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Now determine in your
mind to listen with respect to the Dhamma. During the
time that I am speaking, be as attentive to my words as
if it was the Lord Buddha himself sitting in front of
you. Close your eyes and make yourself comfortable,
compose your mind and make it one-pointed. Humbly allow
the Triple Gem of wisdom, truth and purity to abide in
your heart as a way of showing respect to the Fully
Enlightened One.
Today I have brought
nothing material of any substance to offer you, only
Dhamma, the teachings of the Lord Buddha. Listen well.
You should understand that even the Buddha himself, with
his great store of accumulated virtue, could not avoid
physical death. When he reached old age he relinquished
his body and let go of its heavy burden. Now you too
must learn to be satisfied with the many years you've
already depended on your body. You should feel that it's
enough.
You can compare it to
household utensils you've had for a long time -- your
cups, saucers, plates and so on. When you first had them
they were clean and shining, but now after using them
for so long, they're starting to wear out. Some are
already broken, some have disappeared and those that are
left are deteriorating; they have no stable form, and
it's their nature to be like that. Your body is the same
way -- it's been continually changing right from the day
you were born, through childhood and youth, until now
it's reached old age. You must accept that. The Buddha
said that conditions (sankharas), whether they
are internal conditions, bodily conditions, or external
conditions, are not-self, their nature is to change.
Contemplate this truth until you see it clearly.
This very lump of flesh
that lies here in decline is saccadhamma, the truth. The
truth of this body is saccadhamma, and it is the
unchanging teaching of the Buddha. The Buddha taught us
to look at the body, to contemplate it and come to terms
with its nature. We must be able to be at peace with the
body, whatever state it is in. The Buddha taught that we
should ensure that it's only the body that is locked up
in jail and not let the mind be imprisoned along with
it. Now as your body begins to run down and deteriorate
with age, don't resist that, but don't let your mind
deteriorate with it. Keep the mind separate. Give energy
to the mind by realizing the truth of the way things
are. The Lord Buddha taught that this is the nature of
the body, it can't be any other way: having been born it
gets old and sick and then it dies. This is a great
truth you are presently encountering. Look at the body
with wisdom and realize it.
Even if your house is
flooded or burnt to the ground, whatever the danger that
threatens it, let it concern only the house. If there's
a flood, don't let it flood your mind. If there's a
fire, don't let it burn your heart. Let it be merely the
house, that which is external to you, that is flooded
and burnt. Allow the mind to let go of its attachments.
The time is ripe.
You've been alive a long
time. Your eyes have seen any number of forms and
colors, your ears have heard so many sounds, you've had
any number of experiences. And that's all they were --
just experiences. You've eaten delicious foods, and all
the good tastes were just good tastes, nothing more. The
unpleasant tastes were just unpleasant tastes, that's
all. If the eye sees a beautiful form, that's all it is,
just a beautiful form. An ugly form is just an ugly
form. The ear hears an entrancing, melodious sound and
it's nothing more than that. A grating, disharmonious
sound is simply so.
The Buddha said that
rich or poor, young or old, human or animal, no being in
this world can maintain itself in any one state for
long, everything experiences change and estrangement.
This is a fact of life that we can do nothing to remedy.
But the Buddha said that what we can do is to
contemplate the body and mind so as to see their
impersonality, see that neither of them is "me" or
"mine." They have a merely provisional reality. It's
like this house: it's only nominally yours, you couldn't
take it with you anywhere. It's the same with your
wealth, your possessions and your family -- they're all
yours only in name, they don't really belong to you,
they belong to nature. Now this truth doesn't apply to
you alone; everyone is in the same position, even the
Lord Buddha and his enlightened disciples. They differed
from us in only one respect and that was in their
acceptance of the way things are; they saw that it could
be no other way.
