The teachings of Ajahn Suchart
11 November 2023
“Your defilement is opposing your meditation.”
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Question (M): I feel that since I start meditating, I suffer more. Why is this so?
Than Ajahn: Because your mind is still being influenced by your defilement. Your defilement is opposing your meditation. Your defilement doesn’t want your mind to become still so it reacts by creating suffering in your mind. You have to be patient. You have to endure. You have to ignore this opposition.
Try to focus on your meditation object. Disregard the bad feeling when it arises while you try to meditate.
This is natural for everyone. This is the hindrance.
This hindrance is the thing that blocks people from succeeding in meditation. They sit for a few minutes, then they start to feel restless and agitated, and they cannot concentrate any more.
That’s because they don’t have strong concentration or mindfulness. So, they should try to develop strong concentration or mindfulness by focusing their attention on one thing all the time, such as the body. They have to use the body as a point of concentration or focus.
Whatever they do, they have to keep watching the body. Stay with the body. Don’t let the mind go think about other things. If they can do this, they’ll have strong concentration. And when they sit down, the defilements will not be able to create this bad feeling to obstruct their meditation.
So, when the defilement arises, you can overcome it by keep concentrating on your object of meditation.
And eventually, your mind will become singularity. It becomes one and stops thinking. You have to develop a lot of mindfulness, not only during the time when you meditate, but also the time before you meditate. You should do it all the time, in any time of the day when you don’t have to use your mind to think about something important. You should not let it think.
You should stop it by using a mantra or by focusing on your body.
Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Nov 9, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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