The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
11 February 2023“The goal of our practice is to see the working of the four noble truths inside our mind… The problem is not the world. The problem is ourselves.”
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Question: I have problem with recognising neutral feelings.
Than Ajahn: Actually, neutral feeling is not a problem because it doesn’t affect you one way or the other.
The thing that cause problem is the bad feelings because when you have bad feelings, you react in the wrong way. You want to get rid of that bad feelings. And when you can’t get rid of the bad feelings, you feel worse than before. So this is the reason why you have to learn to accept feelings as they are.
Feelings change from positive to negative, and to neutral. Feelings keep changing. They are not under your control.
They are anatta. Anatta means they are not under anybody’s control. They are part of nature, like the weather. You can’t control them. What you have to do is to learn to live with them.
When you have a bad feeling, such as getting sick like having a fever, you just have to train your mind to be neutral. Just be aware. Don’t react by wanting to get rid of that bad feeling.
Because when you have the desire to get rid of that bad feeling, you’re creating another bad feeling in your mind. This is called dukkha (suffering). This is the dukkha of the four noble truths – the bad feeling that arises from your desire for things to be according to what you want. But sometimes you can’t do that.
And when you can’t do that, you feel terrible.
If you can stop your desire for the bad feeling or the fever to disappear, then you can live with the fever without having any stress inside your mind.
This is seeing the four noble truths – seeing that your stress is caused by your desire, such as the desire to get rid of your fever. If you use the Dhamma teaching, it teaches you that feelings are not under your control. You can’t tell them to come and go as you like. And if you don’t want to have stress in your mind, you just have to learn to accept the truth, ‘Ok, if the body is having a fever, I accept it.’ This doesn’t mean that you don’t fix it. You can take medicine or go see a doctor. In the meantime, when the fever is there, just let it be. Don’t create any desire to get rid of it. Then, your mind will become calm and peaceful. It will not have any stress. This is the goal of the practice: to get rid of the dukkha in your mind, by teaching your mind to accept the reality, by trying not to change the reality.
When it’s hot, you want it cold. When you’re here, you want it to be at somewhere else. If you do this, you’re creating stress in your mind. You make yourself unhappy. But if you can teach your mind to accept the reality, ‘Ok, I’m here and I shouldn’t wish to go anywhere else,’ then you’ll be happy wherever you are. ‘If I’m sick, ok, I accept it, because the body has to get sick sometimes’. Let it be. Then your mind will have no stress. This is the four noble truths.
The goal of our practice is to see the working of the four noble truths inside our mind. Normally, we don’t look at the working of the noble truths when it happens. When we have craving, the four noble truths is already appearing inside our mind.
The four noble truths is divided into two pairs. The first pair is the craving and the stress; the second pair is the end of stress, by having the right attitude – the path, to have wisdom and samadhi. To see that things are impermanent and we have to accept them for what they are. If we can accept things for what they are, we can stop our desire to change things. When we can stop the desire to change things then the stress will disappear.
This happens all the time in life, but you just don’t look at it. When things don’t go according to what you want, you try to change things because you are not happy with the things as they are. You don’t realise that your unhappiness is caused by your own desire to change things. So, if you want to get rid of your stress or your unhappiness in your mind, you just have to change your mind and stop your desire to change things, by accepting them as what they are. If you can do that, your mind will become peaceful and calm. You don’t have to do anything with things around you. Just let them be.
The problem is not the world. The problem is ourselves. We want to change the world, which make us stressful and unhappy. So, stop trying to change the world, but try to change ourselves, try to get rid our desire to change things, just to let things be as they are.
M: You are frustrated when you want to change the world.
Than Ajahn: That’s right. You might be happy from time to time when you could do it. But eventually, you are going to run into something that you can’t change, then you become frustrated and sad.
Dhamma in English, May 19, 2020.
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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