The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
13 August 2014
Q: Regarding rites and rituals, a Sotāpana still perform rites and rituals but he/she is not attached to them whilst a layperson is attached to them, is this right?
Than Ajahn: When you do some rituals, it’s because you want to get something from doing it. Like if you're afraid of losing your job then you do some rituals and hope that those rituals might prevent you from losing your job. But a Sotāpanna knows that the problem is your attachment to having a job. You do rituals because you don’t see that having a job is impermanent. It’s not dependable. Not certain. It’s anicca.
Having work or not having work, you can’t always control it. A Sotāpanna sees this. A Sotāpanna sees that dukkha comes from having the desire to have this work all the time and the desire not to lose it. A Sotāpanna sees the truth that a job is not always dependable. One might lose it any time, any day. So instead of having to do the rituals, a Sotāpanna prepares for the worst, prepares for losing the job and accepts the truth. Then there will be no dukkha.
So there is no need to do any rituals if one sees the Four Noble Truths. All your stress come from your craving.
And the things that you are attached to are impermanent, they are not reliable, not stable, not something that you can always depend on. So when you see the truth then you say, ‘Okay, I might lose it.’
Then you have no resistance to the truth.
You have no craving to have it all the time and if this happens [you lose it] then you have no stress, and when you have no stress, you don’t need to do any rituals.
People do rituals to get rid of the stress created by the uncertainty of things which they still hang on to or attached to. But a Sotāpanna sees everything as impermanent so he doesn't attach to anything. He willingly lets things go if it’s the time for it to go so there's no stress then there's no need to go do any rituals.
Q: So performing rituals is for people who want a false sense of security.
Than Ajahn: Yes, it’s for them to feel good, to feel hopeful they have done something that might help to maintain or retain what they want to keep.
Q: People do many sorts of rituals like having the right time to get married, choosing the colour they need to wear.
Than Ajahn: Because they want their life to be good, not to have bad things happen to them. But a Sotāpanna knows that life is both good and bad, they come and go, they change – sometimes things are good, sometimes they are bad. A Sotāpanna accepts both sides of the story.
But for the those who are not enlightened, they only want the good side, they don't want the bad side so they want to make sure that whatever they do, they will ensure that they only have good things happening to them. So they do all kinds of rituals. When they build a new house, they have to do rituals before they go live in that new house. When they get a new car, they have to go to the monk and ask the monk to bless the car. These are rituals.
The problem with people doing rituals is they don't see the impermanent nature of things.
With a Sotāpanna, he sees the impermanent nature of things and he knows he cannot control them all.
Sometime things can be good, sometimes they can be bad. A Sotāpanna sees whatever rises will come to a cessation one day sooner or later.
Doing rituals are psychological. It makes you feel assured that things will be fine because you have done the rituals so it will guarantee your success for instance.
They never listen to the song, ‘Que Sera, Sera (Whatever will be will be).’ (laugh). It means things are not always the same, things can change anytime.
So look at things as good and bad, up and down. This is the way things work. This is the nature of anicca, anattā. Anattā means you can’t control them, you can’t tell things to only be good and nothing bad will happen to you. You can’t do that. So you prepare to accept both sides of the story. ‘Hope for the best and expect the worst.’ So you won’t be disappointed when the worst thing happens to you because you expect it to happen. [For example] You know that this guy is going to cheat you, so when he does it, you say, ‘Okay’, you know it.
So you don’t trust anybody which means that you don’t trust that other people will always be good to you. You always think that one day they can always turn around and stick a knife in your back. Nothing permanent.
Nothing you can say that things will be like this all the time. Things can change anytime.
“Dhamma in English, Mar 26, 2024.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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