The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart
2 July 2024
Monk: I would like to pay respect to Than Ajahn and maybe get a few words of Dhamma advice.
Than Ajahn: As for my advice, it’s to meditate. This is your main occupation: to meditate, samatha bhāvanā and vipassanā bhāvanā. You have to maintain the precepts and attain to the different levels of Dhamma.
You have to meditate. You have to start with mindfulness. I used the four Foundations of Mindfulness as my guide when I practiced.
When I sat, I used ānāpānasati. When I wasn’t sitting, I watched my body movements. For other type of work, I’d try to do as little as possible. I’d just do the work of meditation and stay alone most of the time.
Even though I lived with other monks, I usually didn’t socialize. I just kept to myself and practiced.
Don’t be misled or distracted by other work like building a monastery, because it can take away a lot of your time and also your mindfulness. When you work, you have to think a lot, so when you meditate, you’ll find it difficult to enter into calm. If your mind is not calm, you can become restless and agitated.
So, you have to try to keep your mind calm as much as possible. And listen to Dhamma talks or read Dhamma books to inspire and to remind you what you’re supposed to do.
Monk: I totally agree with Than Ajahn. It is not so much about socializing with other monks because we have a small community and they like to practice, but it’s more about the administrative work and looking after the monastery. I was surprised even with a small hermitage, it needs so much mental engagement.
Than Ajahn: That’s right, because you have to think and there are many things you have to arrange and do.
So, you have to sort out your priorities, which one is more important: building a monastery or building a place inside your heart? The Buddha did his work first.
He practiced and became enlightened before he established Buddhism. He didn’t try to start establishing Buddhism before he became enlightened.
So, enlightenment is the basis to develop anything, whether it’s building a monastery or building anything.
You need a clear and an enlightened mind to see things clearly, to do things properly and correctly.
Monk: Than Ajahn, is it possible to develop mindfulness while doing work?
Than Ajahn: Yes, but it’s not as good as if you don’t have to do any work. When you do work, you still have to think—this is not the right kind of mindfulness. The right kind of mindfulness is just to be mindful of what you do where you don’t have to think about what you do, like walking.
When you’re walking, you don’t have to think about walking. You just walk, just watch your walking activities. But if you have to work, you have to make some planning, then you have to use your thought.
The purpose is to stop your thinking as much as possible. If you want to calm your mind, if you want to have samādhi, you have to stop thinking. And if you keep thinking, it will be difficult for you to stop thinking. But if you’re not thinking, when you sit, you can become calm very easily and quickly.
Monk: When the day started, I’d do the work in the morning until about 10:30. I’d speak to the laypeople after the meal and then I get back to my kuṭi and come out the next morning.
Do you think this is the way to make sufficient progress? I do my work in the morning, and I do my practice in the afternoon until the next morning.
Than Ajahn: Well, I can answer it by giving you the example of Ajahn Mun’s story. Ajahn Mun used to deal with people before he became fully enlightened. But he realized that he could not go to full enlightenment when he still had to be involved with people. So, he decided to go away and live in a forest alone for 10 years, in Chiang Mai. That’s where he became fully enlightened.
So, you need to be alone completely, or else, your mind will still be distracted. It’s like putting a cup of water into the icebox. If you keep taking the cup out and putting it back in, it will never get cold.
But if you just keep it in the icebox all the time, eventually, it becomes very cold.
Similarly, the mind has to be inside all the time. When you let it come out, your defilements also come out.
Monk: Can I do the meditation during the retreat period? Maybe during the vassa where I have a period of no work, would this be sufficient to make enough progress?
Than Ajahn: I cannot say whether it’s sufficient or not, maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on how intensive your practice is during that time. But Ajahn Mun used to get involved with people until the age of 60, I think, and then, he decided to leave everybody behind and went tudong in the forest, in Chiang Mai, from the age of 60 to 70. After that, at the age of 70, his disciples came and asked him to teach the Dhamma, so he taught Dhamma for the last 10 years of his life, from 70 to 80.
But from the age 60 to 70, he stayed alone. He had monks who went to look for him and sometimes he would let them stay for a vassa, but after the vassa, they would split up because he wanted to be alone.
Monk: But at the age of 60, he already had the foundation of Dhamma?
Than Ajahn: Right, or else he couldn’t live in the forest alone like that. And he had samādhi and maybe some levels of enlightenment already.
But he could not yet reach the highest level of enlightenment.
Monk: It's probably simpler to practice during that time because there wasn’t any mobile phone, the Internet, or social media.
How can we practice nowadays with all kinds of modern technology?
Than Ajahn: You have to go to remote places where these things cannot reach you, like go into a dessert or into a forest where there is no mobile signal.
Monk: I think we do have that in Australia, but it would be difficult to get alms food.
Than Ajahn: Yeah, that’s part of the problem. Ajahn Mun had to rely on the hill tribe people for his existence. It’s a very rough existence. There was not plenty of food to eat because the hill tribe people were not rich.
Monk: So, if I understand Than Ajahn, the only way to really make progress for realizing the Dhamma is not to be involved with people continuously?
Than Ajahn: Yes, you need continuous practice. But it will only take a certain period of time. The Buddha says in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta that within 7 days or 7 months or 7 years, you’ll become enlightened. So, you just have to devote this time to this practice, rather than stretching it to over 20 years or 30 years and you are still not getting where you want to go.
Monk: At the level of my pāramī, I may take 7 life time.
Than Ajahn: If you think that way, you’re just blocking yourself. You should not think that way. You must think, ‘I can. If the Buddha said that I can do it, then I can.’ The Buddha said that you can do it within 7 days or 7 months or 7 years.
Monk: So 7 years is the slowest?
Than Ajahn: Yeah. Just keep practicing mindfulness and try to enter into jhāna. Once you can get into jhāna, then you can move along quite fast. You need the 4th jhāna or ‘appanā-samādhi.’ Once you have this, your mind has the strength to resist your defilements, and then you use wisdom to teach your mind that it’s bad to follow your defilements, and you can stop following them.
It’s a matter of common sense to see that your defilements or your desire will only lead you to more disappointment, and more sadness, it doesn’t lead you to more happiness because everything in this world that you seek for is impermanent.
“Dhamma in English, Jun 23, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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