The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
22 June 2024
“The recollection of death will take away your concern and anxiety, allowing you to be carefree of your own life and those of other people’s.”
Diligence—sustained effort and unwavering determination—is what all practitioners, who are determined to be liberated from all suffering, should constantly have in their hearts and minds.
There needs to be a willingness to cultivate various aspects of Dhamma that lead to liberation.
You must be committed to and enjoy being diligent. You must be constantly focussed on maintaining your effort and practice in every posture from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep. Just keep reminding yourself of the Buddha’s words: ‘You can only be liberated from suffering through your diligent effort’.
This very effort, or diligence, is what pushes practitioners to excel in various faculties. You cannot develop qualities, such as mindfulness and wisdom, without it. There needs to be diligence as a drive—to push you to cultivate mindfulness (sati) and to control your thoughts (paññā). This is so that your thoughts don’t incline towards craving and desire or greed. Your various cravings should lean towards Dhamma, for example, by constantly reminding yourself of the possibility of death.
The recollection of death is to cultivate mindfulness, just as the recollection of the Buddha is developed by reciting ‘Buddho’. There are, however, two advantages to the recollection of death: to develop mindfulness and to cultivate wisdom simultaneously.
The recollection of the Buddha only allows for the cultivation of mindfulness, and not of wisdom.
However, the recollection of death—being constantly aware of its possibility—allows you to develop both mindfulness and wisdom at the same time. If it suits you, those who practise the recollection of death can make a very quick progress on Dhamma.
Mindfulness will calm one’s mind, allowing it to be equanimous. When there are craving and desire for one’s body and life, wisdom will cure such an attachment, making death less insufferable.
Wisdom will allow one to see that having been born, the body is naturally and inevitably subject to death.
To effectively put an end to the suffering of being attached to one’s body and life, one needs to regularly make an effort to remind oneself of death.
The recollection of death can be directed towards your own body as well as that of others’, especially of whom you are attached to—those that you love and care about. If you keep on recollecting regularly, you will see that your concern for them is futile. It doesn’t do anyone any good. In fact, it only brings you harm and suffering. Each and everyone has to die; there is no exception or escape.
This is the benefit of being aware of the possibility of death. The recollection of death will take away your concern and anxiety, allowing you to be carefree of your own life and those of other people’s.
You will discern that death is only natural and expected for having been born. It is only natural for anything that arises to eventually cease. This is what will occur in your heart when you keep recollecting death on a regular basis.
To consistently be aware of death requires diligence, or sustained effort: to contemplate death through meditation practice, to cultivate mindfulness, and to remind yourself of the possibility of death regularly.
The Buddha taught Venerable Ananda:
The Buddha: How many times a day do you remind yourself of death, Ananda?
Venerable Ananda: Four to five times a day, Venerable Sir —morning, midday, evening, before and after sleep, for example.
The Buddha: Ananda, you are still not heedful enough. You still don’t contemplate death enough in order to liberate yourself from suffering. If you want to be free from suffering and fear of death, you have to be mindful of death with every in-breath and out-breath. You will then see that death is, in fact, very quick and sudden. If you inhale but don’t exhale, then you’re dead. It does not drag on, nor is it frightening.
With any inhalation without exhalation, you will die, and vice versa. It is something that can happen very quickly. It can be so sudden that you can hardly be surprised or even afraid. If you are constantly mindful of the possibility of death, it will then be very normal. It will be just a matter of breathing in and breathing out.
But for those who are still sensitive and not strong-minded, their minds are not yet capable of recollecting death. They will get very fearful or depressed when they focus on the recollection of death. So they have to cultivate their mindfulness through other meditation subjects, which can be time-consuming.
They will have to calm their minds first before getting to the recollection of death. Death is something that all practitioners will need to contemplate at some point; it is just a matter of time. It can be done simultaneously with the cultivation of mindfulness, or it can be done separately in two steps.
The first step is to cultivate mindfulness so that your mind is calm and focussed first. Once your mind is concentrated—there is tranquillity in place as a foundation—you can then practise recollecting death after having withdrawn from your concentration (samādhi). When your mind is calm, you won’t get depressed or frightened while recollecting death.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
Youtube: Dhamma in English
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
No comments:
Post a Comment