100
Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.
101
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.
102
Actually, in truth, there isn’t anything to human beings. Whatever we may be, it’s only in the realm of appearances. However, if we go beyond appearances and see the truth, we will see that there isn’t anything there but the universal characteristics – birth in the beginning, change in the middle, and cessation in the end. This is all there is. If we see that all things are like this, then no problems arise. If we understand this, we will have contentment and peace.
103
Know what is good and bad, whether traveling or living in one place. You can’t find peace on a mountain or in a cave. You can even go to where the Buddha attained enlightenment without getting closer to the truth.
104
Looking outside the self is to compare and to discriminate. You will not find happiness that way. Nor will you find peace, if you spend more time looking for a perfect person or the perfect teacher. The Buddha taught us to look at the Dhamma, the truth, and not to look at other people. 105
Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught us that sort of home is not our real home. It’s a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace.
106
The forest is peaceful, why aren’t you? You hold on to things causing your confusion. Let nature teach you. Hear the bird’s song then let go. If you know nature, you’ll know Dhamma. If you know Dhamma, you’ll know nature.
107
Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache. You won’t be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.
108
Virtue, concentration, and wisdom together make up the Path. But this Path is not yet the true teaching, not what the teacher actually wanted, but merely the Path that will take you there. For example, say you traveled the road from Bangkok to Wat Pah Pong; the road was necessary for your journey, but you were seeking Wat Pah Pong, the monastery, not the road. In the same way, we can say that virtue, concentration, and wisdom are outside the truth of the Buddha but are the road that leads to truth. When you have developed these three factors, the result is the most wonderful peace.
Suffering
109
There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering, which leads to more suffering, and the suffering, which leads to the end of suffering. The first is the pain of grasping after fleeting pleasures and aversion for the unpleasant, the continued struggle of most people day after day. The second is the suffering, which comes when you allow yourself to feel fully the constant change of experience – pleasure, pain, joy, and anger – without fear or withdrawal. The suffering of our experience leads to inner fearlessness and peace.
110
We want to take the easy way, but if there’s no suffering, there’s no wisdom. To be ripe for wisdom, you must really break down and cry in your practice at least three times.
111
We don’t become monks or nuns to eat well, sleep well, and be very comfortable, but to know suffering:
1. how to accept it…
2. how to get rid of it…
3. how not to cause it.
So don’t do that which causes suffering, like indulging in greed, or it will never leave you.
112
In truth, happiness is suffering in disguise but in such a subtle form that you don’t see it. If you cling to happiness, it’s the same as clinging to suffering, but you don’t realize it. When you hold on to happiness, it is impossible to throw away the inherent suffering. They’re inseparable like that. Thus the Buddha taught us to know suffering, see it as the inherent harm in happiness, to see them as equal. So be careful! When happiness arises, don’t be overjoyed, and don’t get carried away. When suffering comes, don’t despair, don’t lose yourself in it. See that they have the same equal value.
113
When suffering arises, understand that there is no one to accept it. If you think suffering is yours, happiness is yours, you will not be able to find peace.
114
People who suffer will accordingly gain wisdom. If we don’t suffer, we don’t contemplate. If we don’t contemplate, no wisdom is born. Without wisdom, we don’t know. Not knowing, we can’t get free of suffering – that’s just the way it is. Therefore we must train and endure in our practice. When we then reflect on the world, we won’t be afraid like before. It isn’t that the Buddha was enlightened outside of the world but within the world itself.
115
Sensual indulgence and self-mortification are two paths the Buddha discouraged. This is just happiness and suffering. We imagine we have freed ourselves from suffering, but we haven’t. If we just cling to happiness, we will suffer again. That’s the way it is, people think contrarily.
116
People have suffering in one place, so they go somewhere else. When suffering arises there, they run off again. They think they’re running away from suffering, but they’re not. Suffering goes with them. They carry suffering around without knowing it. If we don’t know suffering, then we can’t know the cause of suffering. If we don’t know the cause of suffering, then we can’t know the cessation of suffering. There’s no way we can escape it.
117
Students today have much more knowledge than students of previous times. They have all the things they need; everything is more convenient. But they also have a lot more suffering and confusion than before. Why is this?
118
Do not be a bodhisatta; do not be an arahant; do not be anything at all. If you are a bodhisatta, you will suffer; if you are an arahant, you will suffer; if you are anything at all, you will suffer.
