“The Dhamma practice aims at eliminating wants and desires in order to bring peace to your heart.”

The teachings of Ajahn Suchart. 

“The Dhamma practice aims at eliminating wants and desires in order to bring peace to your heart.”

"The Dhamma practice aims at eliminating wants and desires in order to bring peace to your heart. It is a waste of time to look at things that do not extinguish desires. Take, for example, the sun and the trees. 

These bring you nothing useful because they are not things that create problems.

You should look at things that bring you problems, things that create turmoil and suffering in your heart. You should look at them—things such as deterioration of your body and that of your loved ones, so you will accept the fact that one day all of us will end up this way.

Our bodies as well as those of our loved ones will one day stop functioning, becoming ashes and bone fragments.

That is how you should look.

When looking at the person you desire to have sexual relationship with, you should see the skeleton within the body. 

If your loved one dies today, can you still think of having an intimate relationship with this person?

You can be with your loved one while he or she is alive, but when your loved one is dead, you will think that it is a ghost lying there and you will not want to be with him or her any more. This is how you should think in order to extinguish sexual desire because sexual desire does not bring peace.

If you want happiness generated by peace or calm, you must eliminate your sexual desire. You must regularly contemplate loathsomeness (asubha).

Think about the unattractiveness of the body.

Think about the situation when one is dead for 3 days and the body decomposes and emanates stench. Do you still want to have sexual relationship with this body? This way of thinking will extinguish your desire. You can then live alone, and your heart will have peace. You will achieve genuine happiness without the help of impermanent things. As someone you care about is impermanent, when this person is gone, you will be sad and lonely. If you have happiness in your heart, you do not want anything else.

That is the reason why you should contemplate eliminating everything from your life.

You should be aware that material things will eventually leave us or will deteriorate.

Even our own body will also deteriorate. However, the deterioration of the body does not mean that you will no longer be living. You are still alive; however, you have to decide what kind of existence you will have. You will either have a miserable existence or you will be free of misery.

If you accept the impermanence of your body, you will escape misery, be indifferent and happy like nothing has happened. If you use wisdom (paññā) in your contemplation, you will see that it is even better not to have to take care of your body any longer because taking care of it is such a burden.

From the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to sleep at night, you have to breathe, look for water to drink, prepare food to eat, clean your body, and go to the toilet when needed. Everyone’s body requires such activities.

Without body, such activities are not required.

Using wisdom, you will conclude that death is a good thing. Death relieves all responsibilities and burden. If you still have your body, even though there is no physical desire or suffering, you will still have the responsibility of taking care of your body. The Lord Buddha himself had to go around taking alms, eating, taking a bath, and taking medicine when sick.

Therefore, you should contemplate deterioration of everything so that you will not hold on to them; you will not cling to your worldly possessions to provide you with happiness. This is because you have more genuine happiness. 

If you have peace of mind, you do not need anything else. If you can let go, your mind will experience happiness, calm, and comfort.

You will not be mistaken by clinging to or coveting this and that in your quest for happiness."

“My Way”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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