So the Buddha taught us
to scan and examine this body, from the soles of the
feet up to the crown of the head and then back down to
the feet again. Just take a look at the body. What sort
of things do you see? Is there anything intrinsically
clean there? Can you find any abiding essence? This
whole body is steadily degenerating, and the Buddha
taught us to see that it doesn't belong to us. It's
natural for the body to be this way, because all
conditioned phenomena are subject to change. How else
would you have it be? Actually, there's nothing wrong
with the way the body is. It's not the body that causes
you suffering, it's your wrong thinking. When you see
the right wrongly, there's bound to be confusion.
It's like the water of a
river. It naturally flows down the gradient, it never
flows against it; that's its nature. If a person were to
go and stand on a river bank and, seeing the water
flowing swiftly down its course, foolishly want it to
flow back up the gradient, he would suffer. Whatever he
was doing his wrong thinking would allow him no peace of
mind. He would be unhappy because of his wrong view,
thinking against the stream. If he had right view he
would see that the water must inevitably flow down the
gradient, and until he realized and accepted that fact,
the person would be agitated and upset.
The river that must flow
down the gradient is like your body. Having been young
your body has become old and now it's meandering towards
its death. Don't go wishing it was otherwise, it's not
something you have the power to remedy. The Buddha told
us to see the way things are and then let go of our
clinging to them. Take this feeling of letting go as
your refuge.
Keep meditating, even if
you feel tired and exhausted. Let your mind dwell with
the breath. Take a few deep breaths, and then establish
the mind on the breath using the mantra "Buddho." Make
this practice habitual. The more exhausted you feel, the
more subtle and focused your concentration must be, so
that you can cope with the painful sensations that
arise. When you start to feel fatigued then bring all
your thinking to a halt, let the mind gather itself
together and then turn to knowing the breath. Just keep
up the inner recitation: "Bud-dho, Bud-dho."
Let go of all externals.
Don't go grasping at thoughts of your children and
relatives, don't grasp at anything whatsoever. Let go.
Let the mind unite in a single point and let that
composed mind dwell with the breath. Let the breath be
its sole object of knowledge. Concentrate until the mind
becomes increasingly subtle, until feelings are
insignificant and there is great inner clarity and
wakefulness. Then when painful sensations arise they
will gradually cease of their own accord. Finally,
you'll look on the breath as if it was a relative come
to visit you.
When a relative leaves,
we follow him out and see him off. We watch until he's
walked or driven out of sight and then we go back
indoors. We watch the breath in the same way. If the
breath is coarse, we know that it's coarse, if it's
subtle we know that it's subtle. As it becomes
increasingly fine we keep following it, while
simultaneously awakening the mind. Eventually the breath
disappears altogether and all that remains is the
feeling of wakefulness. This is called meeting the
Buddha. We have that clear wakefulness that is called "Buddho,"
the one who knows, the one who is awake, the radiant
one. It is meeting and dwelling with the Buddha, with
knowledge and clarity. For it was only the historical
flesh-and-blood Buddha that entered parinibbana;
the true Buddha, the Buddha that is clear radiant
knowing, we can still experience and attain today, and
when we do so the heart is one.
So let go, put
everything down, everything except the knowing. Don't be
fooled if visions or sounds arise in your mind during
meditation. Put them all down. Don't take hold of
anything at all. Just stay with this non-dual awareness.
Don't worry about the past or the future, just be still
and you will reach the place where there's no advancing,
no retreating and no stopping, where there's nothing to
grasp at or cling to. Why? Because there's no self, no
"me" or "mine." It's all gone. The Buddha taught us to
be emptied of everything in this way, not to carry
anything with us. To know, and having known, let go.
Realizing the Dhamma,
the path to freedom from the round of birth and death,
is a job that we all have to do alone. So keep trying to
let go, and to understand the teachings. Really put
effort into your contemplation. Don't worry about your
family. At the moment they are as they are, in the
future they will be like you. There's no one in the
world who can escape this fate. The Buddha told us to
put down everything that lacks a real abiding substance.
If you put everything down you will see the truth, if
you don't you won't. That's the way it is and it's the
same for all, so don't worry and don't grasp at
anything.
