The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
12 May 2023
Student: Is neutral feeling the same as equanimity?
Than Ajahn: No. Neutral feeling is neither happy feeling nor unhappy feeling. Like when you are hungry, this is bad feeling. When you eat and you feel full, this is good feeling. And there is somewhere—there’s a feeling in between—where you’re not hungry or full, that’s the neutral feeling.
Student: Is the feeling that we get from the five senses the ones that create our cravings?
Than Ajahn: That's right. They will stimulate your cravings. When you have good feeling, you want more of it, you want more good feeling. When you have bad feeling, you want to get rid of it.
Student: So when we’re mindful about these feelings, when they arise, we shouldn’t be taking any reaction to it, right?
Than Ajahn: That's right. Just accept feelings for what they are because they’re not something you can always control.
Student: So is it correct to say that if we are able to control these good, bad or neither good nor bad feeling, eventually our cravings will subside?
Than Ajahn: No, the goal is not to control them. The goal is to learn to live with them without being hurt or affected by them. To achieve this, you need equanimity which you get from your meditation.
Student: So basically, treat them like the weather.
Than Ajahn: That’s right. They are the same things. They have the three characteristics of existence: they are impermanent (anicca); they are not under anybody’s control (anattā); and if you cling to them or have cravings towards them, you get dukkha. If you don’t want to get dukkha, then you shouldn’t react to them. Just leave them alone. Accept them, embrace them.
In order to be able to accept them as they are, you need to have equanimity. That’s why you need to meditate. That’s why you need to develop mindfulness so that you can develop equanimity in your mind and are able to face the changing of the feelings. Feelings keep on changing from good feeling to bad feeling and to neutral feeling. Then you don’t have to do anything. Right now people are like crickets.
When people play with the crickets, they’d use hairs to spin around the crickets and then the crickets will start to make sound.
So people are reacting to the feelings. When it’s hot, they want it cold. When it’s cold, they want it hot.
When it’s neither hot nor cold, they want something that’s not what it is. They’re never happy with what they have. Never content. If they get good feeling, they want more of it. If they have bad feeling, they want to get rid of it. If it’s neutral feeling, they want good feeling to return.
So people are constantly being stimulated by their own feelings. They have to keep reacting to their own feelings. And by reacting to the feelings, they have no peace of mind, no contentment. And also, when they can’t get what they want, they get sadness, they get dukkha.
Student: So the goal is to be indifferent to the feelings whether they are good, bad or neutral feelings.
Than Ajahn: To accept feelings as they are like you accept the weather. Like accepting the earthquake, you don’t like the earthquake, but it happened.
And you accept death because that’s what happens, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Student: Understand, Than Ajahn. Thank you.
“Dhamma in English, Feb 14, 2023.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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