, investigating the saccadhamma, our own minds are where it can be seen. When there is doubt about anything, we should be paying attention to our thoughts and feelings, our mental processes. This is what we should know. The rest is all superficial.
For example, in practicing Dhamma, we will meet with many sorts of experiences, such as fear. What will we rely on then? When the mind is wrapped up in fear, it can’t find anything rely on. This is something I’ve gone through, the delude mind stuck in fear, unable to find a safe place anywhere. So where can this be settled? It gets settled right at that place where it appears. Wherever the mind has fear, It can end fear right there. Putting it simply, when the mind is completely full o fear it has nowhere else to go and it can stop right there. The place of no fear is there in the place of fear. Whatever states the mind undergoes, if it experiences nimitta, visions or knowledge in meditation, for example, it doesn’t matter ---we are taught to focus awareness on this mind in the resent. That is the standard. Don’t chase after external phenomena. All things we contemplate come to conclusion at the source, the place where they arise. This is where the causes are. This is important.
When we feel fear --- this is a good example, since it’s easy to see --- if we let ourselves experience it until it has nowhere to go then we will no more fear, because it will be exhausted. It loses it power, so we don’t feel fear anymore. Not feeling fear means it has becomes empty. We accept whatever comes our way and it loses it power over us.
This is what the Buddha wanted us to place our trust in, not being attached to our own views, not being attached to others’ views. This is really important. We are aiming at the knowledge the come from realization of the truth, so we don’t want to get stuck in attachment to our own or others’ view and opinions. But when we have our ideas or interact with others, watching these various mental phenomena contact the mind can be illuminating. It’s in those things that we are experience that knowledge can be born.
In watching the mind and cultivating meditation there can be many points of wrong understanding or deviation. Some people focus on conditions of mind and want to analyse them excessively, so their minds are always active. Or maybe we examine the five khandha, or we go into further details with the thirty-two parts of the body --- there are many such classifications that are taught for contemplation. So we ponder and we analyse. Looking at the five khandha doesn’t seem to get us to any conclusion, so we might go into the thirty-two parts, always analyzing and investigating. But the way I see, our attitude towards these five khandha, these heaps that we see right here, should be one of weariness and disenchantment, because they don’t follow our wishes. I think that’s probably enough. If they survive, we shouldn’t be overly joyful to the point of forgetting ourselves. If they break up, we shouldn’t be overly dejected by that. Recognizing this much should be enough. We don’t have to tear apart the skin, the flesh and the bones.
This is something I’ve often talked about. Some people have to analyse like that, even if they are looking at a tree. Students in particular want to know what merit and demerit are, what form they have, what they look like. I explain to them that these things have no form. Merit is in our having correct understanding, correct attitude. But they want to know everything so clearly in such great detail.
So I’ve used the example of a tree. The students will look at a tree and they want to know all about the parts of the tree. Well, a tree has roots, it has leaves. It lives because of the roots. The students have to know, how many roots does it have? Major roots, minor roots, branches, leaves, they want to know all the details and number. Then they will feel they have clear knowledge about the tree. But the Buddha said that a person who wants such knowledge is actually pretty stupid. These things aren’t necessary to know. Just knowing that there are roots and leaves is sufficient. Do you want to count all the leave on a tree? If you look at one leaf, you should be able to get the picture.
It’s the sane with people. If we know ourselves, then we understand all people in the universe without having to go observe them. The Buddha wanted us to look at ourselves. As we are, so are others. We are all samannalakkhana, all being of the same characteristics. All sankhara are like this.
So we practice Samadhi to be able to give up the defilements, to give birth to knowledge and vision and let go of the five khandha. Sometimes people talk about samatha. Sometimes they talk about vipassana. I feel this can become confusing. Those who practice Samadhi will praise Samadhi. But it is just for making the mind tranquil so it can know those things we have been talking about.
Then there are those who will say, “I don’t need to practice Samadhi so much. This plate will break one day in the future. Isn’t that good enough? That will work, won’t it? I’m not very skilled in Samadhi, but I already know what that the place must break someday. Yes, I take good care of it, because I’m afraid it will break, but I know that such is its future and when it does break, I won’t be suffering over that. Isn’t my view correct? I don’t need to practice a lot of Samadhi, because I already have this understanding. You practice Samadhi only for developing this understanding. After training your mind through sitting, you came to this view. I don’t sit much, but I am already confident that this is the way of phenomena.”
This is a question for us practitioners. There are many factions of teacher promoting their different methods of meditation. It can get confusing. But the real point of it all is to be able to recognize they truth, seeing things as they really are and being free of doubt.
As I see it, once we have correct knowledge the mind comes under our command. What is this command about? The command is in anicca, knowing that everything is impermanent. Everything stops here when we see clearly and it becomes the cause for us letting go. Then we let things be, according to their nature. If nothing is occurring, we abide in equanimity, and if something comes up, we contemplate: does it cause us to have suffering? Do we hold onto it with grasping attachment? Is there anything there? This is what supports and sustains our practice. If we practice and get to this point, I think every one of us will realize genuine peace.
Whether we are undertaking vipassana meditation or samatha meditation, just this is what it’s really about. Theses days however, it seem to me that when Buddhists talk about these things according to the traditional explanations, it becomes vague and mixed up. But the truth (saccadhamma) isn’t vague or mixed up. It remains as it is.
So I feel it’s better to seek out the source, looking at the way things originate in the mind. There’s not a lot to this.
Birth, aging, illness and death: it’s brief, but it’s a universal truth. So see it clearly and acknowledge these facts. If you acknowledge them, you will be able to let go. Gain, rank, praise, happiness and their opposites --- you can let them go because you recognize them for what they are.
If we reach this place of recognizing truth, we will be uncomplicated, undemanding people, content with simple food, a dwelling and other requisites for life, easy to speak to and unassuming in our actions. Without difficulty or trouble, we will live at ease. One who meditates and realizes a tranquil mind will be like this.