Even if you find
yourself thinking, well that's all right too, as long as
you think wisely. Don't think foolishly. If you think of
your children, think of them with wisdom, not with
foolishness. Whatever the mind turns to, then think and
know that thing with wisdom, aware of its nature. If you
know something with wisdom, then you let it go and
there's no suffering. The mind is bright, joyful and at
peace, and turning away from distractions it is
undivided. Right now what you can look to for help and
support is your breath.
This is your own work,
nobody else's. Leave others to do their own work. You
have your own duty and responsibility and you don't have
to take on those of your family. Don't take anything
else on, let it all go. That letting go will make your
mind calm. Your sole responsibility right now is to
focus your mind and bring it to peace. Leave everything
else to others. Forms, sounds, odurs, tastes -- leave
them to others to attend to. Put everything behind you
and do your own work, fulfill your own responsibility.
Whatever arises in your mind, be it fear of pain, fear
of death, anxiety about others or whatever, say to it:
"Don't disturb me. You're not my business any more."
Just keep saying this to yourself when you see those
dhammas arise.
What does the word "dhamma"
refer to? Everything is a dhamma. There is nothing that
is not a dhamma. And what about "world"? The world is
the very mental state that is agitating you at this
moment. "What will this person do? What will that person
do? When I'm dead, who will look after them? How will
they manage?" This is all just "the world." Even the
mere arising of a thought of fearing death or pain is
the world.
Throw the world away!
The world is the way it is. If you allow it to arise in
the mind and dominate consciousness then the mind
becomes obscured and can't see itself. So, whatever
appears in the mind, just say: "This isn't my business.
It's impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self."
Thinking you'd like to
go on living for a long time will make you suffer. But
thinking you'd like to die right away or die very
quickly isn't right either; it's suffering, isn't it?
Conditions don't belong to us, they follow their own
natural laws. You can't do anything about the way the
body is. You can prettify it a little, make it look
attractive and clean for a while, like the young girls
who paint their lips and let their nails grow long, but
when old age arrives, everyone's in the same boat.
That's the way the body is, you can't make it any other
way. But what you can improve and beautify is the mind.
Anyone can build a house
of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that that sort
of home is not our real home, it's only nominally ours.
It's a home in the world and it follows the ways of the
world. Our real home is inner peace. An external
material home may well be pretty, but it is not very
peaceful. There's this worry and then that, this anxiety
and then that. So we say it's not our real home, it's
external to us, sooner or later we'll have to give it
up. It's not a place we can live in permanently because
it doesn't truly belong to us, it's part of the world.
Our body is the same; we take it to be self, to be "me"
and "mine," but in fact it's not really so at all, it's
another worldly home. Your body has followed its natural
course from birth until now it's old and sick and you
can't forbid it from doing that, that's the way it is.
Wanting it to be different would be as foolish as
wanting a duck to be like a chicken. When you see that
that's impossible, that a duck has to be a duck, that a
chicken has to be a chicken and that bodies have to get
old and die, you will find strength and energy. However
much you want the body to go on and last for a long
time, it won't do that.
The Buddha said:
Anicca vata sankhara
Uppada vayadhammino
Uppajjhitva nirujjhanti
Tesam vupasamo sukho.
Conditions are
impermanent,
subject to rise and fall.
Having arisen they cease --
their stilling is bliss.
The word "sankhara"
refers to this body and mind. Sankharas are
impermanent and unstable, having come into being they
disappear, having arisen they pass away, and yet
everyone wants them to be permanent. This is
foolishness. Look at the breath. Having come in, it goes
out; that's its nature, that's how it has to be. The
inhalation and exhalation have to alternate, there must
be change. Sankharas exist through change, you can't
prevent it. Just think: could you exhale without
inhaling? Would it feel good? Or could you just inhale?
We want things to be permanent, but they can't be, it's
impossible. Once the breath has come in, it must go out;
when it's gone out, it comes in again, and that's
natural, isn't it? Having been born, we get old and sick
and then we die, and that's totally natural and normal.
