The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart

The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart

25 June 2024

Question:  In my day to day life I feel the need to project a positive image to the people around me. I want them to see a positive image of me.

Than Ajahn:  It’s because of your desire. Your desire to be respected, to be liked, is causing you to worry about your image. 

So try to reduce this desire, let people take you as you are, if they like you fine, and if they don’t that’s also fine. Because you can’t force them anyway. No matter hard you try, some people will not like you. 

Sometimes you don’t try and you will find that people like you anyway. So it’s better not to worry about it.

It’s their decision whether they are going to like you or hate you, not what you are or what you do or what you appear to be. So don’t worry, just try to be natural, try to be yourself.

Just be a good person. If you know you are a good person then you can disregard how others feel about you.

One way to measure if you are a good person is to see if you have compassion, loving kindness, and whether you are keeping the precepts or not.

Once you have these then you are a good person. And if anyone says anything otherwise, then they are blind.

They don’t know how to measure a good person. They might measure with a person’s status, money and wealth. But that’s not the true worth of a person. So once you have a true measurement for what a good person is, you can then ignore what other people think about you.

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Question:  What if I already think of myself as a good person, and it becomes a superiority complex. I compare myself with others, usually I think I am better and sometimes worse. I even compare the length of my stride during walking meditation. I feel like the ego is too big.

Than Ajahn:  Just be mindful of yourself. Be mindful of whatever you do and don’t worry about what other people do. Don’t worry about what others will think about you. Just inspect yourself and make sure that you are doing good, doing it right. That’s all you have to worry about.

Don’t worry about what other people think of you, but what you think of yourself. Base what you think of yourself on something solid, like your action, such as compassion, loving kindness and precepts.

But sometimes the mind can be up and down, sometimes you think highly of yourself and sometimes you think of yourself being very low. So sometimes you have to use an antidote. The Buddha says that when you think highly of yourself you should think of yourself like an old rag to help bring down your ego. When you think of yourself as low, the antidote is to remember that we are all the same. We all have a body and we all will got old, get sick and die. So in this regard we are all the same. We are not lower than anybody else. When you feel different from others, try to think about how we are all the same. We are all in the same boat of aging, sickness and death. We are all under the law of karma.

But if you cannot think properly then just stop thinking by reciting a mantra.

That’s the best way. Just keep reciting and then you will stop thinking and then you will not have to deal with it. You might not have the right understanding within yourself yet. So if you stop thinking, you will just be merely knowing. Use your mantra to stop thinking and then you will be just merely knowing. 

When you are merely knowing, you can accept what other people say about you or do towards you.

Because when you have mindfulness you will stop reacting and when there is no reaction, there is no self.

Usually the reaction comes from the self. But when you bring your mind to the knowing, there is no self, then there is no reacting. So mindfulness is a good tool to have to deal with any emotional situation.

It’s the first tool to use, the easiest tool to use. But it’s not a permanent fix. To have a permanent fix you need to use wisdom. To see that we are not the body, but we are the mind. 

And each mind is subjected to its own karma.

We are different because of the good or bad karma that we have done. If you cannot see this yet, then just try to stop evaluating yourself or comparing yourself to other people. We are what we are.

Try to accept our position and status.

“Dhamma in English, Dec 21, 2020.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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