At present we are trying to practice in the way of the Buddha and his disciples. Those beings had achieved awakening, yet they still maintained their practice as long as they were living. They acted for benefit of themselves and for the benefit of others, yet even after they had accomplishes all that could they still kept their practice, seeking their own and others’ well being in various ways. I think we should take them as the model for our practice. It means not becoming complacent --- that was their deeply ingrained nature. They never slacked their efforts. Effort was their way, their natural habit. Such is the character of genuine practitioners.
We can compare it to rich people and poor people. The rich are especially hard working, much more so than the poor. Ad the less effort poor people make, the less chance they have of becoming rich. The rich have knowledge and experience of a lot of things, so they maintain the habit of diligence in all they do.
Talking about taking a break or getting some rest, we find rest in the practice itself. Once we’ve practiced to get to the goal, know the goal and be the goal, then when we active, there’s no way to incur loss or be harmed. When we are sitting there is no way we can be harmed. In all situations, nothing can affect us. Practice has matured to fulfillment and we have reached the destination. Maybe today we don’t have a chance to sit and practice Samadhi, but we are okay. Samadhi doesn’t mean only sitting. There can be Samadhi in all postures. If we are really practicing in all postures we will enjoy Samadhi thus. There won’t be anything that can be interfere. Such words as, “I’m not in a clear state of mind now, so I can’t practice” will nit be heard. We won’t have such ideas; we will never feel that way. Our practice is well developed and complete --- this is how it should be. Free of doubt and perplexity, we stop at this point and contemplate.
You can look into this: self-view, skeptical doubt, superstitious attachment to rites and rituals. The first step is to get free of these. Whatever sort of knowledge you gain, these are the things the mind needs to get free of. What are they like now? To what extent do we still have them? We are the only ones who can know this; we have to know for ourselves. Who eels can know better than we? Self-view, doubt, superstitious: if we are stuck in attachment here, have doubt here, are still groping here, then there is the conception of self here. But now we can only think, if there is no self, then who is that takes interest and practices?
All things go together. If we come to know them through practice and make an end of them, then we live in an ordinary way. Just like the Buddha and the ariya. They lived just like worldly beings (puthujjana). They used the same language as worldly beings. Their everyday existence wasn’t really different. They used many of the same conventions. Where they differed was that they didn’t create suffering for themselves with their minds. They had no suffering. This is the crucial point, going beyond suffering, extinguishing suffering. Nibbana means ‘extinguishing.’ Extinguishing suffering, extinguishing heat and torment, extinguishing doubt and anxiety.
There’s no need to be in doubt about the practice. Whenever there is doubt about something, don’t have doubt about the doubt --- look directly at it and crush it like that.
In the beginning we train to pacific the mind. This can be difficult to do. You have to find a meditation that suits your own temperament. That will make it easier to gain tranquility. But in truth, the Buddha wanted us to return to ourselves, to take responsibility and look at ourselves.
Hot is anger. Too cool is pleasure, the extreme of indulgence. If it’s hot it’s the extreme of self-torment. We want neither hot nor cold. Know hot and cold. Know all things that appear. Do they cause us to suffer? Do we from attachment to them? Such as teaching that birth is suffering: it doesn’t only mean dying from this life and taking rebirth in the next. That’s so far away. The suffering of birth happens right now. It’s said that becoming is the cause of birth. What is this ‘becoming’? Anything that we attach to and put meaning on is becoming. Whenever we see anything as self or other or belonging to ourselves, without wise discernment to know that such is only a convention, that is all becoming. Whenever we hold on to something as us or ours, which then undergoes change, the mind is shaken by that. It is shaken with a positive or negative reaction. That sense of self experiencing happiness or unhappiness is birth. When there is birth, it brings suffering along with it. Aging is suffering, illness is suffering, and death is suffering.
Right now, do we have becoming? Are we aware of this becoming? For example, take the trees in the monastery. The abbot of the monastery can take birth as worm in every tree in the monastery if he isn’t aware of himself, if he feels that it is really his monastery. This grasping at ‘my’ monastery with ‘my’ orchard and ‘my’ trees is the worm that latches on there. If there are thousands of trees, he will become a worm thousands of times. This is becoming. When the tree are cut or meet with any harm, the worms are affected; the mind is shaken and takes birth with all this anxiety. Then there is the suffering of birth, the suffering of aging and so forth. Are you aware of the way this happen.
Well, those objects in our homes or our orchard are still a little far away. Let’s look right at ourselves sitting here. We are composed of the five aggregates and the four elements. These sankhara are designated as a self. Do you see these sankhara and these suppositions as they really are? If you don’t see the truth of them, there is becoming, being gladdened or depressed over the five khandha, and we take birth, with all the resultant sufferings. This birth happens right now, in the present. The glass breaks right now and we are upset right now. This glass isn’t broken now and we are happy about it now. This is how it happens, being upset or being happy without any wisdom in control. One only meets with ruination. You don’t need to look far away to understand this. When you focus your attention here, you can know whether or not there is becoming. Then, when it is happening, are you aware of it? Are you aware of convention and supposition? Do you understand them? It’s the grasping attachment that is the vital point, whether or not we are really believing in the designations of me and mine. This grasping is the worm and it is what causes birth.
Where is this attachment> grasping on to form, feeling, perception, thoughts and consciousness, we attach to happiness and unhappiness, and we become obscures and take birth. It happens when we have contact through senses. The eyes see form and it happens in the present. This is what the Buddha wanted us to look at, to recognize becoming and birth as they occur through our senses. If wee know them we can let go, internally and externally, the inner senses and the external objects. This can be seen in the present. It’s not something that happens when we die from this life. It’s the eye seeing form right now, the ear hearing sounding right now, the nose smelling aromas right now, the tongue tasting flavors right now. Are you taking birth with them? Be aware and recognize birth right as it happens. This way is better.
