The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
“Fasting is just the tool you use to eliminate the hindrances”
Monk: On fasting, how would you recommend to practise it?
Than Ajahn: Fasting is good if you meditate and if you don’t do any physical work. When you are eating normally, you tend to be lazy because you are in comfort but when you are fasting you are in pain, so it forces you to meditate to get rid of your pain. Hunger is a form of pain. When you meditate you can eliminate half the pain, because half the pain is mental. Fasting is not the aim in itself. Fasting is just the tool you use to eliminate the hindrances such as sloth and torpor, your laziness, your sleepiness. When you fast, you don’t feel sleepy. It is just a tool. But if you fast, and you don’t meditate, then it is useless.
Monk: When you stayed at Wat Pa Ban Taat, you didn’t really get to know the other monks, how does that work in the Dhamma practice?
Than Ajahn: So you can have the time to meditate. If you mingle, you lose the time and then also you have a lot of information about other people in your mind, which disrupts your meditation for appāna-samādhi. When you want to enter into appāna-samādhi, you have to empty your mind. When you mingle and socialise, you have more mental information. This makes it harder for you to empty your mind. When you are alone you don’t have to talk to anybody. LuangTa discouraged monks from mingling.
Monk: Some young monks feel lonely. What is your advice?
Than Ajahn: Disrobe.
Monk: Should there be any friendship to support one’s practice in his early days as a young monk even if it is a hindrance to achieve samādhi?
Than Ajahn: Ideally there is no form of friendship. Ideally you have to be alone. You want to concentrate all your time and effort in developing your mind. If you have to develop friendships, you lose time.
Monk: Do you think it is important to have a relationship with a life teacher who can answer questions for you?
Than Ajahn: A life teacher is like a life doctor. Books teach you how to treat the body. If you have some problems then you can tell the doctor and he will give you the medicine. But if you have to find out yourself, you are going to read the books and you might not find it.
Monk: Is it important?
Than Ajahn: Yes, it is important if you can have a life teacher, but when there are no a life teacher, the next best things is the books or CDs.
Monk: Some kruba Ajahn said the body cease when you reach magga-phala?
Than Ajahn: Before you reach Anāgāmī, you have to go through the body. Before you can go to the fourth-stage, you have to go through the body. You have to get rid of the five-samyojana (five fetters). They are all in the body. Sakkāya–diṭṭhi, the physical pain. This is in the body. The sexual desire. These two will dissolve. Once you can let go of the attachment to the body, you will see that you have no doubt in the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha because you are using the teachings of the Buddha to gain enlightenment.
Once you are enlightened, you know that the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha exist. Once you can get rid of the sakkāya–diṭṭhi, you can also get rid of the micchā–diṭṭhi. This is a bonus, you don’t have to separately get rid of the micchā–diṭṭhi because it comes together. The other two that comes together is the sexual desire (kāma–rāga) and restlessness. You are restless because you have sexual desire.
Once you get rid of sexual desire, your mind becomes peaceful. So if you get rid of your sexual desire, you also get rid of your restlessness. You have to use asubha to get rid of your sexual desire. Every time when you have sexual desire, think of a corpse, think of the 32 parts of the body and your sexual desire will disappear.
Monk: Do you use dukkha-vedanā to let go of the body?
Than Ajahn: You use sukha-vedanā to get rid of dukkha-vedanā. To get rid of the fear of death, you have to investigate the death of the body. Death is something that you cannot prevent from happening. You see the anicca of the body, the anattā of the body – the body is not you. Once you see that the body is not you, once you see that the body will have to die, then you will say, “ok, so what? I am not dying?” When you reach appāna-samādhi, you can see this. When you reach appāna-samādhi, your body disappears from your mind and the mind knows it can exist without the body.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
www.facebook.com/AjahnSuchartAbhijato
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