How to Give Rise to Peace

How to Give Rise to Peace

Q: Venerable Ajahn, as the abbot of a monastery a monk has to deal with a lot of people, both monks and laypeople. Some of them are greedy, others are angry and some of them are deluded or even crazy. How to deal with these people? And how, as an abbot or a senior monk in a monastery, to let one’s mind remain calm and cool? So that is my question.

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A: This is something that actually everyone has to deal with. The Thai word for abbot is ‘jao-awat’. What it means is: ‘jao’ is the lord or the owner, and ‘awat’comes from the Pali word avasa which means a residence or dwelling place. So we could say that jao-awat means the ‘lord of the residence’ or the ‘owner of the dwelling place’.  

Now whoever is to be the lord of the residence has to know that dwelling place well. But just what is this dwelling place we must know well? 

Rupa, vedana, sañña, sankhara and viññana-- this is our real residence. 

The more we abandon our delusion regarding our real residence, the more we develop upekkha and abide in equanimity. 

The guests that come to our monastery are agantukas-- only visitors, just like these visiting mental states that arise in our minds. Some make us laugh, some we delight in, while others bring up aversion and disappointment. When we see them from non-delusion, then we see it all as maya-- as illusion and trickery, a system of deceiving. The delusion and illusory nature of the world are like a theatre which tricks us into getting happy, excited and carried away. 

As we read in the Buddha’s teachings, once he said: “Etha passathimam lokam, cittam rajarathu pamam; yattha bala visidanti, natthi sangho vijanatam.” [“Come look at this glittering world, like unto a royal  chariot; the foolish are immersed in it, but the wise do not touch it.” 

(Dhp. 13, 171) 

The Buddha urged us all to see the world in this way. If we see it with delusion, then we’ll see the world as delightful, sparkling and desirable. 

But for those who know the world in line with Dhamma, will they go searching for anything substantial in it? 

Know how to abandon the world. 

Know how to put it down. There is an old Northeast Thai expression which says: “The one who is the loser, or the one who knows how to surrender, that one is a monk or a Venerable One. 

And the one who wins-- the winner is mara, because a winner has enemies.” 

The lokadhammas, or what we call the ‘Eight Wordly Dhammas’, arise from our sense of self-importance. Delight is a lokadhamma-- this is sukha, or what we call happiness. Aversion is a lokadhamma, it’s dukkha-- we don’t like it and we’re unhappy. 

See these lokadhammas as simply nature-- things come, things go. The guests come and they go-- it’s not their residence. For what do we go delighting and getting angry about? 

All we really need is what’s sufficient for us to do our samana duties well-- that’s enough. The lokadhammas are the dhammas which bind up and shackle the world. The Lord Buddha sat above them. 

We read this story when we study the scriptures. Before his attainment of anuttara-sammasammbodhiñana, on the day of his Supreme Enlightenment, the Buddha received eight bunches of Kusa grass from the Brahman Sotthiya 

(SnA.II,391). 

Taking the grass he proceeded to make a seat to sit on. Our traditional interpretation of this story is that these eight bunches of Kusa grass represent the eight worldly dhammas that the Buddha rose up above. 

What are these eight worldly dhammas? They are the four pairs of: gain and loss, 

fame and obscurity, 

praise and blame and 

more generally we have sukha and dukkha, 

or happiness and suffering. 

If we can really see these eight worldly dhammas for what they are, then just this is enough for understanding what keeps us shackled in the world. These are the worldly dhammas which bind up and shackle the world.

The kicca-vatta, or the ‘Fourteen Monastic Duties’,  form one chapter of the Vinaya discipline which we are responsible for training in as monastics. One of these kicca-vatta is called the avasika-vatta, or the duties of the resident monastics regarding their residence. But actually it doesn’t refer to any one monastic in particular. It just refers to anyone who is residing there and knows the place well. Such a person we could call the abbot or the jao-avasa, the lord of the residence. Even if it’s a dog who lives there and knows the place well, we could call it the ‘lord of the residence’.  

There is a story about a wise old monk. He had a way of teaching people who were lost in their own self-importance. This old monk had a dog in his monastery and he called his dog ‘Sompan’. Sompan is yet another Thai word for abbot-- we should understand that all these names are just conventions. If a guest who had self-importance came to the monastery and said: “Where’s sompan, where’s the abbot?” This monk would point over there and say: “There’s sompan, there’s the abbot.” 

And that person would go and see that it’s just a dog and get offended, thinking that the old monk was teasing him. 

So it was a skilful means for reducing ditthi-mana-- the sense of self-importance and conceit-- and also for teaching the nature of conventions. It is important for us too not to get lost in these conventions. This Thai word for abbot, sompan, comes from the Pali word sambhara. It literally means ‘the one who carries the burden’. 

Actually all of us here are abbots and we’re all carrying around this burden of rupa, vedana, sañña, sankhara and viññana. When we start to feel how heavy it is we want to put it down. 

This sambhara-- we have to put it down. Just put down the burden. I live over there in Thailand. I’m not really the lord of the residence. This body, this rupa-khanda doesn’t belong to me. And whatever place we call our country actually belongs to nature. If we set the mind free from delighting-- abandon craving and attachment-- then there’s nothing there. 

As I see it, this is the normal state of the mind. Neither good nor bad. Neither heavy nor light. Neither black nor white. Neither happy nor sad. Just nature pure and simple. This is the normal state of the mind which gives rise to peace.

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From Knowing the World by Luang Por Liem Thitadhammo

https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/11/Knowing-the-World-by-Ajahn-Liem.pdf

About Luang Por Liem

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Luang Por Liem Thitadhammo is a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition. He was born in Sri Saket Province in the Northeast of Thailand on the 5th of November 1941. After higher ordination at twenty years of age, Luang Por practiced in several village monasteries throughout the Northeast. With a growing interest in Dhamma-Vinaya and practising meditation, he joined the Forest Tradition in 1969.

He took up the training under Luang Pu Chah, who was later to become one of the most famous monks of the Thai Forest Tradition. Living under Luang Pu Chah’s guidance in Wat Nong Pah Pong, Ubon Province, Luang Por Liem soon became one of his closest disciples. During that time Luang Pu Chah’s reputation and influence continued to grow and spread throughout the world. After Luang Pu Chah became severely ill in 1982, he entrusted Luang Por Liem to lead the monastery. Shortly thereafter, as Luang Pu Chah’s illness prevented him from speaking, the Sangha of Wat Nong Pah Pong appointed Luang Por Liem to take over the abbotship.

He fulfils this duty up to the present day, keeping the heritage of Luang Pu Chah’s Dhamma and characteristic ways of monastic training available for monks, nuns and lay disciples. He also provides leadership and support for Wat Pah Nanachat, Luang Pu Chah’s International Forest Monastery for training monks using the English language.

Photo credit: Buddha Bodhivana Monastery