119
Love and hate are both suffering because of desire. Wanting is suffering; wanting not to have is suffering. Even if you get what you want, it’s still suffering because once you have it, you then live in the fear of losing it. How are you going to live happily with fear?
120
When you’re angry, does it feel good or bad? If it feels so bad, then why don’t you throw it away? Why bother to keep it? How can you say that you are wise and intelligent if you hold on to such things? Some days the mind can even cause the whole family to quarrel or cause you to cry all night. And, yet, we still continue to get angry and suffer. If you see the suffering of anger, then just throw it away. If you don’t throw it away, it’ll go on causing suffering indefinitely, with no chance of respite. The world of unsatisfactory existence is like this. If we know the way it is, we can solve the problem. 121
A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked her when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldn’t she? But it really isn’t hers to command. Holding on to anger, as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn’t obey us, that means that it’s only a deception. Don’t fall for it. Whether the mind is happy or sad, don’t fall for it. It’s all a deception.
122
If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer.
123
The Buddha is always here teaching. See for yourself. Here is happiness and there is unhappiness. There is pleasure and there is pain. And they’re always here. When you understand the nature of pleasure and pain, there you see the Buddha, there you see the Dhamma. The Buddha is not apart from them.
124
Contemplating them together, we see that happiness and suffering are equal, just as hot and cold are. The heat from a fire can burn us to death, while the coldness from ice can freeze us to death. Neither is greater. It’s the same with happiness and suffering. In the world, everyone desires happiness and no one desires suffering. Nibbana has no desire. There is only tranquility.
Teacher
125
You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.
126
One of my teachers ate very fast. He made noises as he ate. Yet he told us to eat slowly and mindfully. I used to watch him and get very upset. I suffered, but he didn’t! I watched the outside. Later I learned that some people drive very fast but carefully; others drive slowly and have many accidents. Don’t cling to rules, to outer form. If you watch others at most ten percent of the time and watch yourself ninety percent of the time, you practice is okay.
127
Disciples are hard to teach. Some know but don’t bother to practice. Some don’t know and don’t try to find out. I don’t know what to do with them. Why is it that humans have minds like this? Being ignorant is not good, but even if I tell them, they still don’t listen. People are so full of doubts in their practice. They always doubt. They want to go to Nibbana but they don’t want to walk the path. It’s baffling. When I tell them to meditate, they’re afraid, and if not afraid, then just plain sleepy. Mostly they like to do the things I don’t teach. This is the pain of being a teacher.
128
If we could see the truth of the Buddha’s teaching so easily, we wouldn’t need so many teachers. When we understand the teachings, we just do hat is required of us. But what makes people so difficult to teach is that they don’t accept the teachings and argue with the teacher and the teachings. In front of the teacher they behave a little better, but behind his back they become thieves! People are really difficult to teach.
129
I don’t teach my disciples to live and practice heedlessly. But that’s what they do when I’m not around. When the policeman is around, the thieves behave themselves. When he asks if there are any thieves around, of course they all say there aren’t; that they’ve never seen any. But as soon as the policeman is gone, they’re all at it again. It was like that even in the Buddha’s time. So just watch yourself and don’t be concerned with what others do.
130
True teacher speak only of the difficult practice of giving up or getting rid of the self. Whatever may happen, do not abandon the teacher. Let him guide you, because it is easy to forget the Path.
131
Your doubts about your teacher can help you. Take from your teacher what is good, and be aware of your own practice. Wisdom is for you to watch and develop.
132
Don’t just believe in the teacher because he says a fruit is sweet and delicious. Taste it for yourself and then all the doubting will be over.
133
Teachers are those who point out the direction of the Path. After listening to the teacher, whether or not we walk the Path by practicing ourselves, and thereby reap the fruits of practice, is strictly up to each one of us.
134
Sometimes teaching is hard work. A teacher is like a garbage can that people throw their frustrations and problems into. The more people you teach, the bigger the garbage disposal problems. But teaching is a wonderful way to practice Dhamma. Those who teach grow in patience and in understanding.
135
A teacher cannot really clear up our difficulties. He is just a source to investigate the Path. He can’t make it clear. Actually what he says is not worth listening to. The Buddha never praised believing in others. We must believe ourselves. This is difficult, yes, but that’s really how it is. We look outside but never really see. We have to decide to really practice. Doubts don’t disappear by asking others, but through our own unending practice.
Understanding and Wisdom
136
No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.
137
A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn’t.