To do this requires having wisdom to steadily apply mindfulness and clear comprehension. Then you can be aware of yourself and know when you are undergoing becoming and birth. You won’t need to ask a fortune-teller.
I have a Dhamma friend in central Thailand. In the old days we practices together, but we went our separate ways long ago. Recently I saw him. He practices the foundations of mindfulness, reciting the sutta and giving discourses on it. But he hadn’t resolved his doubts yet.
He prostrated to me and said, “Oh Ajahn, I’m so happy to see you!” I asked him why. He told me he had gone to some shrine where people go for divinations. He held the Buddha statue and said, “If I have already attained the state of purity, may I be able to raise it up this statue. If I have not yet attained the state of purity, may I not be able to raise it up.” And then he was able to raise it up, which made him very delighted. Just this little act, which has no real basis in anything, meant so much to him and made him think he was pure. So he had it engraved on a stone to say, “I raised up the Buddha statue and have thus attained the state of purity.”
Practitioners of the Dhamma shouldn’t be like that. He didn’t see himself at all. He was only looking outside and seeing external object made of stone and cement. He didn’t see the intentions and movements in his own mind in the present moment. When our meditation is looking there, then we won’t have doubts.
So the way I see it, our practice may be good, but there’s no one who can vouch for us. Like this Dhamma hall we are sitting in. someone with a fourth-grade education built it. He did a great job, but he has no brand name. He can’t provide the guarantee or vouch for himself, showing qualifications like an architect who has full training and education, but still he dos it well. The saccadhamma is like this. Even though we haven’t studied and don’t know the detailed explanations, we can recognize suffering, we can recognize what brings suffering and we can let go of it. We don’t need to investigate the explanations or anything else. We just look at our minds, looks at these matters.
Don’t make your practice confusing. Don’t create a bunch of doubts for yourself. When you do have doubt, control it by seeing it merely what it is and let go. Really, there is nothing. We create the sense there is something, but really there’s nothing there is anatta. Our doubtful minds think there is something and then there’s atta. Then meditation becomes difficult because we think we have to get something and become something. Are you going to practice meditation to get or be something? Is that the correct way? It’s only tanha that gets involved in having and becoming. There’s no end in sight if you practice like that.
Here we are talking about cessation, extinguishment. Everything extinguished, ceasing because of knowledge, not ceasing in a state of indifferent ignorance. If we can practice like this and vouch for our own experience, then never mind what anyone else says.
So please don’t get lost in doubts about the practice. Don’t get attached to your own views. Don’t get attached to others’ views. Staying in this middle place, wisdom can be born, correctly and in full measure. I’ve often made the simple analogy of comparing grasping to the place we live. For example, there are the roof and the floor, the upper and lower stories. If someone goes upstairs, he knows he is up there, with his feet on something solid. If he comes downstairs, he knows he is downstairs, standing on the floor. This is all we can recognize. We can sense where we are, either upstairs or downstairs. But the space in the middle we aren’t aware of, because there’s no way to identify or measure it --- it’s just space. We don’t comprehend the space in between. But it remains as it is, whether or not anyone descends from upstairs or not. The saccadhamma is like that, not going anywhere, not changing. When we say, ‘no becoming,’ that is the middle space, not marked or identified by anything. It can’t be described.
For example, these days, the youngsters who are interested in Dhamma want to know about the Nibbana. What’s it like? But if we tell them about a place without becoming, they don’t want to go. They back off. It’s cessation, it’s peace, but they want to know they will live, what they will eat and enjoy there. So there’s no end to it. The real questions for those who want to know the truth are questions about how to practice.
There was an ajivaka who met the Buddha. He asked, “Who is your teacher?” The Buddha replied, “I was enlightenment through my own efforts. I have no teacher.” But his reply was incomprehensible to that wanderer. It was too direct. Their minds were in different places. Even if the wanderer asked all day and all night, there was nothing about it he could understand. The enlightened mind is unmoving and thus cannot be recognized. We can develop wisdom and remove our doubts only through practice, nothing else.
So should we not listen to Dhamma? We should, but then we should put the knowledge we gain into practice. But this doesn’t mean that we’re following a person who teaches us; we follow the experience and awareness that arise as we put the teaching into practice. For instance, we feel. “I really like this thing. I like doing things this way!” But the Dhamma doesn’t allow such liking and attachment. If we are really committed to the Dhamma, then we let go of that object of attraction when we see that it is contrary to Dhamma. This is what the knowledge is for.
A lot of talk --- you’re probably tired by now. Do you have any questions? Well, you probably do….
You should have awareness in letting go. Things flow by and you let them go, but not in a dull, indifferent manner, without seeing what is happening. There has to be mindfulness. All the things I’ve been saying are pointing to having mindfulness protecting you at all times. It means practicing with wisdom, not with delusion. Then we will gain true knowledge as wisdom becomes bold and keeps increasing.
The Dhamma Goes Westward
We create some benefit in this world through the virtuous efforts we make. We create benefit for ourselves and for others, for this life and the next. This is the result of making the mind peaceful.
Question: A friend of mine went to practice with a Zen teacher. He asked him, “When the Buddha was sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, what was he doing?” The Zen master answered, “He was practicing zazen!” My friend said, “I don’t believe it.” The Zen master asked him, “What do you mean, don’t believe it?” My friend said, “I asked Goenka the same question and he said, “When the Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi tree, he was practicing vipassana!” So everybody says the Buddha was doing whatever they do.”
Ajahn Chah: When the Buddha sat out in the open, he was sitting beneath the Bodhi tree. Isn’t that so? When he sat under some other kind of tree, he was sitting beneath the Bodhi tree. There’s nothing wrong with those explanations. ‘Bodhi’ means the Buddha himself, the one who knows. It’s OK to talk about sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, but lots of birds sit beneath the Bodhi. Lots of people sit beneath the Bodhi tree. But they are far from such knowledge truth. Yes, we can say, “beneath the Bodhi tree.” Monkeys play in the Bodhi tree. People sit there beneath the Bodhi tree. But this doesn’t mea they have any profound understanding. Those who have deeper understanding realize that the true meaning of the ‘Bodhi tree’ is the absolute Dhamma.
