The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
16 January 2024
Q: I've been getting frustrated with my inability to resist my cravings of the sugar-coated poison. Should we have expectations of ourselves? Does it help?
Than Ajahn: Well, you should try to do the easier part first, give up whichever craving that you can give up first. Do the easy one first then once you see the benefits from giving up your craving, you feel much better, then you’ll be more inspired to give up the harder ones. Just one at a time. Don’t take everything at the same time because it will be overwhelming.
Like if you are addicted to cigarette, then let’s try to stop smoking the cigarettes. If you are addicted to drinking, try to stop drinking.
Choose one or the other. Don’t do both, it’ll be too much.
Student: Mine would be chocolate and shopping.
Than Ajahn: (laugh) okay, you can reduce it to half, then another half.
Q: It’s about equanimity, isn’t it?
Because we use them to make us feel better.
Than Ajahn: Equanimity will help you feel better, not to feel bad when you withdraw from your craving. But you have to do both, you have to practice meditation and you also have to give up your temptation. You can do it slowly but it really depends on your strength, sometimes you can do a lot, who knows? Your strength depends on your equanimity. The stronger your equanimity is, the easier for you to give up your craving.
Student: There is a disparity in knowing what to do and being able to do it.
Than Ajahn: Well, you won’t know until you try it. Set up a goal of something that you want to give up and then try to do it. It’s like the New Year resolution, whether you keep up with your resolution or not that’s another question.
You have to see that there’s poison in those things that you go after. They are coated by sugar. Everything is like sugar-coated-poison.
But we don’t see the poison, we only see the sugar that coating it. It’s easy to say but it’s hard to do. Maybe you also need to isolate yourself, go somewhere where you can’t get what you used to have then it might be easier because there won’t be any temptation around to tempt you. That’s why people go to meditation retreat so they can’t do what they would normally do if they are practicing at home. After a few days, you might be able to kick the habit. Try it. Pick something. One at a time.
Student: Like you said, once you've done one little thing it makes you happy and calm and able to do more.
Than Ajahn: In order to be able to do it permanently you have to look at them with wisdom. They are all anicca, anattā. They will cause you dukkha if you don’t deal with them.
They are sugar-coated-poison.
Everything is sugar-coated poison.
Student: And pointless quite often. Well, this is our journey.
Than Ajahn: Yeah. Do it. It’s the best journey because what we get is liberation from our temptation. We can be free from all temptation.
Just imagine: nothing to go after anymore, no coffee, no cigarettes, no movies, nothing. Just sit and be happy. What more do you want, right?
Student: so many of these entertainments disturb our minds and we think we have no time [to practice] but we have loads of time, we just waste it. Thank you.
Than Ajahn: That’s right. Let me know how do you do with that.
“Dhamma in English, Apr 18, 2023.”
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Question: Does the desire disappear because we are resisting it or because we use paññā to eliminate it?
Tan Ajahn: When you resist your desire without knowing the reason why you resist it, you will not be able to eliminate your desire entirely or permanently. You have to see that your desire does not bring you happiness but suffering.
It is like when you have the desire to take drugs. You have to see that taking drugs does not bring you true happiness, but it will surely bring you immense suffering. When you can see that, then you will stop. When you resist it, you might resist it from time to time, but when your resistance is low, you might not be able to resist it again.
So, you have to see the cause and effect of your actions following your desire that will not take you to contentment but only to more desire, eventually killing you if you take drugs.
And then it will take you to a new birth to suffer more aging, sickness, and death. You have to see the cause and effect of following your desire and not following your desire.
It is like taking poison; if you know that what you are taking is poison, will you take it?
Everything that we take, every single thing that we desire, is poison, but the problem is we don’t see the suffering that ensues. We only see or remember the transitory happiness that follows. When we buy something, we are happy for a spell, but we don’t see the suffering that follows when we run out of money and when we want to buy more things but cannot buy them.
“Dhamma for the Asking, Dec 9, 2014”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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