The teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
15th September, 2022
"If you live in comfort, you tend to be lazy.”
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Question (M): Could it be useful in daily life, for example to keep the 8 precepts like trying to sleep on the floor, in order to cut off entertainments?
Than Ajahn: That’s right. These are the methods that the Buddha teaches us in order to stimulate the efforts to practise. If you live in comfort, you tend to be lazy. But if you live under stress, or under duress, you will somehow train the mind to be able to cope with the situation.
If you take the 8 precepts, you are prohibited from finding happiness through entertainment.
So, you have to have something else to replace it. And the best form of happiness that you can replace the entertainment is meditation. When you meditate, your mind becomes calm and you become happy.
Sometimes, just keeping the 8 precepts is not enough. Sometimes, if you eat until noon, you can still eat about 2 meals a day. Then, you might want to cut it down to one meal a day.
Or if you feel like forcing the mind to do more, you might have to skip eating entirely, fasting for a day or two. This will force your mind to get rid of your hunger by meditation.
When you meditate, when your mind becomes calm, most of the hunger would disappear because hunger arises from 2 sources: from the body and from the mind. The body only generates very small hunger, but the mind generates a lot of hunger. If you can calm the mind, the hunger that is generated by the mind will disappear, and you will not be affected by the hunger generated by the body.
Look at the Buddha, he was able to fast for 49 days. That’s because he kept meditating. So, when he’s in meditation, when his mind became calm, his mind was detached from the body.
His mind was full of happiness. Therefore, he could live without eating for 49 days. So, these are methods you need to use to stimulate your practice.
Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Dec 9, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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