Just be still By Ajahn Chah

Just be still
By Ajahn Chah

So let go, put everything down—everything except knowing. Don’t be fooled if visions or sounds arise in your mind during meditation. Put them all down. Don’t take hold of anything at all. Just stay with this non-dual awareness. 

Don’t worry about the past or the future. Just be still and you will reach the place where there is no advancing, no retreating and no stopping, where there is nothing to grasp at or cling to. Why? Because there’s no self, no “me” or “mine.” It’s all gone.

The Buddha taught us to be emptied of everything in this way, not to carry anything with us. To know, and having known, let go.

Realizing the Dhamma, the path to freedom from the Round of Birth and Death, is a task that we all have to do alone. So keep trying to let go and to understand the teachings. Really put effort into your contemplation. Don’t worry about your family. At the moment they are as they are; in the future they will be like you. There’s no one in the world who can escape this fate. The Buddha told us to put down everything that lacks a real abiding substance. If you put everything down, you will see the truth. If you don’t, you won’t. That’s the way it is and it’s the same for everyone in the world. So don’t worry and don’t grasp at anything.

Even if you find yourself thinking, that’s alright too, as long as you think wisely. Don’t think foolishly. If you think of your children, think of them with wisdom, not with foolishness. Whatever the mind turns to, then think and know that thing with wisdom, aware of its nature. If you know something with wisdom, then you let it go and there’s no suffering. The mind is bright, joyful, and at peace, and turning away from distractions, it is undivided. Right now, what you can look to for help and support is your breath.

This is your own work, nobody else’s. Leave others to do their own work. You have your own duty and responsibility and you don’t have to take on those of your family. Don’t take anything else on; let it all go. That letting go will make your mind calm. Your sole responsibility right now is to focus your mind and bring it to peace. Leave everything else to others. Forms, sounds, odors, tastes—leave them to others to attend to. Put everything behind you and do your own work, fulfill your own responsibility. Whatever arises in your mind—be it fear of pain, fear of death, anxiety about others or whatever—say to it, “Don’t disturb me. You’re not my business any more.” Just keep saying this to yourself when you see those dhammas arise.

The world is the very mental state that is agitating you at this moment. “What will this person do? When I’m dead, who will look after them? How will they manage?” This is all just “the world.” Even the mere arising of a thought fearing death or pain is the world. 

Throw the world away! The world is the way it is. If you allow it to arise in the mind and dominate consciousness, then the mind becomes obscured and can’t see itself. 

So whatever appears in the mind, just say “This isn’t my business. It’s impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self.”