Teaside Discourse with Ajahn Yiu

Teaside Discourse with Ajahn Yiu

04 Feb 2022 

In spiritual practice, if one allows the arrogance to become bigger and bigger, then it really becomes a burden. 

This is due to holding up a perfect/glamorous self and regarding this as one’s own identity. 

When we practice and see there are more and more greed, hatred and delusion, but accepting this reality and letting this humble us, that would be the right perspective. 

Therefore, spiritual practitioners should become more and more humble as they practice. This is the right way. Spiritual practice is not about what to gain. It is not about becoming more powerful either, but to become more generous, more light-hearted, more open, and less attached. 

Only letting go is the right direction of spiritual practice. 

What do we keep the precepts for? 

What do we meditate for? 

What do we gain wisdom for? 

If truly there is something to get, doesn’t there exist a self? If there is no self, then who is getting something? 

The longer you practice, the emptier you should be and the less you possess. Also, you should have less identity, rather than a more and more powerful identity. 

The experience of coming home during this Chinese New Year made me deeply feel the importance of compassion, which is a quality I lack very much. In the monastery environment before, living with my master and the Sangha, there was not much clashing with the external world. So there was less experience of suffering, and less attention was paid to the importance of compassion. 

When we feel the suffering of the world without the transformation by compassion, once we experience fluctuations in emotion – the inadequacy of others, the inadequacy of ourselves, then emotional obstacles arise. 

Compassion is an energy transformer – transforming hostility into peace. Hostility does not refer to any bad energy outside, but our inner greed, hatred and delusion. 

If we stay awake with our right view, together with compassion to protect our emotions, our wisdom will then be very flexible, broad, and tolerant. 

Strive to develop our compassion, then sincerely accept and accommodate ourselves and others.