So in this way it’s certainly good for us to try sit beneath the Bodhi tree. Then we can be Buddha. But we don’t need to argue with others over this question. When one person says the Buddha was doing one kind of practice beneath the Bodhi tree and another person disputes that, we needn’t get involved. We should be looking at it from the viewpoint of the ultimate, meaning realizing the truth. There is also the conventional idea of ‘Bodhi tree,’ which is what most people talk about, but when there are two kinds of Bodhi tree, people can end up arguing and having the most contentious disputes --- and then there is no Bodhi tree at all.
It’s talking paramatthadhamma, the level of ultimate truth. So in that case, we can also try to get underneath the Bodhi tree. That’s pretty good --- then we’ll be Buddha. It’s not something to be arguing over. When someone says the Buddha was practicing a certain kind of meditation beneath the Bodhi tree and someone else says, “No, that’s not right”, we needn’t get involved. We’re aiming at paramatthadhamma, meaning dwelling in full awareness. This ultimate truth pervades everything. Whether the Buddha was sitting beneath the Bodhi tree or performing other activities in other postures, never mind. That’s just the intellectual analysis people have developed. One person has another idea; we don’t have to get involved in disputes over it.
Where did the Buddha enter Nibbana? Nibbana means extinguished without remainder, finished. Being fished come from knowledge, knowledge of the way things really are. That’s how things get finished, and that is the paramatthadhamma. There are explanations according to the levels of convention and liberation. They are both true, but their truths are different. For example, we say that you are a person. But the Buddha will say, “That’s not so. There’s no such thing as a person.” So we have to summarize the various ways of speaking and explanation into convention and liberation.
We can explain it like this; previously you were a child. Now you are grown up. Are you a new person or the same person as before? If you are the same as the old person, how did you become an adult? If you are a new person, where did you come from? But talking about an old person and a new person doesn’t really get to the point. This question illustrates the limitations of conventional language and understanding. If there is something called ‘big,’ then there is ‘small.’ If there is small there is big. We can talk about small and large, young and old, but there are really no such things in any absolute sense. You can’t really say somebody or something is big. The wise do not accept such designations as real, but when ordinary people hear about this, that ‘big’ is not really true and ‘small’ is not really true. They are confused because they are attached to concepts of big and small.
You plant a sapling and watch it grow. After a year, one meter high. After another year it is two meters tall. Is it the same tree or a different tree? If it’s the same tree, how did it become bigger? If it’s a different tree, how did it grow from the small tree? From the viewpoint of someone who is enlightened to the Dhamma and sees correctly, there is no new or old tree, no big or small tree. One person looks at a tree and thinks it is tall. Another person will say it’s not tall. But there is not ‘tall’ that really exist independently. You can’t say someone is big and someone is small, someone is grown up and someone else is young. Things end here and problems are finished with. We don’t need to get tied up in knots over these conventional distinctions and we won’t have doubts about practice.
I’ve heard of people who worship their deities by sacrificing animals. They kill ducks, chickens and cows and offer that to their gods, thinking that will be pleasing to them. This is wrong understanding. They think they are making merits, but it’s the exact opposite: they are actually making a lot of bad kamma. Someone who really looks into this won’t think like that. But have you noticed? I’m afraid people in Thailand are becoming like that. They’re not applying real investigation.
Question: Is that vimamsa?
Ajahn Chah: It means understanding cause and result.
Question: Then the teachings talk about chanda, satisfactions; viriya, exertion; citta… (the for iddhipada, ‘bases for accomplishment’).
Ajahn Chah: When there’s satisfaction, is it with something that is correct? Is exertion correct? Vimamsa has to be present with these other factors.
Question: Are citta and vimamsa different?
Ajahn Chah: Vimamsa is investigation. It means skillfulness or wisdom. It is a factor of the mind. You can say that chanda is mind, viriya is mind, vimamsa is mind. They are all aspects of mind, they all can be summarized as ‘mind,’ but here they are distinguished for the purpose of pointing out these different factors of the mind. If there is satisfaction, we may not know if it is right or wrong. If there is exertion, we don’t know if it’s right or wrong. Is what we call mind the real mind? There has to bee vimamsa to discern these things. Investigating the other factor with wise discernment, our practice gradually comes to be correct and we can understand the Dhamma.
But Dhamma doesn’t bring much benefit if we don’t practice meditation. We won’t really know it is all about. These factors are always present in the mind of real practitioners. Then even if they go astray, they will be aware of that and be able to correct it. So their path of practice is continuous.
People may look at you and feel your way of life, your interest in Dhamma, makes no sense. Others may say that if you want to practice Dhamma, you ought to be ordained as a monk. Being ordained is not really the crucial point. It’s how you practice. As it’s said, one should be one’s own witness. Don’t take others as your witness. It means learning to trust yourself. Then there is no loss. People may think you are crazy, but never mind. They don’t know anything about Dhamma.
Other’s words can’t measure your practice. And you don’t realize the Dhamma because of what other say. I mean the real Dhamma. The teachings others can give you are to show you the path, but that isn’t real knowledge. When people meet the Dhamma, they realize it specifically within themselves. So the Buddha said, “The Tathagata is merely one who shows the way.” When someone is ordained, I tell them, “Our responsibility is only this part: The reciting acariya have done their chanting. I have given you the Going Forth and Vows of ordination. Now our job is done. The rest is up to you, to do the practice correctly.
Teachings can be most profound, but those who listen may not understand. But never mind. Don’t be perplexed over profundity or lack of it. Just do the practice wholeheartedly and you can arrive at real understanding --- it will bring you to the same place they are talking about. Don’t rely on the perceptions of ordinary people. Have you read the story about the blind men and the elephant? It’s a good illustration.
