The teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
30 May 2024
“Am I meditating or am I talking to myself?”
Question from California, USA: “When I meditate, sometimes I find myself saying in my mind, “breath in, breath out” and sometimes I keep talking in my head about body parts and reminding myself of their impermanent nature. Am I meditating or am I talking to myself?”
Than Ajahn: “You’re talking to yourself. You’re doing two different things at the same time; you’re meditating for calm, and the next moment you’re contemplating on vipassanā. So, it will not give you any result. You have to separate the two practices. Don’t do both at the same time.
If you want to calm the mind, you should focus on your breath. Don’t think about anything else.
If you want to teach the mind the truth, then you can contemplate, like thinking about the different parts of the body, or thinking about the body as being impermanent, as being anattā (not under your control). You don’t do both at the same time.
Basically, the way to practice is first, you have to calm the mind to build the strength to resist the desire. If you have no samādhi, you will have no strength to resist your desire. Even though you might have the wisdom to tell the mind that you have to stop desiring, you will not be able to stop it. This is because you have no samādhi. Before you can go to the vipassanā level, you must first develop the samādhi or samatha level. You have to calm the mind.
Next, once you can stop the mind from desiring, then the next step is teaching the mind the reason why you don’t want to desire for things. It is because everything you desire for will hurt you. It will fall apart; It will break up.”
“Dhamma in English, Q&A session, Jan 23, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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