It's because sankharas have done their job, because the
in-breaths and out-breaths have alternated in this way,
that the human race is still here today.
As soon as we're born,
we're dead. Our birth and death are just one thing. It's
like a tree: when there's a root there must be twigs.
When there are twigs there must be a root. You can't
have one without the other. It's a little funny to see
how at a death people are so grief-stricken and
distracted, tearful and sad, and at a birth how happy
and delighted. It's delusion, nobody has ever looked at
this clearly. I think if you really want to cry, then it
would be better to do so when someone's born. For
actually birth is death, death is birth, the root is the
twig, the twig is the root. If you've got to cry, cry at
the root, cry at the birth. Look closely: if there was
no birth there would be no death. Can you understand
this?
Don't think a lot. Just
think: "This is the way things are." It's your work,
your duty. Right now nobody can help you, there's
nothing that your family and your possessions can do for
you. All that can help you now is the correct awareness.
So don't waver. Let go.
Throw it all away.
Even if you don't let
go, everything is starting to leave anyway. Can you see
that, how all the different parts of your body are
trying to slip away? Take your hair: when you were young
it was thick and black, now it's falling out. It's
leaving. Your eyes used to be good and strong, and now
they're weak and your sight is unclear. When the organs
have had enough they leave, this isn't their home. When
you were a child your teeth were healthy and firm; now
they're wobbly, perhaps you've got false ones. Your
eyes, ears, nose, tongue -- everything is trying to
leave because this isn't their home. You can't make a
permanent home in a sankhara; you can stay for a short
while and then you have to go. It's like a tenant
watching over his tiny little house with failing eyes.
His teeth aren't so good, his ears aren't so good, his
body's not so healthy, everything is leaving.
So you needn't worry
about anything, because this isn't your real home, it's
just a temporary shelter. Having come into this world,
you should contemplate its nature. Everything there is,
is preparing to disappear. Look at your body. Is there
anything there that's still in its original form? Is
your skin as it used to be? Is your hair? It's not the
same, is it? Where has everything gone? This is nature,
the way things are. When their time is up, conditions go
their way. This world is nothing to rely on -- it's an
endless round of disturbance and trouble, pleasures and
pains. There's no peace.
When we have no real
home we're like an aimless traveler out on the road,
going this way for a while and then that way, stopping
for a while and then setting off again. Until we return
to our real home we feel ill-at-ease whatever we're
doing, just like the one who's left his village to go on
a journey. Only when he gets home again can he really
relax and be at ease.
Nowhere in the world is
any real peace to be found. The poor have no peace and
neither do the rich. Adults have no peace, children have
no peace, the poorly educated have no peace and neither
do the highly-educated. There's no peace anywhere.
That's the nature of the world.
Those who have few
possessions suffer and so do those who have many.
Children, adults, the aged, everyone suffers. The
suffering of being old, the suffering of being young,
the suffering of being wealthy, and the suffering of
being poor -- it's all nothing but suffering.
When you've contemplated
things in this way you'll see anicca,
impermanence, and dukkha, unsatisfactoriness. Why
are things impermanent and unsatisfactory? It's because
they're anatta, not-self.
Both your body that is
lying here sick and painful, and the mind that is aware
of its sickness and pain, are called dhammas. That which
is formless, the thoughts, feelings and perceptions, is
called namadhamma. That which is racked with
aches and pains is called rupadhamma. The
material is dhamma and the immaterial is dhamma. So we
live with dhammas, in dhamma, we are dhamma. In truth
there's no self anywhere to be found, there are only
dhammas continually arising and passing away, as is
their nature. Every single moment we're undergoing birth
and death. This is the way things are.
When we think of the
Lord Buddha, how truly he spoke, we feel how worthy he
is of salutation, reverence and respect. Whenever we see
the truth of something, we see his teachings, even if
we've never actually practice Dhamma. But even if we
have a knowledge of the teachings, have studied and
practice them, but still haven't seen their truth, then
we're still homeless.