Suppose there’s an elephant and a bunch of blind people are trying to describe it. One touches the leg and says it’s like a pillar. Another touches the ear and says it’s like a fan. Another touches the tail and says, ‘No, it’s not a fan; it’s like a broom.” Another touches the shoulder and says it’s something else again from what the other say.
It’s like this. There’s no resolution, no end. Each blind person touches part of the elephant and has a completely different idea of what it is. But it’s the same one elephant. It’s like this in practice. With a little understanding or experience, you get limited ideas. You can go from one teacher to the next seeking explanations and instruction, trying to figure out if they are teaching correctly or incorrectly and how their teachings compare to each other. Some monks are always traveling around with their bowls and umbrellas learning from different teachers. They try to judge and measure, so when they sit down to meditate they are constantly in confusion about what is right and what is wrong. “This teacher said this, but that teacher said that. One guy teaches in this way, but the other guy’s methods are different. They don’t seem to agree…” It can lead to a lot of doubt.
You might hear that certain teachers are really good and so you go to receive teachings from Thai Ajahns, Zen master and others. It seems to me you’ve probably had enough teaching, but the tendency is always want to hear more, to compare and to end up in doubt as a result. Then each successive teacher increases your confusion further. There’s a story of a wanderer in the Buddha’s time that was in this kind of situation. He went to one teacher after the next, hearing their different explanation and learning heir methods. He was trying to learn meditation but was only increasing his perplexity. His travels finally brought him to the teacher Gotama, and he described his predicament to the Buddha.
“Doing as you have been doing will not bring and end to doubt and confusion,” the Buddha to him. “At this time, let go of the past; whatever you may or may not have done, whether it was right or wrong, let go of that now.
“The future has not yet come. Do not speculate over it at all, wondering how things may turn out. Let go of all such disturbing ideas --- it is merely thinking.
“Letting go of past and future, look at the present. Then you will know the Dhamma. You may know the words spoken by various teachers, but you still do not know your own mind. The present moment is empty; look only at arising and ceasing of sankhara (formations). See that they are impermanent, unsatisfactory and empty of self. See that they really are thus. Then you will not be concerned with the past or the future. You will clearly understand that the past is gone and the future has not yet arrived. Contemplating in the present, you will realize that the present is result of the past. The results of Past actions are seen in the present.
“The future has not yet come. Whatever does not occur in the future will arise and pass away in the future; there is no point in worrying over it now, as it has not yet occurred. So contemplate in the present. The present is the cause of the future. If you want a good future, create good in the present, increasing your awareness of what you do in the present. The future is the result of that. The past is the cause and the future is the result of the present.
“Knowing the present, one knows the past and the future. Then one lets go of the past and the future, knowing they are gathered in the present moment.”
Understanding this, that wandered made up his mind to practice as the Buddha advised, putting things down. Seeing ever more clearly, he realized many kinds of knowledge, seeing the natural order of things with his own wisdom. His doubts ended. He put down the past and the future and everything appeared in the present. This was eko dhammo, the one Dhamma. Then it was no longer necessary for him to carry begging bowl up mountains and into forest search of understanding. If he did go somewhere, he went in natural way, not out of desire for something. If he stayed put, he was staying in a natural way, not out of desire.
Practicing in that way, he became free of doubt. There was nothing to add to his practice, nothing to remove. He dwelt in peace, without anxiety over past or future. This was the way the Buddha taught.
But it’s not just a story about something that happened long ago. If we at this time practice correctly, we can also gain realization. We can know the past and the future because they are gathered at this one point, the present moment. If we look to the past we won’t know. If we look to the future we won’t know, because that is not where the truth is; it exists here, in the present.
Thus the Buddha said, “I am enlightened through my own efforts, without any teacher.” Have you read this story? A wanderer of another sect asked him, “Who is your teacher?” The Buddha answered, “I have no teacher. I attained enlightenment by myself.” But that wanderer just shook his head and went away. He thought the Buddha was making up a story and so he had no interest in what he said. He thought it was no possible to achieve anything without a teaching and guide.
It’s like this: You study with a spiritual teacher and he tells you give up greed and anger. He tells you they are harmful and that you need to get rid of them. The you may practice and do that. But getting rid of greed and anger didn’t come about just because he taught you; you had actually practice and do that. Through practice you come to realize something for yourself. You see greed in your mind and give it up. You see anger in you mind and give it up. The teacher doesn’t get rid of them for you. He tells you about getting rid of them, but it doesn’t happen just because he tells. You do the practice and come to realization. You understand these things for yourself.
It’s like the Buddha is catching hold of you and said bringing you to the beginning of the path, and he tells you, “Here is the path --- walk on it.” He doesn’t help you walk. You do that yourself. When you do travel the path and practice Dhamma, you meet the real Dhamma, which is beyond anything that anyone can explain to you. So one is enlightened by oneself, understanding past, future and present, understanding cause and result. Then doubt is finished.
We talk about giving up and developing, renouncing and cultivating. But when the fruit of practice is realized, there is nothing to add and nothing to remove. The Buddha taught that this is the point we want to arrive at, but people don’t want to stop there. Their doubts and attachments keep them on the move, keep them confused and keep them from stopping there. So when one person has arrived but others are somewhere else, they won’t be able to make any sense of what he may say about it. They might have some intellectual understanding of this words, but this is not real understanding or knowledge of the truth.
Usually when we talk about practice we talk about entering and leaving, increasing the positive and removing the negative. But final result is that all of these are done with. There is the sekha puggala, the person who needs to train in these things, and there is the sekha puggala, the person who no longer needs to train in anything. This is talking about the mind: when the mind has reached this level of full realization, there is nothing more to practice. Why is this? It is because such a person doesn’t have to make use of any of the conventions of teaching and practice. It’s spoken of someone who has gotten rid of the defilements.
