The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
8 September 2024
“Giving dāna is the first step of having spiritual happiness.”
- - -Question: Around 7 or 8 years back, I remember that I was doing dāna offering with much joy, but now it seems that I have lost much of the joy in offering dāna.
So how can I get back the same level of joy and enthusiasm?
Tan Ajahn: Giving dāna is the first step of having spiritual happiness, but the mind is like the body. When you were born you could be happy with just drinking milk, but as your body grew bigger, you found that drinking milk alone was not enough, so you had to have more, something heavier like rice, meat, and vegetables in order to make you feel full.
That is the same way with Dhamma practice.
“Dhamma for the Asking, Nov 11, 2014”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
Tan Ajahn: Giving dāna is the first step of having spiritual happiness, but the mind is like the body. When you were born you could be happy with just drinking milk, but as your body grew bigger, you found that drinking milk alone was not enough, so you had to have more, something heavier like rice, meat, and vegetables in order to make you feel full.
That is the same way with Dhamma practice.
When you first start, your mind is like an infant. When you give dāna, you feel very happy. But after a while your mind becomes accustomed to this happiness and it wants something stronger, something heavier, and something more. That’s why you have to start keeping the five precepts.
When you start keeping the five precepts, you feel happier, happier than giving dāna. After you have been keeping the five precepts for a while, you feel that you need something more, so you have to keep the eight precepts. After keeping the eight precepts, then you have to also practice meditation, because these two go hand in hand. If you want to practice meditation, you should keep the eight precepts.
When you keep the eight precepts and meditate, you will have more happiness, bigger happiness. And once you have developed jhāna, you want more happiness than that, because jhāna can give you only temporary happiness. You are happy when you are in meditation in jhāna, but when you come out of your jhāna, your mind can start to think about and desire things, and it can make you lose that happiness.
If you want to have longer, lasting happiness, you have to use vipassanā, you have to use paññā, which is aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ and anattā.
When you start keeping the five precepts, you feel happier, happier than giving dāna. After you have been keeping the five precepts for a while, you feel that you need something more, so you have to keep the eight precepts. After keeping the eight precepts, then you have to also practice meditation, because these two go hand in hand. If you want to practice meditation, you should keep the eight precepts.
When you keep the eight precepts and meditate, you will have more happiness, bigger happiness. And once you have developed jhāna, you want more happiness than that, because jhāna can give you only temporary happiness. You are happy when you are in meditation in jhāna, but when you come out of your jhāna, your mind can start to think about and desire things, and it can make you lose that happiness.
If you want to have longer, lasting happiness, you have to use vipassanā, you have to use paññā, which is aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ and anattā.
You have to contemplate aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ and anattā in everything that you see or are involved with. You have to teach your mind to let go, because these things don’t belong to you. Sooner or later the original owners will come and take them away from you. Who are the original owners? They are the four elements: earth, water, fire and wind elements.
The four elements are the things that make up everything in this world, including the human body and the animal body. Eventually the human body will dissolve and return to the four elements. This is something you have to teach your mind, remind your mind, tell your mind to readily to give it up when the time comes. If you think like this, then the mind will not want to have anything because no matter how much you have, one day you will lose it all.
So, it is better to have something that you will not lose.
The four elements are the things that make up everything in this world, including the human body and the animal body. Eventually the human body will dissolve and return to the four elements. This is something you have to teach your mind, remind your mind, tell your mind to readily to give it up when the time comes. If you think like this, then the mind will not want to have anything because no matter how much you have, one day you will lose it all.
So, it is better to have something that you will not lose.
That something is peace of mind—peace of mind that you can achieve by sitting in meditation and letting go of everything leading to the development of vipassanā or paññā.
“Dhamma for the Asking, Nov 11, 2014”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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