The Teaching Of Ajahn Suchart.
11 July 2024
Question: Is it important to make an adhitthāna whether one wants to be an Arahant, a Paceka Buddha or a Buddha? Does it matter to explicitly making an adhitthāna?
Than Ajahn: Well, adhitthāna means to set a goal for you, what you want to achieve—that’s what adhitthāna means. Because if you don’t have a goal, then you might not stride towards that goal, you might go do something else. But if you say, ‘I want to be an Arahant,’ then you will have to stride towards that goal by following the path that will lead you to become an Arahant.
If you say, ‘Oh! I don’t care to be an Arahant, I just want to be a human,’ then there is no need for you to practice meditation.
It’s like aiming at something. In worldly life, you might want to aim at completing college, getting a Master’s degree or a Ph. D., for instance. This is the same way with adhitthāna in Buddhism. You have to set a goal.
Where do you want to go from here? Would you want to be here all the time or would you want to move forward towards that goal? If you want to go towards your goal, then you have to do the practice.
Question: So, may Ajahn describe the differences among those 3 options?
Than Ajahn: Normally, the way to set a goal in Buddhism is not aiming at a particular stage of enlightenment. Really! I think you should set the goal to free your mind from suffering: this should be the real goal. You want to eliminate suffering from your mind.
So whenever you have suffering, you want to get rid of it. And the causes of suffering are your defilements i.e. your greed, your cravings, your desires.
These are the things that will cause you to have dukkha, sooner or later. So, you want to get rid of these things.
Don’t worry about the stages whether it’s a Sotāpanna or whatever that is. If you get rid of your defilements, eventually, you’ll get to the stages automatically without having to set up effort to that particular goal.
Just set a goal: ‘My goal is to free myself from all types of mental suffering like fear, anxiety, depression, stress.’ This is what your goal should be.
Because we are sick. Our minds are sick. We are sick of these mental stresses so we want to cure our minds from these stresses, these sufferings.
Being an Arahant doesn’t mean anything. You don’t know what an Arahant is, in the first place, so how would you want to become one? So, be realistic. You know you have suffering, right?
You still have stress, you still have depression, you still have loneliness, you still have fear, you still have worry and anxiety—these are the things that you can get rid of from your practice. So, you should apply your adhitthāna towards this goal i.e. try to get rid of your depression, your stress, your suffering, your mental suffering.
Question: That makes me very happy. I feel that it is a goal that fits me well. I had that intuition yesterday, i.e. the right goal, but I hear from different teachings that one has to decide the goal.
And I just think that freedom from suffering is good for everybody. Thank you.
Than Ajahn: Once you have completely eliminated all of the suffering, then you become an Arahant automatically. An Arahant is someone who is above suffering, no mental suffering can enter his mind anymore.
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Question: When people talk about making adhitthāna to become an Arahant or a Sotāpanna, I don’t feel connected, but your explanation makes me feel that that’s exactly the adhitthāna that we should have, it’s to eliminate the suffering. The explanation is so worthy.
Than Ajahn: Like when your body is sick, what do you want? You want to get well, right?
Your mind is like your body. Right now, your mind is sick, so you want your mind to get well. That’s all that matters.
Whatever that name is, it doesn’t matter. Name is just a label you place on the condition of your mind, that’s all.
And it can be confusing for people when they try to remember and imitate that condition, ‘Oh! In order to be an Arahant, I have to have no greed.’ So people try to imitate an Arahant by trying not to have any greed.
But you cannot imitate it. Greed cannot be got rid of by just imitating it.
“Dhamma in English, Dec 28, 2021.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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