So understand this point
that all people, all creatures, are about to leave. When
beings have lived an appropriate time they go their way.
The rich, the poor, the young, the old, all beings must
experience this change.
When you realize that
that's the way the world is, you'll feel that it's a
wearisome place. When you see that there's nothing
stable or substantial you can rely on, you'll feel
wearied and disenchanted. Being disenchanted doesn't
mean you're averse though. The mind is clear. It sees
that there's nothing to be done to remedy this state of
affairs, it's just the way the world is. Knowing in this
way, you can let go of attachment, let go with a mind
that is neither happy nor sad, but at peace with
sankharas through seeing with wisdom their changing
nature.
Anicca vata sankhara
-- all sankharas are impermanent. To put it simply:
impermanence is the Buddha. If we see an impermanent
phenomenon really clearly, we'll see that it's
permanent, permanent in the sense that its subjection to
change is unchanging. This is the permanence that living
beings possess. There is continual transformation, from
childhood through youth to old age, and that very
impermanence, that nature to change, is permanent and
fixed. If you look at it like that your heart will be at
ease. It's not just you that has to go through this,
it's everyone.
When you consider things
thus, you'll see them as wearisome, and disenchantment
will arise. Your delight in the world of sense-pleasures
will disappear. You'll see that if you have a lot of
things, you have to leave a lot behind; if you have few
you will leave behind few. Wealth is just wealth, long
life is just long life, they're nothing special.
What's important is that
we should do as the Lord Buddha taught and build our own
home, building it by the method that I've been
explaining to you. Build your home. Let go. Let go until
the mind reaches the peace that is free from advancing,
free from retreating and free from stopping still.
Pleasure is not our home, pain is not our home. Pleasure
and pain both decline and pass away.
The Great Teacher saw
that all sankharas are impermanent, and so he taught us
to let go of our attachment to them. When we reach the
end of our life, we'll have no choice anyway, we won't
be able to take anything with us. So wouldn't it be
better to put things down before that? They're just a
heavy burden to carry around; why not throw off that
load now? Why bother to drag them around? Let go, relax,
and let your family look after you.
Those who nurse the sick
grow in goodness and virtue. One who is sick and giving
others that opportunity shouldn't make things difficult
for them. If there's a pain or some problem or other,
let them know, and keep the mind in a wholesome state.
One who is nursing parents should fill his or her mind
with warmth and kindness, not get caught in aversion.
This is the one time when you can repay the debt you owe
them. From your birth through your childhood, as you've
grown up, you've been dependent on your parents. That we
are here today is because our mothers and fathers have
helped us in so many ways. We owe them an incredible
debt of gratitude.
So today, all of you
children and relatives gathered here together, see how
your parents become your children. Before, you were
their children; now they become yours. They become older
and older until they become children again. Their
memories go, their eyes don't see so well and their ears
don't hear, sometimes they garble their words. Don't let
it upset you. All of you nursing the sick must know how
to let go. Don't hold on to things, just let go and let
them have their own way. When a young child is
disobedient, sometimes the parents let it have its own
way just to keep the peace, to make it happy. Now your
parents are like that child. Their memories and
perceptions are confused. Sometimes they muddle up your
names, or you ask them to give you a cup and they bring
a plate. It's normal, don't be upset by it.
Let the patient remember
the kindness of those who nurse and patiently endure the
painful feelings. Exert yourself mentally, don't let the
mind become scattered and agitated, and don't make
things difficult for those looking after you. Let those
who nurse the sick fill their minds with virtue and
kindness. Don't be averse to the unattractive side of
the job, to cleaning up mucus and phlegm, or urine and
excrement. Try your best. Everyone in the family give a
hand.
These are the only
parents you've got. They gave you life, they have been
your teachers, your nurses and your doctors -- they've
been everything to you. That they have brought you up,
taught you, shared their wealth with you and made you
their heirs is the great beneficence of parents.
