The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
12 April 2024
You have to look at the big picture. And the big picture is: we are all going to get old, get sick and die. So no matter how successful our life might be we are all going to end with ageing, sickness and death.
Once you can see the big picture then you will not worry about the small picture anymore. The small pictures are not significant as compared to the big picture.
That's why the Buddha teaches us to contemplate on ageing, sickness and death all the time. So don’t forget the big picture.
Sometimes you forget about the big picture and worry about the small picture which is not significant at all. You worry too much about the small picture and forget about the big picture.
You have to always have the big picture in the back of your mind so when you deal with the small picture you can say, ‘Oh, it’s not a big problem, it’s not that important.’ If you can deal with it, do it but if you can’t deal with it then leave it alone, let it be. You can’t change the big picture anyway. So do what you can do and accept what you can’t do.
Your goal should be more concerned about dealing with the big picture. Once you can deal with ageing, sickness and death, all other problems are insignificant. If you can accept ageing, sickness and death, you can accept anything.
You like to forget about the big picture because it doesn't make you feel good when you think about the big picture. Small picture can delude you to make you feel secure, make you feel happy so you don't like to look at the big picture. You like to look at the small picture like planning for your wedding, planning for your holiday, planning for your birthday party – these are the little pictures that you indulge in in order to forget about the big picture.
This is a delusion – not seeing anicca, dukkha, anattā nature of life. This keeps you looking for pleasure in life while the truth is life will only give you dukkha because life is anicca, life is anattā.
If you keep looking at the big picture, you gradually will become enlightened to the truth. But if you turn your back on it and don’t look at the big picture then you will be deluded or deceived by the little picture or little happiness that you can get from little things like from your marriage, graduation, anniversaries.
All these little pictures will deceive you or will not let you see the big picture. So you always hope for something good, something better because you don’t see the big picture. If you can see the big picture then you know that there is no hope; but you don’t want to be hopeless so you don’t want to look at the big picture so you can be hopeful.
You can only do this [look at the big picture] if you have something to replace life like meditation, getting happiness from peace of mind. Then you can look at the big picture and are not worried about life because you don't really rely on it anymore, you have something better that you don’t get from life that is the spiritual things that you get from meditation, from peace of mind, from contentment.
Once you have this [peace of mind from meditation] then you are not worried about life because you don’t rely your wellbeing on life. You don’t rely your happiness on life because you know it's not dependable, it's not reliable. You cannot rely on life for happiness and for security.
But you can rely on your meditation to give you happiness and security.
So you should practice more mindfulness and meditation then you won't have to rely on life to give you happiness.
“Dhamma in English, Dec 5, 2023.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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