138
A clever person watches others, but he watches with wisdom, not with ignorance. If one watches with wisdom, once can learn much. But if one watches with ignorance, one can only find faults.
139
The real problem with people nowadays is that they know but still don’t do. It’s another matter if they don’t do because they don’t know, but if they already know and still don’t do, then what’s the problem?
140
Outward scriptural study is not important. Of course, the Dhamma books are correct, but they are not right. They cannot give you right understanding. To see the word “anger” in print is not the same as experiencing anger. Only experiencing for yourself can give you true faith.
141
If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come – pleasant and unpleasant – you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. Even if the worse kinds of defilements come up, such as greed and anger, there’s enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn’t wisdom. You’re only creating more suffering for yourself.
142
When we know the truth, we become people who don’t have to think much, we become people with wisdom. If we don’t know, we have more thinking than wisdom or no wisdom at all. A lot of thinking without wisdom is extreme suffering.
143
These days people don’t search for the Truth. People study simply in order to find the knowledge necessary to make a living, raise their families and look after themselves, that’s all. To them being smart is more important than being wise.
Virtue
144
Be careful about observing our precepts. Virtue is a sense of shame. What we have doubts about; we should not do or say. This is virtue. Purity is being beyond all doubts.
145
There are two levels of practice. The first level forms the foundation, which is the development of virtue, the precepts, in order to bring happiness and harmony among people. The second level is the practice of Dhamma with the sole goal of liberating the heart. This liberation is the source of wisdom and compassion and is the true reason for the Buddha’s teaching. Understanding these two levels is the basis of true practice.
146
Virtue and morality are the mother and father of the Dhamma growing within us. They provide it with the proper nourishment and guidance.
147
Virtue is the basis for a harmonious world in which people can live truly as humans and not as animals. Developing virtue is at the heart of our practice. Keep the precepts. Cultivate compassion and respect for all life. Be mindful in your actions and speech. Use virtue to make your life simple and pure. With virtue as a basis for everything you do, your mind will become kind, clear, and quiet. Meditation will grow easily in this environment. 148
Look after your virtue as a gardener takes care of his plants. Do not be attached to big or small, important or unimportant. Some people want shortcuts. They say, “Forget concentration, we’ll go straight to insight; forget virtue, we’ll start with concentration.” We have so many excuses for our attachments.
149
Right effort and virtue are not a question of what you do outwardly but of constant inner awareness and restraint. Thus, charity, if given with good intention, can bring happiness to oneself and to others. But virtue must be the root of this charity for it to be pure.
150
The Buddha taught us to refrain from what is bad, to do good, and to purify the heart. Our practice, then, is to get rid of what is worthless and keep what is valuable. Do you still have anything bad or unskillful in your heart? Of course! So why not clean house? But true practice is not only getting rid of what is bad and cultivating the good. This is only part of it. In the end we must go beyond both good and bad. Finally there is a freedom that includes all and a desirelessness from which love and wisdom naturally flow.
151
We must start right here where we are, directly and simply. When the first two steps, virtue and right view, have been completed, then the third step of uprooting defilement will naturally occur without deliberation. When light is produced, we no longer worry about getting rid of the darkness, nor do we wonder where the darkness has gone. We just know that there is light.
152
Following the precepts has three levels. The first is to undertake them as training rules given to us by our teachers. The second arises when we undertake and abide in them by ourselves. But for those at the highest level, the Noble Ones, it is not necessary to speak of precepts, of right and wrong. This true virtue comes from wisdom that knows the Four Noble Truths in the heart and acts from this understanding.
153
Some monks disrobe to go to the front where bullets fly past them every day. They prefer it like that. They really want to go. Danger surrounds them on all sides and yet they’re pre3pared to go. Why don’t they see the danger? They’re prepared to die by the gun but nobody wants to die developing virtue. This is really amazing, isn’t it?
Miscellaneous
154
One of Ajahn Chah’s disciples had a knee problem that could only be corrected by surgery. Although the doctors assured him that his knee would be well in a couple of weeks, months went by and it still hadn’t healed properly. When he saw Ajahn Chah again, he complained saying, “They said it wouldn’t take this long. It shouldn’t be this way.” Ajahn Chah laughed and said, “If it shouldn’t be this way, it wouldn’t be this way.”
155
If someone gives you a nice fat, yellow banana that’s sweet and fragrant but poisonous, will you eat it? Of course not! Yet though we know that desire is poisonous, we go ahead and “eat” it anyway!
