I KNOW, BUT I DON'T KNOW: Contemplation of Death By AJAHN BRAHMA

I KNOW, BUT I DON'T KNOW: Contemplation of Death
By AJAHN BRAHM

“I gave a talk last night to lay people about the meditation on letting go, of just doing nothing. To be able to do nothing, you have to be able to understand that doing nothing is important. That letting go within the mind is valuable. Just sitting down meditating is a matter of life and death, more important than any other business. Meditation is more important than our finances, our relationships, our children, our vehicles, or our possessions. It is more important even than going out and working for the community. It's more important than everything else because it's the only way to make an end of suffering.

Accumulating wealth, what meaning has that? It all disappears when you die. Indulging in the pleasures of life, even if you manage to get them in great amounts, usually just bring lots of frustrations. If you do get lots and lots of pleasure in this life, so what! It always disappears in the pain and fog of old age. One of the things that you notice in life, as you get older, is that most of the pleasures in life occur early on and the pain of life is what you're mostly left with at the end. Knowing this, seeing the dangers in life, why does anybody get involved in all this wasting of time?

We can go around teaching others, or writing books for others, and spreading the Dhamma, but is that really our duty in this life? So many people are spreading the Dhamma, but so few people are realising the Dhamma. Sometimes you wonder what we are spreading anyway. If you don't realise the Dhamma for yourself, you run the risk of spreading muck around. And people will take up that muck, thinking that it's Dhamma.

Sometimes people give teachings on muck, and everyone thinks how Enlightened they are; but it's all muck Dhamma. It's not real Dhamma. They haven't realised the Dhamma for themselves. That's a great shame for this world. We don't really need people spreading Dhamma as much as we need more people realising that Dhamma.”

Source: I KNOW, BUT I DON'T KNOW: Contemplation of Death

By AJAHN BRAHM
https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebmed095.htm