The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
5 July 2025
Q: How can we let go our attachment to the world and have a strong motivation to begin practicing the Dhamma in every moment?
Than Ajahn: By contemplating on death that life is impermanent, one day we’re going to lose everything.
No matter how much we have, eventually we will have to give it all up.
So if we know that we will be forced to give it up then it will be easy for us to give it up now because when we are not attached, we feel better. When we’re attached to things, we feel bad because we have to worry and we have to look after things that we are attached to.
So by contemplating on death, it will help you cut off your attachment to things and people then you will have the motivation to practice Dhamma. You need Dhamma to help you detach from everything. You cannot detach by just knowing that you will die. This is a way to initiate the practice and to start practicing Dhamma by developing mindfulness to get samādhi.
Once you have samādhi then you will have the power to let go, the mind will be strong enough to be able to resist your attachment.
Q: Ajahn, I have some friends who are not Buddhists but they have interest in Buddhism. How can I explain to them about Buddhism and about meditation in a simple way?
Phra Ajahn: Buddhism is like a subject you study in the university. When you go to a university you study science, mathematics, etc. Buddhism is another subject that people can study. The Buddha and his noble disciples are the teachers. So it doesn’t require you to be a Buddhist to study Buddhism and to practice Buddhism. It’s like when you go to a university, they don’t require you to be of a certain religion, you can be a Christian, you can be a Muslim and you can still study all the subjects.
Buddhism is just another subject. It deals with looking after the mind, how to take care of the mind. Most subjects in the university teach you how to take care of your body. No subject teaches you how to take care of your mind. Only Buddhism teaches the knowledge of how to take care of your mind, to make your mind always happy and never sad.
Tell your friends like this: it’s just another knowledge, another subject that they can study. They don’t have to be Muslim, they don’t have to be Buddhists, they don’t have to be anything. It’s just the knowledge like any other knowledge. The only difference is all the other knowledge deal with the physical things; only Buddhism deals with the mental or the psychic thing which is more important than the physical things.
Our life is composed of 2 parts: physical part and mental (or psychic) part. We don’t know anything about the mental or the psychic part because we rarely come across somebody who knows and understands and teaches us on that. Now, you’re lucky because you run into the Buddha and his noble disciples. They are teachers that can teach you about your mind, how to look after your mind, how to make your mind happy, how to get rid of all the sadness of your mind. So this is what Buddhism is. It’s not a religion, really. It’s a form of knowledge.
Q: I have been using rising and falling of stomach as the subject of my meditation.
Recently I discovered that it's getting more and more difficult to note about the movements of the stomach.
Most of the time I could only note about the rising but I lose track when it comes to the falling of the stomach.
When this occurs during meditation the thoughts of changing to other subject of meditation kicks in. I tried to subdue the thought by reasoning it in my head that if I were to switch, I will not reach either ends.
Can Than Ajahn give advice?
Than Ajahn: Well, if you cannot watch the rising, you can watch the falling. Just keep on watching the falling.
You don’t need to watch both of them. If you can still watch either one of them then you can still continue on with your meditation. But if you find it not productive maybe the next time, not this time - this time try to stick with your method, you might want to switch to watching at the tip of your nose instead. You can watch the breath, watch at the entrance of the breath and the exit of the breath which is at the tip of your nose. You can watch that also. But if you find that it is not productive then maybe use another method like a mantra. But don't switch it in the middle of the race. It's like racing horses, when you race horse, you just stick to the same horse until you finish the race but the next time if you find this horse is not good enough for you then you can find a new horse. When you are meditating, try to stick with just the one that you choose.
“Dhamma in English, Sep 29, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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