The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
1 May 2024“Just keep on meditating whenever you feel lonely and sad. Those emotions will disappear once your mind has calmed down.”
I first began practising at home. I just happened to have a row house that was unoccupied. So I stayed in it alone and practised meditation for about one year. But I didn’t stay there the entire time. There were times when I went to stay somewhere else. I sometimes went to stay on an island and such. But I mainly stayed alone. I did sitting and walking meditation in the house. I read Dhamma books and tried to control my desires to go out. I tried not to indulge myself because I knew that it was only enjoyable when I was out.
But once I came back, I’d get lonely and sad.
It is better to resist these urges and to control your mind in order to fight against the loneliness and depression in you. You know that they are mental defilements (kilesas), that they are emotions, and that they are only made up by your mind. If you keep on trying to do your sitting and walking mediation, these emotions will eventually subside on their own. This is the right way to address them.
Once you’ve meditated, these feelings and emotions will disappear. That’s when you realise the true value of meditation practice. If you don’t meditate and instead let your mind ponder on things, you’ll soon enough want to go out. When you don’t get to go out, you’ll get frustrated and sad. Once you’ve re-established your mindfulness, you need to hurry back to your meditation practice.
Just keep on meditating whenever you feel lonely and sad. Those emotions will disappear once your mind has calmed down. When you meditate on a regular basis, it will then become your habit. That’s when you have a cure— a right and reasonable one.
Not knowing how to address the issue, whenever you feel bored and upset, you’d go out shopping. You’d go sightseeing to take away the negative emotions. But once you come back home, you’d feel the same way. The suffering would come back again.
But if you resort to the Dhamma—simply do sitting or walking meditation whenever there’s suffering and not think about going out and try to fight the urges, the suffering will subside once your mind is calm. So then you can just be at home. You’re at ease when your mind is calm. Repeat the same thing when it resurfaces. If you’re able to practise consistently, then there’s no chance for it to resurface. With discontinuous practice, boredom may arise during the in-betweens. There’s no chance for such a feeling to arise if you practise continuously.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
Youtube: Dhamma in English
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