The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
11 February 2024
“If you cannot stop your mind from thinking, your mind cannot be calm, cannot enter into jhāna.”
Question: “Is it realistic for the lay practitioner who wants to achieve the first jhāna in the day to day meditation practice?”
Than Ajahn: “It depends on the strength of your mindfulness. If you have strong mindfulness, you can have jhāna. If you don’t have strong mindfulness, you can’t. Some people have strong mindfulness so they can have jhāna anytime, anywhere. They don’t have to become monks. Some monks don’t have strong mindfulness, so they could not have jhāna. If their mindfulness is not strong enough, they could not have jhāna.
Jhāna is the ability to concentrate on one object, not to let your mind think about other things. This is the thing that will make your mind enter into jhāna. It’s like when you try to put a thread through a needle hole, you need to have a very still hands, not a wobbly hands. If your hands shake, you cannot get the thread into the needle hole. It’s the same thing with your mind, in order to enter into jhāna, your mind has to be steady. It has to be fixed on one object, like watching your breathing and not think about any other things. When you think, your mind starts to shake and it cannot enter into jhāna.
You need a strong mindfulness to keep your mind to become still, not to shake. Some people may have it from their previous lives. So, when they meditate, they can get the mind to become calm easily and quickly. Some people don’t have mindfulness. They struggle when they sit in meditation. When they sit, they start to think about this and that, then they come back to the object of their meditation for a few seconds, and they go and think about this and that again. In this way they’ll never be able to get the mind to become still, to become calm, to enter into jhāna.
You need to develop mindfulness. You can do this all the time from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep. Just focus on whatever you do. Don’t think about other things while you’re doing something with your body. If you’re walking, just watch your walking activity. If you’re eating, just watch that you’re eating. Just watch your body activities. Don’t think about other things at the same time.
We tend to do two things at the same time. We eat and at the same time we plan what we’re going to do next, or where we’re going to go. This is not mindfulness. If you have mindfulness, when you eat, you just think about your eating activity only. The mind only thinks about what you’re doing at the moment. Watch what the body is doing at the moment. It doesn’t go and think about other things.
If you want to succeed in meditation, you first have to develop strong mindfulness, continuous mindfulness. From the time you get up to the time you go to sleep. Focus on your body activities. If you have to think about what you need to do, you just focus on thinking of what you have to do. It’s okay if you think about what you’re doing because you’re still watching your body. But if you think about some other things other than what you are doing right now, then it’s not okay because it means that your mind has gone away.
You want to bring the mind back to the present, to what’s happening right now. When you work, you have to concentrate on your work. If you have to think about your work, then you have to be mindful of your thinking, not thinking about some other things other than your work. But it’s best not to think. So, it’s best not to work because when you work, you still have to think. When you work, you have to think what to do about your work. If you can afford it, it’s better not to work. When you don’t work, you have all the time to stop your mind from thinking. You don’t have to think. Even when you think you can stop it by concentrating on what you are doing.
Or you can use a mantra to help you stop thinking. You use a mantra, like repeat the name of the Buddha, ‘Buddho, Buddho, Buddho, Buddho, Buddho.’ When you recite the mantra, then you cannot think about what you want to think.
The goal of having mindfulness is to have the ability to be able to control your thought, to stop your thought. Right now, your thought is like a runaway car, you cannot stop it. You have to get into the car and apply the break. Right now, your thought just keeps thinking. It thinks all the time. You have to apply the brake to your thought by using mindfulness.
If you have strong mindfulness, you don’t need a mantra. You don’t need to focus on your body activities.
You can just let your mind stop thinking. It’s a matter how long you can stop it. You may stop it momentarily. Then, when you forget, it starts to think again. So, you have to keep stopping it because if you cannot stop your mind from thinking, your mind cannot be calm, cannot enter into jhāna.”
Dhamma for the Asking,
Laypeople from Canada, Jan 20, 2017.
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube:
Laypeople from Canada, Jan 20, 2017.
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube:
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