156
See your defilements; know them like you know a cobra’s poison. You won’t grab the cobra because you know it can kill you. See the harm in things harmful and the use in things useful.
157
We are always dissatisfied. In a sweet fruit, we miss the sour; in a sour fruit, we miss the sweet.
158
If you have something bad smelling in your pocket, wherever you go it will smell bad. Don’t blame it on the place.
159
Buddhism in the East today is like a big tree, which may look majestic, but can only give small and tasteless fruit. Buddhism in the West is like a sapling, not yet able to bear fruit, but having the potential to give large sweet ones.
160
People nowadays think too much. There are too many things for them to get interested in, but none of them lead to any true fulfillment.
161
Just because you go and call alcohol “perfume” doesn’t make it become perfume, you know. But, you people, when you want to drink alcohol, you say it’s perfume, then go ahead and drink it. You must be crazy!
162
People are always looking outwards, at people and things around them. They look at this hall, for example, and say, “Oh, it’s so big!” Actually it’s not big at all. Whether or not it seems big, depends on your perception of it. In fact this hall is just the size it is, neither big nor small. But people run after their feelings all the time. They are so busy looking around and having opinions about what they see that they have no time to look at themselves.
163
Some people get bored, fed up, tired of the practice, and lazy. They can’t seem to keep the Dhamma in mind. Yet, if you go and scold them, they’ll never forget that. Some may remember it for the rest of their lives and never forgive you for it. But when it comes to the Buddha’s teaching, telling us to be moderate, to be restrained, to practice conscientiously, why do they keep forgetting these things? Why don’t people take these things to heart?
164
Seeing that we are better than others is not right. Seeing that we are equal to others is not right. Seeing that we are inferior to others is not right. If we think that we’re better than others, pride arises. If we think that we are equal to others, we fail to show respect and humility at the proper times. If we think that we are inferior to others, we get depressed thinking about it and try to blame our inferiority on having been born under a bad sign, and so on. Just let all of that go!
165
We must learn to let go of conditions and not try to oppose or resist them. And yet we plead with them to comply with our wishes. We look for all sorts of means to organize them or make a deal with them. If the body gets sick and is in pain, we don’t want it to be so, so we look for various suttas to chant. We don’t want to control it. These suttas become some form of mystical ceremony, getting us even more entangled in clinging. This is because we chant them in order to ward off illness, to prolong life and so on. Actually The Buddha gave us these teachings in order to help us know the truth of the body, so that we can let go and give up our longings, but we end up chanting them to increase our delusion.
166
Know your own body, heart, and mind. Be content with little. Don’t be attached to the teachings. Don’t go and hold on top emotions.
167
Some people are afraid of generosity. They feel that they will be exploited or oppressed. In cultivating generosity, we are only oppressing our greed and attachment. This allows our true nature to express itself and become lighter and freer.
168
If you reach out and grab a fire in your neighbor’s house, the fire will be hot. If you grab a fire in your own house, that, too, will be hot. So don’t grab at anything that can burn you, no matter what or where it is.
169
People outside may call us mad to live in the fore4st like this, sitting like statues. But how do they live? They laugh, they cry, and are so caught up in greed and hatred that at times they kill themselves or one another. Now, who are the mad ones?
170
More than merely teaching people, Ajahn Chah trained them by creating a general environment and specific situations where they could learn about themselves. He would say things like, “Of what I teach you, you understand maybe 15%,” or “He’s been a monk for five years, so he understands 5%.” A junior monk said in response to the latter. “So I must have 1% since I’ve been here one year.” “No,” was Ajahn Chah’s reply. “The first four years you have no percent, then the fifth year, you have 5%.”
171
One of Ajahn Chah’s disciples was once asked if he was ever going to disrobe, if he was going to die in the yellow robes. The disciple said that it was hard to think about, and that although he had no plans to disrobe, he couldn’t really decide that he never would. When he looked into it, he said, his thoughts seemed meaningless. Ajahn Chah then replied by saying, “That they are meaningless is the real Dhamma.”
172
When someone asked Ajahn Chah why there was so much crime in Thailand, a Buddhist country, or why Indochina was such a mess, he said, “Those aren’t Buddhists who are doing those unwholesome things. That isn’t Buddhism. Buddha never taught anything like that. People are doing those things!”
173
Once a visitor asked Ajahn Chah if he was an arahant. He said, “I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree; they sit on its branches and eat its fruit. To the birds the tree may be sweet or sour or whatever. But the tree doesn’t know anything about it. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree’s point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.”