The sekha person has to train in the step of the path, form the very beginning to the highest level. When they have completed this they are called asekha, meaning they no longer need train because everything is finished. The things to be trained in are finished. Doubts are finished. There are no qualities to be developed. There are no defilements to remove. Such people dwell in peace. Whatever good or evil there is will not affect them; they unshakeable no matter what they meet. It is talking about the empty mind. Now you will really be confused.
You don’t understand this at all. “If my mind is empty, how can I walk?” Precisely because the mind is empty. “If the mind is empty, how can I eat? Will I have desire to eat if my mind is empty?” There’s not much benefit in talking about emptiness like this when people haven’t trained properly. They won’t be able to understand it.
Those who use such term have sought ways to give us some feeling that can lead us to understand the truth. For example, these sankhara that we have been accumulating and carrying from time of our birth until this moment --- the Buddha said that in truth they are not ourselves and they do not belong to us. Why did he say such thing? There’s no other way to formulate the truth. He spoke in this way for people who have discernment, so that they could gain wisdom. But this is something to contemplate carefully.
Some people will hear the words, “Nothing is mine,” and they will get the idea they should throw away all their possessions. With only superficial understanding, people will get into argument about what this means and how to apply it. “This is not my self,” doesn’t mean you should end your life or throw away your possessions. It means you should give up attachment. There is the level of conventional reality and the level of ultimate reality --- supposition and liberation. On the level of conventional, there is Mr. A, Mrs. B, Mr. M, Mrs. N and so on. We use these suppositions for convenience in communicating and functioning in the world. The Buddha did not teach that we shouldn’t use these things, but that we shouldn’t be attached to them. We should realize that they are empty.
It’s hard to talk about.
We have to depend on practice and gain understanding through practice. If you want to get knowledge and understanding by studying and asking others you won’t really understand the truth. It’s something you have to see and know for yourself through practicing. Turn inwards to know within yourself. Don’t always be turning outwards. But when we talk about practicing people become argumentative. Their minds are ready to argue, because they have learned this or that approach to practice and have one-side attachment to what they have learned. They haven’t realized the truth through practice.
Did you notice the Thai people we met the other day? They asked irrelevant questions like, “Why do you eat out of your almsbowl?” I could see that they were far from Dhamma. They’ve had modern education so I can’t tell them much. But I let the American monk talk to them. They might be willing to listen to him. Thai people these days don’t have must interest in Dhamma and don’t understand it. Why do I say that? If someone hasn’t studied something, they are ignorant of it. They’ve studied other things, but they are ignorant of Dhamma. I’ll admit that I’m ignorant of the things they have learned. The Western monk has studied Dhamma, so he can tell them something about it.
Among Thai people in the present time there is less and less interest in being ordained, studying and practicing. I don’t know why this is, if it’s because they are busy with work, because the country is developing materially, or what the reason might be. I don’t know. In the past when someone was ordained they would stay for at least a few years, four of five rains. Now it’s a week or two. Some are ordained in the morning and disrobe in the evening. That’s the direction it’s going in now. People say things like that fellow that told me, “Of everyone were to be ordained they way you prefer, for a few rains at least, there would be no progress in the world. Families wouldn’t grow. Nobody would be building things.”
I said to him, “Your thinking is the thinking of an earthworm. An earthworm lives in the ground. It eats earth for its food. Eating and eating, it starts to worry that it will run out of dirt to eat. It is surrounded by dirt, the whole earth is covering its head, but it worries it will run out dirt.”
That’s the thinking of an earthworm. People worry that the world won’t progress, that it will come to an end. That’s an earthworm’s view. They aren’t earthworms, but they think like them. That’s the wrong understanding of the animal realm. They are really ignorant.
There’s a story I’ve often told, about a tortoise and a snake. The forest was on fire and they were trying to flee. The tortoise was lumbering along, and then it saw the snake slither by. It felt pity for that snake. Why? The snake had no legs, so the tortoise figured it wouldn’t be able to escape the fire. It wanted to help the snake. But as the fire keep spreading the snake fled easily, while the tortoise couldn’t make it, even with its four legs, and it died there.
That was the tortoise’s ignorant. It thought, if you have legs you can move. If you don’t have legs, you can’t go anywhere. So it was worried about the snake. It thought the snake would die because it didn’t have legs. But the snake wasn’t worried; it knew it could easily escape the danger.
This is one way to talk to people with their confused ideas. They will feel pity for you if you aren’t like them and don’t have their view and their knowledge. So who is ignorant in my own way; there are things I don’t know about, so I’m ignorant on that5 account.
Meeting different situations can be a cause for tranquility. But I didn’t understand how foolish and mistaken I was. Whenever something disturbed my mind, I tried to get away from it, to escape. What I was doing was escaping from peace. I was continually running away from peace. I didn’t want to see this or know about that; I didn’t want to think about or experience various things. I didn’t realize that this was defilement. I only though that I needed to remove myself and get far away from people and situations, so that I wouldn’t meet anything disturbing or hear speech that was displeasing. The father away I could get, the better.
After many years had passed, I was forced by the natural progression of events to change my ways. Having been ordained for some time, I ended up with more and more dispels, more people seeking out. Living and practicing in the forest was something that attached people to come and pay respects. So as the number of followers increased, I was forced to start facing things. I couldn’t run away anymore. My ears had to hear sounds my eyes to see. And it was then, as an Ajahn, that I started gaining more knowledge. It led to a lot of wisdom and a lot of letting go. There was a lot of everything going on and I learned not to grasp and hold on, but to keep letting go. It made me a lot more skillful than before.
When suffering came about, it was OK; I didn’t add no to it by trying to escape it. Previously, in my meditation, I had only desired tranquility. I thought that the external environment was only useful insofar as it could be cause to help me attain tranquility. I didn’t think that having right view would be the cause for realizing tranquility.
