The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
26 May 2024
Question: How to practise Dhamma when we have to work for very long hours?
Than Ajahn: The only thing you can do when you work is to be mindful. You can develop mindfulness if you keep focusing on your work and don’t let your mind go thinking about other things, don’t go to the past, don’t go to the future, just fix your mind on what you do: this is developing mindfulness. But it will not be as good as mindfulness develop when you practice in a retreat because in a retreat you can practice mindfulness without thinking, you are not doing anything important that you have to think. If you work, you still have to think. Although you are mindful on what you do when you work, it is still a hindrance because you are still continuously thinking. The goal of practice is to stop thinking, so the best way is to go to a retreat on your day off and try to develop mindfulness in the retreat. Besides practising mindfulness on your working days, other things that you can do are keeping the 5 precepts (sīla) and doing dāna (charity) like sharing something with your co-workers, or if you’ve got something that you don’t need, you can give it away. You can do these in your daily life. But if you want something more, you need to go to a retreat.
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Question: How can we discipline ourselves to practice Dhamma, especially when we don’t feel like practicing because of our tanhā or kilesa?
Than Ajahn: You have to have a schedule and stick to the schedule. If you don’t have a schedule, and only do according to your feeling, most likely won’t do it because most of the time, your feeling will tell you not to do it. So, you have to have a schedule like when you go to a meditation retreat, the retreat centre have a schedule for you to follow. You have to get up at 4 o’clock, go for chanting, sit in meditation, do walking meditation and so forth. So, you have to set up a schedule of practice because if you don’t have a schedule, you won’t practice as much as you could. After you’ve set up a schedule, then you have to stick to it because some people set up a schedule and then they skip it, hence, it is useless to set up the schedule.
So first, you have to set up a schedule and stick to the schedule, and then, increase your practise as you advance in your practice. When you find that you are able to practice more, then you increase your time to practice and eventually, you will be practicing all day long, from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep.
Layperson: So we have to force ourselves.
Ajahn: Definitely. If you don’t force yourself, you won’t go anywhere. The Buddha had to force himself to leave the palace. He had to force himself to fast for 49 days because normally, people don’t want to do this. So, for the sake of nibbāna, for the sake of the end of suffering, you have to force yourself.
This is not unnatural. This is a matter of disciplining the mind. You have to discipline your mind by forcing it. If you just let the mind decide for itself, it won’t force itself to practice.
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Question: I am in my mid 40s. I value the cultivation of mind and find that there’s no meaning in 9 to 5 working life. As I haven’t ordained, I can’t afford to live without working because money is required to sustain my living in this world. I have a wife, a 70 yo father and a younger sister.
What is Ajahn’s comment on my situation?
Than Ajahn: Well, you can use your free time to develop your mind. Instead of spending time on entertainment or on other activities, use this time for your mental development. This is about what you can do on your free time because most of your time have been devoted to working and looking after other people, so you only have a few hours a day to look after yourself. So, use this free time and spend it on mental development rather than on entertainment or any other pleasures because entertainment are not as useful as mental development.
“Dhamma in English, May 28, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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