The teachings of Ajahn Suchart.

The teachings of Ajahn Suchart. 

“If you embrace the bad feeling like you embrace the good feeling, you will be happy.”

Monk: Other Kruba Ajahns recommended us to do dukkha vedanā. Is it something you’d recommend too?

Than Ajahn: Dukkha vedanā is pain, physical pain. If you wait for the actual physical pain to arise from sickness, it might be a long time away and you won’t have enough time to deal with it properly. So, you want to use the ‘our initiated pain’ by sitting and let the pain arise. And then, try to deal with this pain in the same way that you would deal with the pain of the sickness. 

Like if you have a stomach ache or headache, once you know how to deal with it, you would not suffer from this ache and pain of the body. That’s why we have to sit a long time to let the pain arise and teach the mind how to deal with the pain in such a way that it’s not suffering.

There are two levels to deal with it. The first level, the easy one, is to use mindfulness, to concentrate on something else, so that you won’t react to the pain. You don’t create wish or desire to want the pain to disappear. If you don’t have any wish or desire, then there will be no mental pain. Once you can do this, the next level is to teach your mind to look at the pain face to face, and just leave it alone. It’s not that bad. It’s just your dislike. Your dislike causes you to want to get rid of it. In fact, the pain is just like the other side of the good feeling. 

The good feeling and the bad feeling are both feelings.

Like the sound you hear, there are good sounds and bad sounds. What is the difference? 

They are both just sounds. If somebody says something bad about you, you feel bad. If somebody says something good about you, you feel good, but they are sounds.

For feelings, it is the same too. They are just feelings. Good feelings and bad feelings. If you can take good feelings, you should be able to take the bad feelings. The problem is not the feelings; it’s your reaction to the feeling that causes you to be unable to handle the bad feelings. Every time you have a bad feeling, you create this mental suffering. This is what makes you unable to take the bad feeling, your mental suffering, your denial, your desire to get rid of this bad feeling. With the good feeling, you have no denial. You embrace it. You are happy with this good feeling.

Then, you should do the same with the bad feeling. When you have a bad feeling, you should embrace it, just like you embrace the good feeling.  But you don’t. You want to get rid of the bad feeling. And that’s when you’re creating this mental suffering, mental pain.

If you embrace the bad feeling like you embrace the good feeling, you will be happy. It's the same like the sounds, embrace the bad sounds. If somebody says something bad, you say, ‘Thank you, thank you. 

Sounds good, sounds just like the praises you gave me.’ What’s the different? It’s the same person speaking from the same mouth, with the same sound but it’s just our interpretation of the sounds that makes us feel good or bad towards those sounds. But they are sounds.

I use this to compare to the feelings. When I’m sad, I compare it to the sounds I hear. 

If I listen to the music that I like, if I turn it up, full volume, I still can enjoy it. But if I hear some music that I don’t like, even on the lowest level of the volume, it still makes me feel bad. So, what’s the difference? It’s my reaction towards those sounds, that’s all. So, this is what we have to come to retune our reaction, to make it equal. If you can embrace good sounds, then you should embrace the bad sounds.

Dhamma for the Asking,
Monks and laypeople from Australia.
Feb 6, 2017

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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