READING THE NATURAL MIND
(An informal talk given to a group of newly ordained monks after the evening chanting, middle of the Rains Retreat, 1978)
by AJAHN CHAH
“Everybody, including the Buddha, started out like this, with the desire to practice — wanting to have peace of mind and wanting not to have confusion and suffering. These two kinds of desire have exactly the same value. If not understood then both wanting to be free from confusion and not wanting to have suffering are defilements. They're a foolish way of wanting — desire without wisdom.
In our practice we see this desire as either sensual indulgence or self-mortification. It's in this very conflict that our Teacher, the Buddha, was caught up, just this dilemma. He followed many ways of practice which merely ended up in these two extremes. And these days we are exactly the same. We are still afflicted by this duality, and because of it we keep falling from the Way.
However, this is how we must start out. We start out as worldly beings, as beings with defilements, with wanting devoid of wisdom, desire without right understanding. If we lack proper understanding, then both kinds of desire work against us. Whether it's wanting or not wanting, it's still craving (Tanha). If we don't understand these two things then we won't know how to deal with them when they arise. We will feel that to go forward is wrong and to go backwards is wrong, and yet we can't stop. Whatever we do we just find more wanting. This is because of the lack of wisdom and because of craving.
It's right here, with this wanting and not wanting, that we can understand the Dhamma. The Dhamma which we are looking for exists right here, but we don't see it. Rather, we persist in our efforts to stop wanting. We want things to be a certain way and not any other way.
Or, we want them not to be a certain way, but to be another way. Really these two things are the same.
They are part of the same duality.
Perhaps we may not realize that the Buddha and all of His Disciples had this kind of wanting. However the Buddha understood regarding wanting and not wanting. He understood that they are simply the activity of mind, that such things merely appear in a flash and then disappear. These kinds of desires are going on all the time. When there is wisdom, we don't identify with them — we are free from clinging.
Whether it's wanting or not wanting, we simply see it as such. In reality it's merely the activity of the natural mind.
When we take a close look, we see clearly that this is how it is.”
27 June 2023
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