The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
7 July 2024
“Asubha is the contemplation on the unattractive part of the body to get rid of your sexual desire.”
Question from France: “When I look at my teeth, I know that my teeth change and one day I’ll have to lose all of them. I know these teeth don’t belong to me. Is this the practice of asubha?”
Than Ajahn: “No, this is the contemplation on anicca (impermanence). The teeth don’t last forever. The teeth eventually have to break up.
Asubha is the contemplation on the unattractive part of the body to get rid of your sexual desire. It’s because your sexual desire arises when you see something beautiful. But when you see something ugly, then your sexual desire will be suppressed or driven away. So, in order to suppress your sexual desire, you have to look at the other side of the body.
Don’t just look at the pretty side of the body. Look at the ugly side. Look inside the body to see all the organs: the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, etc.
You can see all the dirty stuff in the body. If you see the body this way, you can suppress or eliminate your sexual desire. This is the contemplation of asubha – to look at the ugly side of the body.
You can look at the body after the body dies. In the old days, people didn’t cremate or bury bodies. They wrapped the body with a piece of cloth and then left it to rot in the jungle or at the cemetery. Monks who wanted to contemplate on asubha would go there to contemplate, by looking at the corpses that were being left at the cemetery. The monks would try to remember the picture of those corpses. So, every time when he saw a beautiful body, he will think that the beautiful body will eventually turn into a corpse. If you can do the same, then you can suppress or eliminate your sexual desire. That’s the purpose of the contemplation of asubha.”
“Dhamma in English, May 8-12, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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