The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
23 February 2024“If you have the happiness from absorption, you can get rid of all other things, you don’t need anything else to make you happy.”
Question: Can Ajahn guide me in your way of meditation?
Than Ajahn: You have to start with mindfulness, be mindful of your activities from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep, by focusing doing one thing only. Don’t think.
You think only when you have to. You have to eliminate other things that you don’t have to think about.
When you wake up, you start to concentrate on your body by following every activity of your body. Don’t send your mind thinking about some other things, but just watch your body activities. If you are washing your face, just watch it, if you are taking a shower, just watch it, if you are dressing up, just watch it.
Don’t do two things at the same time, like when you are washing, you should not think about what you have to do today. If you have to think or plan, you should stop your body activity. You either sit or stand mindfully, and then think about the things you have to think about. After you have finished thinking about your plan, then you stop it and go back to watching your body activities again. Keep doing this and your mind will not go here and there.
When you meditate you want your mind to be fixed on one point. If you develop mindfulness this way, when you sit in your meditation and watch your breath, you will be able to only watch your breath, you will not think about other things. If you can do this, your mind can become calm and become absorbed very quickly. You will find peace and happiness from this absorption.
Subsequently, you can use wisdom to eliminate your desire because you have something better than what your desire can provide you with. If you have the happiness from absorption, you can get rid of all other things, you don’t need anything else to make you happy.
Right now you need things because you are not happy, your mind is not absorbed. Once your mind is absorbed then you won’t want to have anything else because when you have to go and get some things, it is problematic. When you have it, you have to take care of it and when you lose it, you become sad again.
So you will see the problem with having things or doing things according to your desire.
You can stop your desire by seeing that it is more hurtful than helpful in following what your desires tell you to do. If you don’t have happiness from absorption, you have to rely on other things to make you happy and you will always end up unhappy because whatever things you have, they will change or disappear from you.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
Youtube: Dhamma in English
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