“Wisdom is developed when we face problems in our daily life. With wisdom we solve the problems within. Without wisdom we solve the problems outside us."

The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.

24th July, 2022

“Wisdom is developed when we face problems in our daily life. With wisdom we solve the problems within. Without wisdom we solve the problems outside us."

When we are in jhāna, the mind stops thinking so we cannot develop vipassanā. We have to come out of jhāna state and use the mind to think and analyse the Four Noble Truth. We suffer because we have desires. When we see that everything is annicaṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā, we can then stop our desires and when we stop our desires, our suffering disappear. So we have to use this wisdom when we come out of samādhi, when we face problems. 

When we are in samādhi, the problems cannot enter into our samādhi, we have to come out of our samādhi. When someone starts scolding us, we start to suffer. We then have to use vipassanā and ask ourselves: we are suffering, why? Because we have the desire for the person not to scold us. 

Usually we like other people saying nice things to us, we don’t want people to say bad things about us, so when someone said bad things about us, we feel bad. But if we understand the nature of the way people say things, we understand that we cannot control them, they are anattā, we will not feel bad. People can say anything they want. We don’t have to suffer if we accept what they said, if we do not reject what they said and we do not wish that they would say something else. So this is how we solve our problems, when problems occur. 

When we suffer, we use the Four Noble Truth to stop our suffering. When we suffer, we can presume that our desire is the cause of our suffering like when someone said bad things about us, we suffer, why? 

Because we don’t want him to say bad things about us, but can we stop him from not saying bad things about us? We cannot stop him, right? So what can we do if we cannot stop him? We stop our desire, instead. Let him says anything he wants to say. When we let him does anything he wants to do, and when we don’t react to it, nothing happens to us, and we won’t feel bad. We feel bad because we react to his action, we don’t want him to say bad things about us, but whatever he said are like winds. Can we stop wind from blowing? Do we feel bad when the wind blows? We accept it right? We let the wind blows. We have no desire to wish for the wind to stop blowing so we don’t feel bad when the wind blows. However when the wind comes out of the mouth of other people, we feel bad, why? Because we want them to stop, we don’t like this kind of wind or this kind of sound. 

But we cannot control other people, we cannot force them do what we want them to do, but we can stop our suffering by telling our mind to stop any desire towards other people, we don’t have any desire for them to do this or do that, say this or that, we just let them be. That’s the whole point. If we can let them be, do whatever they want do, it will not cause us any suffering.

So wisdom is developed when we face problems in our daily life. We have to use wisdom to solve the problems. With wisdom we solve the problems within. Without wisdom we solve the problems outside us. 

If we run out of money, we go find more money but if we have wisdom, when we have no money, we stop spending and so our problem is solved.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto

www.phrasuchart.com

Youtube: Dhamma in English

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g