Consequently the Buddha taught the virtues of kataññu
and katavedi, of knowing our debt of
gratitude and trying to repay it. These two virtues are
complementary. If our parents are in need, if they're
unwell or in difficulty, then we do our best to help
them. This is kataññu-katavedi, it is a virtue
that sustains the world. It prevents families from
breaking up, it makes them stable and harmonious.
Today I have brought you
the Dhamma as a gift in this time of illness. I have no
material things to give you; there seem to be plenty of
those in the house already, and so I give you Dhamma,
something which has a lasting worth, something which
you'll never be able to exhaust. Having received it from
me you can pass it on to as many others as you like and
it will never be depleted. That is the nature of Truth.
I am happy to have been able to give you this gift of
Dhamma, and I hope it will give you strength to deal
with your pain.
Ajahn Chah was born into
a large and comfortable family in a rural village in
Northeast Thailand. He ordained as a novice in early
youth and on reaching the age of twenty took higher
ordination as a monk. As a young monk he studied some
basic Dhamma, Discipline and scriptures. Later he
practice meditation under the guidance of several of the
local meditation masters in the ascetic forest
tradition. He wandered for a number of years in the
style of an ascetic monk, sleeping in forests, caves and
cremation grounds, and spent a short but enlightening
period with Ajahn Mun, one of the most famous and
respected Thai meditation masters of this century.
After many years of
travel and practice, he was invited to settle in a thick
forest grove near the village of his birth. This grove
was uninhabited, known as a place of cobras, tigers and
ghosts, thus being, as he said, the perfect location for
a forest monk. Around Ajahn Chah a large monastery
formed as more and more monks, nuns and lay people came
to hear his teachings and stay on to practice with him.
Now there are more than forty mountain and forest branch
temples throughout Thailand and in England and Australia
as well.
On entering Wat Pah Pong
one is likely to encounter monks drawing water from a
well, and a sign on the path that says: "You there, be
quiet! We're trying to meditate." Although there is a
group meditation twice a day, the heart of the
meditation is the way of life. Monks do manual work, dye
and sew their own robes, make most of their own
requisites and keep the monastery buildings and grounds
in immaculate shape. Monks here live extremely simply
following the ascetic precepts of eating once a day from
the alms bowl and limiting their possessions and robes.
Scattered throughout the forest are individual huts
where monks live and meditate in solitude, and where
they practice walking meditation on cleared paths under
the trees.
Discipline is extremely
strict enabling one to lead a simple and pure life in a
harmoniously regulated community where virtue,
meditation and understanding may be skillfully and
continuously cultivated.
Ajahn Chah's simple yet
profound style of teaching has a special appeal to
Westerners, and many have come to study and practice
with him, quite a few for many years. In 1975 Wat Pah
Nanachat was established near Wat Pah Pong as a special
training monastery for the growing number of Westerners
interested in undertaking monastic training. Since then
Ajahn Chah's large following of senior Western disciples
has begun the work of spreading the Dhamma in the West.
Ajahn Chah has himself traveled twice to Europe and
North America, and he has established a thriving branch
monastery in Sussex, England.
Wisdom is a way of
living and being, and Ajahn Chah has endeavored to
preserve the simple lifestyle of the monks in order that
people may study and practice Dhamma in the present day.
Ajahn Chah's wonderfully
simple style of teaching can be deceptive. It is often
only after one has heard something from him many times
that suddenly one's mind is ripe and somehow the
teaching takes on a much deeper meaning. His skillful
means in tailoring his explanations of Dhamma to time
and place, and to the understanding and sensitivity of
his audience, is marvellous to see. Sometimes on paper,
though, it can make him seem inconsistent or even
self-contradictory! At such times the reader should
remember that these words are a record of living
experience. Similarly, if the teaching may seem to vary
at times from tradition, it should be borne in mind that
the venerable Ajahn speaks always from the heart, from
the depths of his own meditative experience.
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Bodhi Leaves BL 111
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1987 Buddhist Publication Society
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