The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
2nd April, 2022
Than Ajahn: Regarding anxiety, bad feelings, worry: if your mind is calm, nothing can make your mind worried. Your mind becomes worried only because your mind thinks. When it thinks about something, you’re worried about it. If you don’t think about it, then that worry disappears.
Like right now. You’re not thinking about anything, so now you don’t have any worry. But as soon as you think, “What are we going to do six months from now?” You start to worry.
Sāmaṇera: That’s true.
Than Ajahn: So, stop thinking. Just think one step at a time. Cross the bridge when you come to it. Don’t worry. Everything will work out fine.
Sāmaṇera: I think so.
Than Ajahn: Because whatever happens are like illusions. They are not real. Everything happens and disappears. Even your body will eventually disappear, but your mind doesn’t disappear. Your mind lasts forever. After your body dies, your mind still exists.
Sāmaṇera: Reincarnation, right?
Than Ajahn: If you still have desires, if you want to do more things, then you will have rebirth.
But if you don’t want to do anything anymore, then there will be no rebirth.
Sāmaṇera: No rebirth?
Than Ajahn: Yes, you become like the Buddha.
Sāmaṇera: What will happen?
Than Ajahn: You will be happy all the time. Not doing things and doing things, which is better?
If you can just sit here and don’t do anything and be happy, then you will always be happy like that. This is the real thing, the real happiness. It’s not to do anything, not to have anything to make you happy because anything that makes you happy will last temporarily. It doesn’t last forever. The real happiness is not to have anything to make you happy. The only way to do it is to meditate, to stop your desire to do things. Once you can stop your desire to do things, then you don’t have anything to worry about.
Sāmaṇera: How long should one meditate?
Than Ajahn: All day, from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep. There are two different ways of meditating that you use alternately. When you’re not sitting, then you watch your body. This is meditation. As long as you can keep controlling your thought and prevent your mind from thinking, you’re meditating, OK?
To make your mind completely still, you need to meditate in sitting posture. But if you cannot sit because you have to do work, then you control your thought. Don’t let your mind think because when you think you can start to worry and become unhappy. Then when you return back to sit, you will have the strength to force your mind to become still.
So, you meditate all day in this manner. You have to keep controlling your thought all the time, watching your thought, stopping your thought from thinking by concentrating on something, like your body or on a mantra. If you’re not sitting but working, you can choose to use the mantra by maintaining reciting ‘buddho, buddho, buddho’, if you do not want to watch your body. So, when you start thinking about going home, repeat ‘buddho, buddho, buddho’. It’s not the time to think about it now. The time to think is when you have to go.
Sāmaṇera: Think about (what needs to be done) now and not about the future.
Than Ajahn: Yes, the present. Make the present happy and you will always be happy because there is no future, there is no past. Everything happens in the present. So, if you can make the present happy, you’ll be always happy, regardless of what kind of present (situation or condition), good or bad. If you know how to make your mind happy, you can always be happy.
“Dhamma in English, Sep 26, 2017.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
No comments:
Post a Comment