“You have to have a ‘don’t look back’ mentality. Once you’re on this path, don’t turn back.”

“You have to have a ‘don’t look back’ mentality. Once you’re on this path, don’t turn back.”

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Question: When I go back to my country, I plan to ordain. Some teachers have told me to break up contact with my family. It doesn’t feel very compassionate because it seems that it’s going to hurt them. I’m wondering about how often I can see them and speak to them. They live in a different country from me.

Than Ajahn: Well, ideally, it’s better to be separated from them during the initial period because you want to cut off the flow of your thoughts towards them. Because it can be an impediment to your practice if you keep thinking about them, or if you keep wanting to have contact with and see them. This will prevent you from meditating reaching into the depth of your mind if you still cling to your family and friends. So, look at it as a probationary period. It’s not something permanent. It’s for your benefit. Tell your family that you want to be isolated temporarily to develop mental strength.

If you constantly in contact with your family and friends, sometimes you can be emotional.  After you see them and talk to them, when you go back and live alone, you’ll become sad and lonely. So, it’s better to be sad and feel lonely once than to be sad and feel lonely every time you have contact with them and you have to separate from them after seeing them because this will be just like seesawing in which you will never get to anywhere. It’s better to tell your family that this is a probationary period where you need to be alone, that you are not running away from them or hate them. It’s like going to the hospital and be isolated from people so that the doctor can fix your illness. That’s all. You have no contact with them temporarily until you have enough strength to know that by having contact them doesn’t bother you, and doesn’t hurt you. Then, you can be in contact with them again.

The Buddha spent 6 years alone. After 6 years, he kept in contact with everybody but his mind was no longer attached to anyone. Seeing family and friends or not seeing them had the same result. It didn’t make him happy or sad. Seeing them didn’t make him happier and not seeing them didn’t make him sadder. You have to get to that point of neutrality before you can go out to the world and deal with other people, otherwise why bother doing it if you’re ordained and you practice but you don’t get to anywhere. You might as well staying with your family all along.

You have to use rationality. What is your goal? Your goal is to have freedom from suffering. The only way to do it is by isolating yourself from everybody. Even when you live in monastery, you’re also not supposed to have any close contact with people who live in the same compound. You just know each other but you don’t spend time associating and developing relationship with them.

Associating with people is not the way for someone who practice and never look back. You have to have a ‘don’t look back’ mentality. Once you’re on this path, don’t turn back. Just keep moving forward. Then, you’ll get there very quickly and easily. But if you keep looking back, you’ll be pulled back because every time when you think about your friends and your family, you’ll have to go and see them. You just keep going back and forth.

This separation is not permanent. It’s temporary. You are just like an astronaut who have to go to the space and you cannot take your family with you. After you complete your mission, you’ll come back and greet your family.

Try to develop mindfulness as much as possible, all the time. This is the key to your meditation success. You have to curb your thinking by using something like reciting a mantra or concentrating on what you’re doing. When you’re moving around, you use your body as your object of meditation. Keep watching what you’re doing. Don’t let your mind go somewhere else.

When you sit, you can either use the recitation of a mantra or watch your breath. Try to do a lot of those activities. Do nothing else. Just develop mindfulness and meditate. Then, you’ll move very quickly. Don’t waste time with other people. Don’t talk to them. Don’t do things that you don’t really have to do. Do only the things that you have to do, like taking care of your body, wash your clothes, eat, etc. Don’t do other social activities because it’s a waste of time. It’s a hindrance.

You should try to read Dhamma books every day, maybe an hour a day so that it can remind you things that you’re supposed to do. That was what I used to do when I was staying with a teacher in the monastery. He didn’t teach every day. So, I read his books for about an hour a day. Reading his books was similar to listening to his talks because the books was the transcribed of his talks. When I read it, I could pick up the teachings and it went into my mind. When you read books written by meditation masters, the teachings come from a calm mind and they can calm your mind.

Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Nov 9, 2018.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g