“Meditating for insight is different from meditating for calm”

The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.

13 October 2023

“Meditating for insight is different from meditating for calm”

Meditating for insight is different from meditating for calm. When you are meditating for calm, you want to stop your thinking; you don’t want to think at all. You want to rest your mind, to keep the mind content and happy. 

When you develop insight, you have to think, only you have to think in the way of the truth; namely you have to think of the three characteristics of all existing things, like your body and other people’s bodies. 

They have three characteristics. Anicca means that things are impermanent, they are temporary. They arise, remain for a while, and then they cease, they disappear. The body, after birth, will grow, and after growing up fully, it will become old, will become sick, and then will die.

Contemplate not just the body, but everything that you have, including all the external possessions, like your wealth, your money, your house, your spouse, your family, and your job—everything. You will eventually have to lose them. If you contemplate and remind yourself that this is what you have to go through, then your mind will not cling to them. Your mind will prepare for the eventuality that you will have to depart from them. When the mind is ready, it will be prepared to depart without clinging to them.

When the time for separation comes, the mind will do it peacefully, without having any sadness or stress. 

So this is what you want to do, to teach your mind, to tell the mind of the things that will happen in the future, at any time, because no one can predict when this will happen. That is why it is called anattā. You don’t know when it is going to happen. You cannot manage events or people; you cannot tell them to leave you at a certain time. It is like your body, you cannot say that the body should leave you at the age of 80 or 90 or whatever, because the body can leave you any time. So you must be prepared by constantly reminding your mind of this truth.

Once the mind has fully absorbed this truth, it will not resist or deny the truth. It will accept the truth peacefully. So this is the way of getting rid of your stress and mental suffering, by teaching your mind the truth that everything that you have in your possession, sooner or later, will leave you or you will leave them. But you will not leave with sadness because if you have samādhi, if you have developed jhāna. Jhāna will protect your mind, will feed your mind with internal happiness. So losing anything will not affect your mind at all. Your mind will be constantly peaceful and happy. So first you must develop jhāna in order to have this peace of mind and happiness so that you can withstand or endure your losses when they happen.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto

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