The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
29 September 2024
Apart from having faith, exertion and mindfulness, we must also have concentration or samādhi. What should we concentrate on? Well, we should concentrate on doing good deeds. Normally, it is not easy for us to do this. Why? It’s because our mind tends to drift with our emotions. On days when we feel charitable and want to make a charitable contribution, we would do it. On other days when we don’t have that feeling, we wouldn’t do it. But when we have samādhi or concentration, we would be doing good deeds all the time. Refraining from doing evil would also be easy to do because the mind is now primed by samādhi to do it.
We would then be always concentrating on refraining from doing evil and cultivating good deeds.
To be successful in our endeavor, we must therefore have concentration or samādhi.
It’s therefore imperative to meditate on a regular basis, at least once or twice a day.
After we get up in the morning, wash our face and brush our teeth, we could start with some chanting. It’s a form of meditation. If we could do it for half an hour or an hour, it would help calm the mind down. The mind would stay put, not wandering around. If we don’t like chanting, we could meditate by mentally recite ‘buddho, buddho, buddho’. Do it as long as we possibly can, half an hour, an hour, or two hours. This is the way of training the mind to keep still with the aid of mindfulness. If we meditate without mindfulness, the mind will drift away. While chanting, if we also think of some other things, it means that the mind is not concentrating nor being mindful.
For example, while we chant ‘arahaṁ sammasambuddho’, etc, and also think of what we’re going to do today, it means we are not being mindful.
We are chanting but our mind is also thinking about something else.
This will not yield the desired result. The mind will not stay put. To keep it still, we must be only mindful of what we are chanting. If we chant ‘arahaṁ sammasambuddho’, then ‘arahaṁ sammasambuddho’ must be the only thing on our mind. Don’t let other things in. Our mind must be focused on only one thing.
If it is, it will stay put.
If there are two or three things on our mind, it will wobble, drifting back and forth, unable to keep still or calm down. It will become restless. This restlessness is caused by the defilement or kilesa such as love, hatred, boredom and the like. They will upset us, making us unable to do good, for example today we planned to go to the temple to make some merits, but when we saw something not to our liking it put us off and we decided then and there not to go. This could happen because our mind is not set. We have no samādhi. So we should keep on meditating.
We can meditate all the time no matter where we are or what we do. We can do it while driving. Just don’t close your eyes. While driving, we can recite ‘buddho, buddho, buddho’ in our mind while concentrating on driving. This is also a form of meditation.
While eating, concentrate on eating; reading, concentrate on reading; working, concentrate on working. We don’t have to wait until we can go to the temple, to a quiet place, or to sit in front of a Buddha image, in order to meditate. That will be too late. Why?
It’s because the kilesa are always active and ever present.
Greed and hatred can pop up anywhere, anytime. They don’t wait until they get on the stage to reveal themselves. They don’t operate that way. Whenever we see something greed or hatred can pop up right away.
To fight them, we must use Dhamma.
To stop them, we must use mindfulness and samādhi.
Fighting the kilesa is a 24hrs-7days job, from the time we get up in the morning until the time we fall asleep.
We must always be on guard, be mindful all the time of our thoughts. Is it about greed or anger? If it is, we must use mindfulness to stop them. We must remind ourselves that they are not good. They are like fire.
When we hate, become greedy or lustful, we are setting our mind on fire. When we are not greedy or hateful, we would feel cool and at ease. Greed and anger can only be stopped by mindfulness. We must therefore strive to develop mindfulness and meditate all the time.
When we have free time, instead of looking at comic books or fashion magazines, we should mentally recite ‘buddho, buddho, buddho’. Our mind will be cool, happy and relaxed. It will focus on doing good like meditating and developing samādhi or mental stability that will assist in our quest for the noble goal of spiritual purity.
“Sensual Pleasures Are Painful”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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