“This is why we have to practise samādhi….”
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“In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha said that dukkha or mental suffering arises from our three desires: kāma-taṇhā – desire for sensual pleasure; bhava-taṇhā – desire to be, to have and vibhava-taṇhā – the desire not to be, not to have. If we know the truth, then these desires will not arise. We will not have the desire for the body to last forever, to be healthy all the time, to be young all the time, because we know it is not the truth.
The truth is that the body will get sick, get old and die. If we have this knowledge all the time with us, then whenever the body becomes old, sick or dies, it will not hurt us. The mind will not be hurt by the aging, sickness and death of the body because we know that the body is not ‘us’, we are not the body. This is the goal of body contemplation, the study of the nature of the body, to see the body as it really is, not as what we think it is.
We always think that this body is ‘us’, which is not the truth. The truth which the Buddha discovered is that the body is not ‘us’. The body is just a body. We are the mind. We are the ones who come and possess this body and then use this body as the means of acquiring things that we want to have. We have this delusion that our happiness relies on acquiring things, acquiring money, acquiring status, acquiring a husband or wife and children and acquiring everything that we can acquire through our body.
But whatever we acquire, is all temporary; it doesn’t last forever. When we have to be separated from them, we become unhappy and sad. So we have to teach the mind, not to acquire anything. The thing that the mind should acquire is calm or peace of mind. This is the real and true happiness because it stays with us all the time and the calm mind will never leave us.
This is what we should strive for, but should not desire to possess things outside of the mind. Don’t strive for money, status, praise or sight, sound, smell, taste and tactile objects. All these things can only give you temporary happiness. When you see things you are happy, but when you don’t see them, then this happiness disappears. One day you will not be able to see things because the body will have to get sick, get old and die, and when you cannot acquire things through your body, then you will be sad and unhappy. If you have the inner happiness of the mind, you will not be affected by the sickness, aging and death of the body, because you can always maintain this mental or spiritual happiness with or without the body.
So, this is why we have to practise samādhi. Samādhi is the way to bring about this mental happiness. Samādhi will make the mind calm and peaceful. When the mind becomes calm and peaceful, the mental happiness will arise. This mental happiness is a better happiness than the happiness that we acquire through the body.
Once we have acquired this inner peace from mental happiness, the next thing to do is to maintain and protect it. The thing that will come to destroy this mental happiness is our desire. When we come out of samādhi, if we are not careful and let our desire take over, then our desire will eliminate the inner peace or mental happiness that we have acquired from sitting in samādhi. If we use wisdom from the truth that the Lord Buddha discovered and taught, we will know that our sadness arises from our desire, so if we can stop our desire, we will be able to protect our mental happiness.
“Singapore via skype, Aug 9, 2015.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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