The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
11 June 2024
Q: When I’m practising Budho I can remind my mind to be happy. Is this what you mean when you tell us to keep the mind happy?
Than Ajahn: To keep the mind happy is to be mindful all the time. When you are being mindful you can’t think by way of kilesa. So your mind will be calm and peaceful and happy. But as soon as you lose mindfulness, your thoughts can be used by your defilements to go think of some places to go, something to see or something to do. When that happens then you would not be happy with where you are because where you are you cannot do anything.
So if you can stay mindful and stop the mind from having any defilement coming up then you can be happy wherever you are and whatever you have.
When you’re not happy it’s because you want something, you have no contentment.
Mindfulness is the one that will keep your mind contented.
When you are not mindful then your defilements start thinking in terms of what you want. You want something different, want something to do, want something to see, want something to eat or drink. These are all defilements because you’re not having mindfulness to stop your thoughts. So if you have ‘Budho, Budho’ all the time then you can’t think of other things.
Try to be mindful as much as possible. As soon as you know you want something then you know that you’re not mindful enough.
You allow your defilements to take over your thoughts.
So try to be mindful all the time either with ‘Budho, Budho’ or focus on what you do. And meditate as much as possible.
Then you can keep your mind peaceful and calm and you can control your defilements.
But this is still a temporary measure. You cannot kill your defilements with mindfulness.
If you want to kill your defilements, you need to use wisdom to see the Three Characteristics of existence in everything that your defilements want to go after. To see that everything that your defilements want to be dukkha, to be a problem that will hurt you more than giving you pleasure. It might initially give you pleasure but after a while it will give you trouble because you start to cling to it. You don’t want it to change or disappear when the reality is that everything will change, everything will eventually disappear.
When that happens then you become sad.
This is wisdom: when you want something, you see the thing you want as having the Three Characteristics of existence. When you see dukkha in everything then you don’t want to have it. If you still see pleasure from it then you’ll still want to go after it. When you see it as trouble then you don’t want to go after it, right?
The problem is sometimes your mind tries not to see the problem, it only sees the good side of things then you’d want to go after them and eventually they will turn to the bad side and then that’s when they become a problem. So you have to see both sides of the story.
Every story has two sides: good and bad, up and down.
When you can see the whole picture then you don’t want to have anything. You don’t want to have anything to do with having anything. You’d rather live alone and depend on your meditation to keep you peaceful and happy.
When you see things as being harmful to you then you will lose your craving or your desire for them. And when you have no desire then you can remain not doing anything and still be happy. It’s your defilements that’s causing you unhappiness when you can’t do anything.
Once you get rid of your cravings then you can be happy not doing anything.
It’s that simple but it’s very difficult to do.
You have to have strong mindfulness and you have to have a sharp wisdom to see things clearly, see things as they are – they are all bad when you see them as being good.
They're bad because they are transient, they change, they disappear and you cannot control them.
Do you understand the Three Characteristics? It’s to see everything as temporary. Everything can only give you temporary happiness and pleasure. Sooner or later it will fail, it will no longer gives you happiness and pleasure.
So just rely on happiness from meditation and mindfulness and wisdom. Try to stop your craving.
Every time when you have some cravings, try to tell yourself that they’re not essential for your existence.
If they’re essentials then it’s not craving. Like when it’s time to eat then you have to eat. But how many times a day you have to eat? Once a day is enough. This is essential. If you eat twice a day, then it’s craving already. See what I mean?
Student: Yes, yes that sounds like the answer I was looking for.
“Dhamma in English, Aug 1, 2023.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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