The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.

The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.

21 October 2024

Q:  How should I practice for a good death?

Than Ajahn:  For a good death you need to practice to keep your mind calm. You can do it by the method of mindfulness or the method of wisdom. The method of mindfulness is by focusing your mind on something to keep your mind away from thinking. If your mind does not think then there will be no fear, no nothing; the mind will be calm and quiet. But this is only a temporary measure. 

To get to a permanent fix, you need to use the method of wisdom – to understand the nature of the body. The body is impermanent, it’s a natural phenomenon, it doesn’t belong to you. The body is just the combination of the four elements that join together to form a body and one day it will have to separate and there is nothing anybody can do to stop it from happening.

The cause of our suffering or mental stress is our clinging to the body. We want the body to last forever. 

Due to our delusion, we don’t want it to disappear. We think that the body is us while in fact we are just the one who knows, the one who thinks which is called the mind that is connected to this body temporarily. 

So we have to understand the nature of the mind and the nature of the body. The body is not the mind and the mind is not the body. 

One day they have to separate. In order for them to be separated in a peaceful and happy way, we have to let it go, we have to let it happen. 

You need the strength of mindfulness to stop your mind from resisting this truth. Your mind still wants to cling to it. You want to keep this body for as long as possible even though it causes the mind tremendous suffering. 

So if you want to reduce the suffering, you just have to accept the eventuality of the body that the body, one day, has to return to the four elements. 

If we can see this with wisdom, see that we are not the body, and there is nothing we can do to keep the body forever then we just have to let it go. We just remain calm. Merely knowing – know that this is happening. 

Just focus on our breath until we no longer breathe then we know that the mind and the body are separated. 

That’s why we need to practice a lot of mindfulness and meditation in order to still the mind or to calm the mind, to stop the defilement from resisting the truth. 

Once we can control the defilement then we use wisdom to teach the mind to let go. We know that we have to let go because if we don’t let go, we will suffer. 

If we don’t want to suffer then we have to let go. 

So there are two levels. The first level is mindfulness. If you go to a fearful place that might cause you to be concerned about your life, you can recite a mantra, ‘Budho, Budho,’ to calm your mind down. Once your mind becomes calm then your fear disappears temporarily. You just remain calm, you are not affected by the situation.  [The next level] If you want to permanently get rid of your fear then you have to accept the truth of the body that one day the body will have to die and no one can stop it from dying. 

If you want to live in peace and die in peace then you just have to accept the dissolution of the body. 

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Q:  I would like to ask for instruction to realise anicca (impermanence).

Than Ajahn:  Look at all the changes that is happening all around you. The leaves are anicca, people dying are anicca, people get sick are anicca. The Buddha saw the ageing person, the sick person and the death person and that’s why the Buddha taught us to constantly reflect on them. Once being born, we are subjected to ageing, sickness and death and to separation from the one we loved. This is something we have to constantly reflect on, not just once or twice a day but as much as possible. 

The Buddha asked his assistant (Ven. Ananda), ‘How many times you reflect on death in a day?’ and he replied, ‘Four or five times.’ The Buddha said that it’s not enough, ‘You have to reflect on death in every in and out breath.’ When you breathe in and you don’t breathe out, you die; when you breathe out and you don’t breathe in, you die. This is the way to reflect on anicca (impermanence). 

Everything is the same. Everything rises and eventually it has to cease. Nothing exists forever except the six elements (the earth, water, wind, fire, the knowing and the space element). These six elements will remain forever but they will form into something all the time. 

They will combine and form a human body or an animal body. Once having a form, it eventually has to disintegrate, it will go separate ways again - this is the work of nature. We have to understand it and we shouldn’t cling to anything because if we cling onto it, we will have stress or suffering when we lose what we cling to.

“Dhamma in English, Nov 18, 2023.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

www.phrasuchart.com

YouTube:  Dhamma in English.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g