174
Someone commented, “I can observe desire and aversion in my mind, but it’s hard to observe delusion.” “You’re riding on a horse and asking where the horse is?” was Ajahn Chah’s reply.
175
Some people become monks out of faith but then trample on the teachings of the Buddha. They don’t know themselves better. Those who really practice are few these days for there are too many obstacles to overcome. But if it isn’t good, let it die; if it doesn’t die, then make it good.
176
You say you love your girlfriend one hundred percent. Well, turn her inside out and see how many percent of her you still love. Or if you miss your lover so much when she’s not with you, then why not ask her to send you a vial of her feces in it. In that way, whenever you think of her with longing, you can open the vial and smell it. Disgusting? What is it, then, that you love? What is it that makes your heart pound like a rice pounder every time a girl with a really attractive figure comes walking along or you smell her perfume in the air? What is it? What are these forces? They pull and suck you in, but you don’t put up a real fight, do you? There’s a price to pay for it in the end, you know!
177
One day Ajahn Chah came upon a large, heavy branch that was lying in his path and which he wanted to move out of the way. He motioned to a disciple to get hold of one end while he lifted the other. Then when they held it ready to throw, he looked up and asked, “Is it heavy?” And after they had flung it into the forest, he asked again, “Now, is it heavy?” It was like this that Ajahn Chah taught his disciples to see Dhamma in everything they said or did. In this case, he demonstrated the benefit of “letting go”.
178
One of Ajahn Chah’s disciples was unplugging a tape recorder when he accidentally touched the metal prongs of the plug while it was still connected. He got a shock and dropped it immediately. Ajahn Chah noticed and said, “Oh! How come you could let go of that so easily? Who told you to?”
179
It was Christmas and the foreign monks had decided to celebrate it. They invited some laypeople as well as Ajahn Chah to join them. The laypeople were generally upset and skeptical. Why, they asked, were Buddhists celebrating Christmas? Ajahn Chah then gave a talk on religion in which he said, “As far as I understand, Christianity teaches people to do good and avoid evil, just as Buddhism does, so what is the problem? However, if people are upset by the idea of celebrating Christmas, that can be easily remedied. We won’t call it Christmas. Let’s call it ‘Christ-Buddhamas’. Anything that inspires us to see what is true and do what is good is proper practice. You may call it any name you like.”
180
During the time refugees were pouring into Thailand from Laos and Cambodia, the charitable organizations that came out to help were many. This made some ordained Westerners think it was not right that Buddhist monks and nuns should just sit in the forest while other religious organizations were so actively participating in alleviating the plight of the refugees. So they approached Ajahn Chah to express their concern, and this is what he said, “Helping in refugee camps is good. It is indeed our natural human duty to each other. But going through our own madness so that we can lead others through, that’s the only cure. Anyone can go out and distribute clothes and pitch tents, but how many can come into the forest and sit to know their minds? As long as we don’t know how to ‘clothe’ and ‘feed’ people’s minds, there will always be a refugee problem somewhere in the world.”
181
Ajahn Chah listened to one of his disciples recite the Heart Sutra. When he had finished, Ajahn Chah said, “No emptiness either… no bodhisatta.” He then asked, “Where did the sutra come from?” “It’s reputed to have been spoken by the Buddha,” the follower replied. “No Buddha,” retorted Ajahn Chah. Then he said, “This is talking about deep wisdom beyond all conventions. How could we teach without them? We have to have names for things, isn’t that so?”
182
To become a Noble One, we have to continuously undergo changes until only the body remains. The mind changes completely but the body still exists. There is hot, cold, pain, and sickness as usual. But the mind has changed and now sees birth, old age, sickness and death in the light of truth.
183
Someone once asked Ajahn Chah to talk about enlightenment; could he describe his own enlightenment? With everyone eagerly waiting to hear his answer, he said, “Enlightenment isn’t hatd to understand. Just take a banana and put it into your mouth, then you will know what it tastes like. You have to practice to experience realization, and you have to persevere. If it were so easy to become enlightened, everyone would be doing it. I started going to the temple when I was eight years old, and I have been a monk for over forty years. But you want to meditate for a night or two and go straight to Nibbana. You don’t just sit down and – zip! – there you are, you know. You can’t get someone to blow on your head and make you enlightened either.
184
The worldly way is to do things for a reason to get something in return, but in Buddhism we do things without any idea of gain. But if we don’t want anything at all, what will we get? We don’t get anything! Whatever we get is just a cause for suffering, so we practice not getting anything. Just make the mind peaceful and have done with it.
