The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
3 January 2024
Q: Previously Ajahn mentioned about ‘See just seeing, hear just hearing,’ is this the behaviour of one who has magga phala?
Than Ajahn: Seeing but not see, hearing but not listening – you don’t take things that you see or hear into your heart/mind, you leave them outside. It doesn't matter who can do it, but just do it. If you can do it, you can do it. If you can’t do it, then you don’t do it. That’s all.
Some people might not even study the Dhamma but they understand nature, they understand life, they understand how to deal with things in order not to get themselves hurt or stressful. It doesn’t mean that you have to be a Buddhist to do this, sometimes one is a Buddhist without a label which is better than being a Buddhist but not knowing what the Buddha’s teachings are all about.
It's all about keeping dukkha away from your mind.
That's all the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings which is to get rid of dukkha or to prevent dukkha from entering into your mind by merely know what you see or hear and not reacting to them, that’s all. Not to react with love, hate, fear or delusion. But you can react with mindfulness or loving kindness and compassion - you can do that. This won’t hurt you if you react this way. If you react with love, hate or fear, this will create dukkha in your mind.
In order for you to be able to do this you need a lot of equanimity. You have to practice a lot of mindfulness and meditation to calm your mind to make it into equanimity.
“Dhamma in English, Mar 14, 2023.”
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Q: I've been thinking a lot about acceptance and surrender. Do you have anything to say on them?
Than Ajahn: If you can accept reality that's the best thing. Whatever is happening don't try to change or try to manage it. If you can try to live with what is happening then you won't have any stress. Stress comes up when you try to manage or try to change reality. So just keep teaching your mind to fall in line with reality, to blend in with reality, not to go into conflict with reality. Reality means what's happening right now.
If it rains, just enjoy the rain. If it’s flood, enjoy the flood. Try to enjoy everything that happens then you won't have to do anything. The problem is you don’t enjoy what’s happening then you want to change things to make it enjoyable to you and this can get you into a lot of trouble. Get rid of your likes and dislike then everything will be okay, everything is good in itself.
You can do this with meditation. Meditation will help to make your mind to become neutral eliminating the likes and dislikes from your mind so when you see anything you can merely accept it and merely knowing.
The Buddha said that whatever you see just merely see, whatever you hear just merely hear. No need to do anything. You don't need to fix things because no matter how you fix them eventually what you’ve fixed will change and will fall apart again except for those which is essential to your existence then you might have to fix it like if your house falls apart then you have to fix it. Do only what is necessary or essential to your existence otherwise don’t bother.
Try to blend in, try to accept them. And you have to do this with meditation. The calmer you mind is, the easier for you to accept things as they are. If your mind is not calm, it means your defilement is active. Your defilement has likes and dislikes. It’s never satisfied.
No matter how much you do for your defilement, it will never be satisfied, never be content. You want more of something different.
Q: I really like, ‘Just see what you see, hear what you hear. Just accept.’
Than Ajahn: Yeah. There is nothing to do. When you hear something whether you like it or not, just hear and let it be, let it go. Once words are spoken, they are already gone, right? But you keep repeating them in your mind. You don't let go. You become attached to the words that people said.
You should let them come and go. They are all transient. They come and go. They appear then they disappear. If you have mindfulness and if you meditate and your mind becomes still then you’ll see that everything rises and ceases, everything comes and goes, everything appears and disappears.
But when your mind is not calm your mind keeps clinging to things even though they’ve already gone you still keep repeating the stories in your mind. When your mind is calm and still, it doesn't rerun anything.
Once it's gone it's gone.
So practice mindfulness and meditation to still your mind, to stop your mind from going after things. Things already disappeared but you still won't let it disappear.
Much work to do but it’s worth it.
Student: Definitely.
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Q: When you say ‘See just see, hear just hear,’ one has to have some form of equanimity right?
Than Ajahn: Yes, I think this is something the Buddha taught someone who already had jhanā, someone who already had equanimity but didn’t know how to apply the equanimity properly.
Q: It’s interesting how we always keep looking for certain features in what we see like if I see a rose, I can’t just see it, I want look at it, look at the colour, and smell it.
Than Ajahn: Yes, we use sankhāra as soon as we see or hear something. We can’t just leave sankhāra alone. Sankhāra will start to think about good or bad, likes or dislikes, what should I do with what I see or hear or whether to react happily or sadly. But if you have equanimity then you don’t react to what you see or hear.
If you leave everything alone then it means you have equanimity. It depends on how much you can let things go. Sometimes you can let go half of them but not all. It depends on your equanimity whether you have 50 percent equanimity or 100 percent equanimity.
“Dhamma in English, Jul 18, 2023.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