I’ve often said that there are two kinds of tranquility. The wise have divided it into peace through wisdom and peace through samatha. In peace through samatha, the eye has to be far from sights, the ear far from sounds, the nose far from smells and so on. Then not hearing, not knowing and so forth, one can become tranquil. This kind of peacefulness is good in its way. Is it of value? Yes, it is, but it is not supreme. It is short-lived. It doesn’t have a reliable foundation. When the sense meet objects that are displeasing, it changes, because it doesn’t want those things to be present. So the mind always has to struggle with the objects and no wisdom is born, since the person always feels that he is not at peace because of those external factors.
On the other hand, if you determine not to run away but to look directly at things, you come to realize that lack of tranquility is not due to external objects or situations, but only happens because of wrong understanding. I often teach my disciples about this. I tell them, when you are intently devoted to finding tranquility in your meditation, you can seek out the quietest, more remote place, where you won’t meet with sights or sounds, where there is nothing going on that will disturb you. There the mind can settle down and become calm because there is nothing to provoke it. Then, when you experience this, examine it to see how much strength it ha: when you come out of that place and start experiencing sense contact, notice how you become pleased and displeased, gladdened and dejected, and how the mind becomes disturbed. Then you will understand that this kind of tranquility is not genuine.
Whatever occurs in your field of experience is merely what it is. When something pleases us, we decide that it is good and when something displeases us, we say it isn’t good. That is only our own discriminating minds giving meaning to external objects. Understanding this, then we have a basis for investigating these things and seeing them they really are. When there is tranquility in meditation, it’s not necessary to do a lot of thinking. This sensitivity has a certain knowing quality that is born of the tranquil mind. This isn’t thinking; it is dhammavicaya, the factor of investigating Dhamma.
This sort of tranquility does not get disturbed by experience and sense contact. But then there is the question, “If it is tranquility, why there is still something going on?” There is something happening within tranquility; it’s not something happening in ordinary, afflicted way, where we make more out of it than it really is. When something happens within tranquility the mind knows it extremely clearly. Wisdom is born there and the mind contemplates ever more clearly. We see the way that things actually happen; when we know the truth of them then tranquility becomes all-inclusive. When the sees form or the ear hears sounds, we recognize them for what they are. In this latter form of tranquility, when the eye sees forms, the mind is peaceful. When the ear hears sounds, the mind is peaceful. The mind does not waver. Whatever we experience, the mind is not shaken.
So where does this sort o tranquility come from? It comes from that other kind of tranquility, that ignorant samatha. That is a cause that enables it to come about. It is taught that wisdom comes from tranquility. Knowing comes from unknowing; the mind comes to know from that state of unknowing, from learning to investigate like this. There will be both tranquility and wisdom. Then, whenever we are doing, we see the truth of things. We know that the arising and ceasing of experience in the mind is just like that. Then there is nothing more to do, nothing to correct or solve. There is no more speculation. There is nowhere to go, no escape. We can only escape through wisdom, through knowing things as there are and transcending them.
In the past, when I was first established Wat Pah Pong and people started coming to see me, some disciples said, “Luang Por is always socializing with people. This is a proper place to stay anymore.” But it wasn’t that I had gone in search of people; we established a monastery and they were coming to pay respects to our life. Well, I couldn’t deny what they were saying, but actually I was gaining a lot of wisdom and coming to know a lot of things. But the disciples had no idea. They could only look at me and think my practice was degenerating --- so many people were coming, so much disturbance. I didn’t have my any way to convince them otherwise, but as time passed, I overcome the various obstacles and I finally came to believe that real tranquility is born of correct view. If we don’t have right view, then it doesn’t matter where we stay, we won’t be at peace and wisdom won’t arise.
People are trying to practice here in the West, I’m not criticizing anyone, but from what I can see, sila (morality) is not very well developed. Well, this is a convention. You can start by practicing Samadhi (concentration) first. It’s like walking along and coming across a long piece of wood. One person can take hold of it at one end. Another person can pick up the other end. But isn’t the same one piece of wood, and taking hold of either end, you can move it. When there is some calm from Samadhi practice, then the mind can see things clearly and gain wisdom and see the harm in certain types of behavior, and the person will have restraint and caution. You can move the log, from either end, but the main point is to have firm determination in your practice. If you start with sila, this restraint will bring calm. That is Samadhi and it becomes a cause of wisdom. When there is wisdom, it helps develop Samadhi further. And Samadhi keeps refining sila. They are actually synonymous, developing together. In the end, the final result is that they are one and the same; they are inseparable.
We can’t distinguish Samadhi and classify it separately. We can’t classify wisdom as something separate. We can’t distinguish sila as something separate. At first we do distinguish among them there is the level of convention, and the level of liberation. On the level of liberation, we don’t attach to good and bad. Using convention, we distinguish good and bad and different aspects of practice. This is necessary to do, but isn’t yet supreme. If we understand the use of convention, we can come to understand liberation. Then we can understand the ways in which different terms used to bring people to the same thing.
So in those days, I learned to deal with people, will all sorts of situations. Coming into contact withal these things, I had to make my mind firm. Relying on wisdom, I was able to see clearly and abide without being affected by whatever I met with. Whatever others might be saying, I wasn’t bothered because I had firm conviction. Those who will be teachers need this firm conviction in what they are doing, without being affected by what people say. It requires some wisdom, and whatever wisdom one has can increase. We take stock of all our old ways as they are revealed to us and keep cleaning them up.
You really have to make your mind firm. Sometimes there is no ease of body or mind. It happens when we live together; it’s something natural. Sometimes we have to face illness, for example. I went through a lot of that. How would you deal with it? Well, everyone wants to live comfortably, to have good food and plenty of rest. But we can’t always have that. We can’t just indulge our wishes. But we create some benefit in this world through the virtuous efforts we make. We create benefit for ourselves and for others, for this life and the next. This is the result of making the mind peaceful.
Coming here to England and the US is the same. It’s a short visit, but I’ll try to help as I can and offer teaching and guidance. There are Ajahns and students here, so I’ll try to help them out. Even though monks haven’t come to live here yet, this is pretty good. This visit can prepare people for having monks here. If they come too soon, it will be difficult. Little by little people can become familiar with the practice and with the ways of the bhikkhusangha. Then the sasana can flourish here. So for now you have to take care of your own mind and make it right.