185
The Buddha taught to lay down those things that lack a real abiding essence. If you lay everything down you will see the truth. If you don’t, you won’t. That’s the way it is. And when wisdom awakens within you, you will see Truth wherever you look. Truth is all you’ll see.
186
An “empty” heart doesn’t mean it’s empty as if there were nothing in it. It’s empty of evil, but it’s full of wisdom.
187
People don’t reflect on old age, sickness and death. They only like to talk about non-aging, non-sickness, and non-death, so they never develop the right feeling for Dhamma practice.
188
Most people’s happiness depends on having things go to their liking. They have to have everybody in the world say only pleasant things. Is that how you find happiness? Is it possible to have everybody in the world say only pleasant things? If that’s how it is when will you ever find happiness?
189 Trees, mountains, and vines all live according to their own truth. They appear and die following their nature. They remain impassive. But not we people. We make a fuss over everything. Yet the body just follows its own nature: it’s born, grows old and eventually dies. If follows nature in this way. Whoever wishes it to be otherwise will just suffer.
190
Don’t go thinking that by learning a lot and knowing a lot you’ll know the Dhamma. That’s like saying you’ve seen everything there is to see just because you have eyes, or that you’ve heard everything there is to hear just because you have ears. You may see but you don’t fully see. You see only with the “outer eye”, not with the “inner eye”. You hear with the “outer ear”, but not with the “inner ear”.
191
The Buddha taught us to give up all forms of evil and cultivate virtue. This is the right path. Teaching in this way is like the Buddha picking us up and placing us at the beginning of the path. Having reached the path, whether we walk along it or not is up to us. The Buddha’s job is finished right there. He shows us the way, that which is right and that which is not right. This much is enough; the rest is up to us.
192
You must know the Dhamma for yourself. To know for yourself means to practice for yourself. You can depend on a teacher only fifty percent of the way. Even the teaching I have given you is completely useless in itself, even if it is worth hearing. But if you were to believe it all just because I said so, you wouldn’t be using the teaching properly. If you believed me completely, then you’d be foolish. To hear the teaching, see its benefits, put it into practice for yourself, see it within yourself … this is much more useful.
193
Sometimes when doing walking meditation, a soft rain would start to fall and I’d want to quit and go inside, but then I’d think of the times I used to work in the rice paddies. My pants would be wet from the day before but I’d have to get up before dawn and put them on again. Then I’d have to go down below the house to get the buffalo out of its pen. It was so muddy in there. I’d grab its rope and it would be covered in buffalo dung. Then the buffalo’s tail would swish around and spatter me with dung on top of that. My feet would be sore with athlete’s foot and I’d walk along thinking, “Why is life so miserable?” And now here I wanted to stop my walking meditation…what was a little bit of rain to me? Thinking like that I encouraged myself in the practice.
194
I don’t know how to talk about it. We talk about things to be developed and things to give up, but there’s really nothing to develop, nothing to give up.
All that I have said up to now has merely been words. When people come to see me, I have to say something. But it is best not to speak about these matters too much. Better to begin practice without delay. I am like a good friend inviting you to go somewhere. Do not hesitate, just get going. You won’t regret it.
________________________________________________________
Glossary
Unless indicated otherwise, the words below are in the Pali language.
Ajahn: (Thai)teacher
Anagami: “Non-returner”, the third stage in the realization of Nibbana.
Arahant: “Holy One”, an enlightened being free from all delusion through the realization of Nibbana in the fourth and final stage and who is free from rebirth.
Bodhisatta: In the Theravadin School, this refers to a being destined for enlightenment.
Dhamma: the Buddha’s Teaching; Ultimate Truth
Four Noble Truths: Buddha’s first teaching in which he pointed out the truths of suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation.
Sakadagami: “Once-returner”, the second stage in the realization of Nibbana.
Samsara: cycle of rebirth
Sotapanna: “Stream-entrant”, the first stage in the realization of Nibbana.
Wat: (Thai) monastery; temple
Source: http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/No_Ajahn_Chah:_Reflections
Ajahn Chah – Tỳ kheo Khánh Hỷ dịch Việt – Như Lai Thiền Viện, San Jose, Hoa Kỳ 2008
http://hoavouu.com/D_1-2_2-219_4-17876_5-15_6-1_17-901_14-2_15-2/
Total views : 17123355
- English