The teachings of Ajahn Suchart
Question: When I have a problem with someone, I’d tell myself, ‘Ok, it’s impermanent. I don’t have any problem with him.’ Is this vipassanā?
Than Ajahn: Yes, but that way, you can never enter into samādhi, you can only deal with superficial problem.
When you get into serious problem, you will not be able to deal with it.
When you lose something you love, you cannot stop your mind from being sad. So, you need to go deeper.
Your mind has to go deeper in order to be able to dig out the cravings that were embedded in your mind.
If you liken your craving to a tree, you’re only cutting out the branches, you’re not cutting the tree or uprooting the root of the tree. You need to have samādhi first, then you can uproot the root of your cravings. If you never get into samādhi, you will never be able to use vipassanā fully, you’ll just have a superficial vipassanā. And the problem will keep coming back again and again. If you can uproot the root of your cravings, no craving will come back and create any problems for your mind.
This is the problem with people when they study too much: they get confused. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know where to start, so they just take in everything that comes to them. The goal of sitting meditation is to calm the mind. But when they sit in meditation, when the mind is being distracted by something, they will follow it and deal with the distraction, so they’ll never get to the goal of meditation. The goal of meditation is to completely stop the mind from having mental action. If they never get to the deepest part of the mind, they will not be able to uproot the cravings which are embedded in the deepest part of their mind.
This is the problem with people nowadays: they study the whole process and they don’t know where to start, so they just pick the part they like and do that part. When they get some results, they’d think, ‘This is it!’
They don’t know that they only get partial result. They’re just cutting the branches of a tree or cutting the leaves of the tree, and they’d say, ‘I’ve cut the tree.’ Then, in a few days later, the leaves are coming out again, the braches are coming out again, because they don’t get to the root of the tree.
You have to uproot the root of your cravings. And to do it, you need to have samādhi—the mind that is fully concentrated, the mind that is one, that merely knows, peaceful and happy. Once you have this kind of condition developed in your mind, then it has a strong ability to uproot all the cravings including the craving that is really strong, not just the superficial craving about people here and there, but about your self, your life, your body. Can you get rid of your sadness from getting old, getting sick or dying? This is much more important to deal with.
People who go to study in meditation retreat, they are only taught the elementary level and they’d think that they have reached the goal. Most of the time, they don’t complete each step of the practice; they just do a little bit of each step and they’d think they already have become enlightened. But, it’s just superficial enlightenment.
In order to achieve full enlightenment, you have to complete each step 100%. Like when the Buddha said to you to do dāna (charity), it means you have to give up all your wealth and go become a monk. Once you become a monk, you can have all the time to concentrate on keeping your morality (precepts) and you will have all the time to develop mindfulness to get your mind into complete samādhi.
Once you have complete samādhi, then you can root out all your cravings or your attachment to your body, your life: this is something that you need to do it fully in each step of the practice.
If you just do a little bit of each step, like giving some money to charity, keeping the 5 precepts, having one or two hours of meditation, and contemplating on aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā, and think, ‘Oh! I have no attachment anymore,’ this is just in your thought. You haven’t faced the truth yet. You haven’t come to lose something you love yet. When you lose something you love, then you’ll see what happens. If you’re fully enlightened, you will not be hurt.
You’d just smile and say, ‘So, what?
That’s life. Whenever there’s gain, there will be losses.’ So, can you accept losses? If you still want the gain and don’t want any losses, then you’re still not enlightened. You must do the opposite: you don’t want any gain and you are not afraid of losing whatever you have, then this is when you become enlightened.
“Dhamma in English, Mar 15, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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