Listening Beyond The Word
When the mind has wisdom, what could there be beyond that? It picks things up, but there is no harm. It is not grasping tightly, but knowing and letting go.
Really, the teachings of the Buddha all make sense. Things you wouldn’t imagine really are so. It’s strange. A first I didn’t have any faith in sitting in meditation. I thought, what value could that possibly have? Then there was walking meditation --- I walked from one free to another, back and forth, and I got tired of it and thought, “What am I walking for? Just walking back and forth doesn’t any purpose.” That’s how I thought. But in fact walking meditation has a lot of value. Sitting to practice Samadhi has a lot of value. But the temperaments of some people make them confused about walking or sitting meditation.
We can’t meditate in only one posture. There are four postures for humans: standing, sitting and lying down. The teachings speak about making the postures consistent and equal. You might get the idea from this that it means you should stand, walk, sit and lie down for the same number of hours in each posture. When you hear such a teaching, you can’t figure out what it really means, because it’s talking in the way of Dhamma, not in the ordinary sense. “OK, I’ll sit for two hours, stand for two hours and then lie down for two hours…” You probably think like this. That’s what I did. I tried to practice in this way, but it didn’t work out.
It’s because of not listening in the right way, merely listening on the words. ‘Making the postures even’ refers to the mind, nothing else. It means making the mind bright and clear so that wisdom arises, so that there is knowledge of whatever is happening in all posture and situations. Whatever the posture, you know phenomena and states of mind for what they are, meaning that they are impermanent, unsatisfactory and not your self. The mind remains established in this awareness at all times and in all postures. When the mind feels attraction, when it feels aversion, you don’t lose the path, but you know these conditions for what they are. Your awareness is steady and continuous, and you are letting go steadily and continuously. You are not fooled by good conditions. You aren’t fooled by bad conditions. You remain on the straight path. This can be called ‘making the posture even.’ It refers to the internal, not the external; it is talking about the mind.
If we do make the postures even with the mind, then when we are raised, it is just so much. If we are slandered, it is just so much. We don’t go up or down with them but remain steady. Why is this? Because we see the danger in these things. We see equal danger in praise and in criticism; this is called making the postures even. We have this inner awareness, whether we are looking at internal or external phenomena.
In ordinary way of experiencing things, when something good appears, we have a positive reaction, and when something bad appears, we have a negative reaction.
Like this, the postures are not even. If they are even, we always have awareness. We will know when we are grasping at good and grasping at bad --- this is better. Even though we can’t yet let go, we are aware of these states continuously. Being continuously aware of ourselves and our attachments, we will come to see that such grasping is not the path. We know but can’t let go: that’s 50 percents. Though we can’t let go, we do understand that letting go of these things will bring peace. We see the danger in the things we like and dislike. We see the danger in praise and blame. This awareness is continuous.
So whether we are being praise or criticized, we are continuous aware. For worldly people, when they are criticized and slandered, they can’t bear it. It hurts their hearts. When they are praised, they are pleased and excited. This is what is natural in the world. But for those who are practicing, when there is praise, they know there is danger. When there is blame, they know the danger. They know that being attached to either of these bring ill results. They are all harmful if we grasp at them and give them meaning.
When we have this kind of awareness, we know phenomena as they occur. We know that if we form attachments to phenomena, there really will be suffering. If we are not aware, then grasping at what we conceive pf as good or bad, suffering is born. When we pay attention, we see this grasping; we see how we catch hold of the good and the bad and how this causes suffering. So at first we are grasping hold of things and with awareness seeing the fault in that. How is that? It’s because we grasp tightly and experience suffering. Then we will start to seek a way to let go and be free. “What should I do to be free?” we ponder.
Buddhist teaching says not to have grasping attachment, not to hold tightly to things. We don’t understand this fully. The point is to hold, but not tightly. For example, I see this object in front of me. I am curious to know what it is, so I pick it up and look: it’s a flashlight. Now I can put it down. That’s holding but not tightly. If we are told not to hold anything at all, then what can we do? We will think we shouldn’t practice sitting or walking meditation. So at first we have to hold without tight attachment. You can say this is tanha, but it will become but it will become parami. For instance, you come here to Wat Pah Pong; before you did that, you had to have the desire to come. With no desire, you wouldn’t have come. We can say you came with desire; it’s like holding. Then you will return; that’s like not grasping. Just like having some uncertainty about what this object is, then picking it up, seeing it’s a flashlight and putting it down. This is holding but not grasping, or to speak more simply, knowing and letting go. Picking up to look, knowing and letting go --- knowing and putting down. Things may be said to be good or bad, but you merely know them and let then go. You are aware of all good and bad phenomena and you are letting go of them. You don’t grasp them with ignorance. You grasp them with wisdom and put them down.
In this way the postures can be even and consistent. It means the mind is able. The mind has awareness and wisdom is born. When the mind has wisdom, then what could there be beyond that? It picks things up there is no harm. It is not grasping tightly, but knowing and letting go. Hearing a sound, we will know, “The world says this is good,” and we let go of it. The world may say, “This is bad,” but we let go. We know good and evil. Someone who doesn’t know good and evil attaches to good and evil and suffers as a result. Someone with knowledge doesn’t have this attachment.
Let’s consider: For what purpose are we living? What do we want from our work? We are living in this world; for what purpose are living? We do our work; what do we want to get from our work? In the worldly way, people do their work because they want certain and this is what they consider logical. But the Buddha’s teaching goes a step beyond this. It says, do your work without desiring anything. In the world, you do this to get that; you do that to get this; you are always doing something in order to get something as a result. That’s the way of worldly folk. The Buddha says, work for the sake of work without wanting anything.
Whenever we work with the desire for something, we suffer. Check this out.
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