The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
9 November 2023
Question: How to let go of my past? I would like to be free.
Than Ajahn: Well, you’re clinging to your past through your thoughts. You keep thinking about it. That’s all. So, all you have to do is to stop thinking. And the only way to stop thinking is to think of something else. That’s why you have to use a mantra. Keep reciting a mantra.
When you recite a mantra or chant some verses, you can’t think about other things.
The problem is you don’t chant or recite a mantra long enough. If you stick to your mantra, stick to your chant, you can’t think about this and that. Eventually, you’ll forget about the past. Every time when you think about the past, you can stop it right away by reciting a mantra. When you first start, it might be difficult because you are hooked on thinking about the past. You don’t want to recite the mantra. This is where you have to force yourself to keep reciting a mantra. Find a mantra that you like. Keep reciting that word or that phrase.
Try to stick to it until you forget about the past. Then, you can stop reciting it. At any time when you start thinking about the past, you start reciting your mantra again.
Eventually, you can control your thought. So, what you need now is to be forceful with your mantra or your chant. Try to stick with it.
Think of it as a medicine for your mind, to cure your mind from this sickness of clinging to the past. You have to keep taking the medicine. Keep reciting a mantra, ok?
The other thing that helps is to stay away from things that might associate you to the past, i.e. pictures, things or people. If you can avoid them or you can isolate yourself from those things, then they will not initiate your thoughts about the past. Like you come here to a new environment, you are dealing with new people, you don’t have time to think about the past. If you start thinking about the past, then try to recite a mantra.
The easiest way is to recite a mantra, yet it’s also the hardest thing to do. You can recite, ‘Stop thinking.
Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop. Stop. Stop. Don’t think.’ Tell yourself that. If you’re just telling yourself just once, it isn’t enough. Your mind doesn’t believe you. You have to keep reciting it.
The only way to stop your thinking about the past is to keep reciting something else. This is to replace the thing that you're thinking about.
Once you can replace it, those thoughts will go away. If they come back, you can always get rid of them with the mantra. Ok?
Anything else? Alright. Have you read some of my books in English?
We also upload video on YouTube, ‘Dhamma in English.’ You can go and watch them if you like.
“Dhamma in English, Apr 10-15, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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