The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
6 August 2025
”To attach, cling, and attach to it as ours.”
The mind of an Arahant has meditated to eliminate the three desires: sensual desire, existence craving, and non-existence craving, until his mind is still all the time, not swinging back and forth. If it were a pendulum, it would be still in the middle, not swinging back and forth, no matter how severely it is affected, positively or negatively. It will not be lost in the things that affect it.
No matter how much money or gold someone gives, he is not happy. Instead, it becomes a duty to use the money he gets to benefit others. However, he does not gain anything because he has no need for money or gold.
When he loses all of it, he is not troubled because he does not think of losing anything.
He does not cling to it, does not hold onto it, and does not consider it his own. Only the Dhamma is his property, and nothing can take the Dhamma away from his heart.
If it were anything else, if he clings to it as his property, one day when he loses it, he will cry, grieve, and be sad because of his delusion. He is lost in clinging and attaching to it, clinging to it from the moment he is born. He gets this body as his property, and he clings to it as his own. When he grows up and has strength and wisdom, Find more properties, find rice, find things, find people to be your property, find a husband, find a wife, and then get children as a bonus.
Consider them your property. Then one day, these properties will wither away, just like leaves on a tree.
At first, there was nothing, but they gradually grew and flourished, with branches and leaves. At first, they were green, then they turned yellow, and then they fell away.
Everything in this world is like this.
When the mind is born, it comes with only itself and the merit and karma that it has done in the past. It still has to be born because it has not yet purified the three desires from the mind and heart, so it has to be born again. When it is born, delusion causes it to possess things as its property.
Houses, land, cars, these things are not ours.
But delusion will cling to them as ours.
When it clings to them, problems arise because when something happens, it causes sadness and suffering. We do not suffer from other people's property, right? No matter how our houses are burned down, we do not suffer. No matter how badly someone else's car is destroyed, we do not suffer. But if someone draws a line on our car with a nail, we will complain and feel hurt because we attach and cling to it as ours due to ignorance and delusion. We lack the wisdom to teach them that These things are not ours. They are borrowed to use to survive day to day. But it is pitiful because if we do not study or practice, we will cling to them all. It is the nature of defilements that are embedded in the heart. When we get something, we immediately become possessive. When we lose it, we feel sad, cry, cannot eat or sleep.
Therefore, we must rely on religion to help solve this problem, to create wisdom to see that nothing is ours, not even a single thing.
Even this physical body is not ours. One day, it will return to its original owner: earth, water, wind, and fire.
In the end, the body must separate and return to earth, water, wind, and fire. But now, we can use it in two ways: worldly benefits and spiritual benefits.
If we are lucky enough to find a religion, we can use it in spiritual ways. It will free our mind and prevent us from being reborn again.
If we do not find a religion, at most, we will only use it in worldly ways, such as finding worldly happiness.
The happiness we get from having wealth, possessions, and money will follow. Then, suffering will follow.
When we lose time, we will die and be reborn again.
This continues endlessly until we gain wisdom, whether we hear it from others or from our own reflection.
Most of them have to rely on hearing from people who are wiser than them. We are lucky to have come across Buddhism.
Hearing and listening to these stories helps us think and consider. Some people may get bored with the world and think and consider until they gain wisdom by themselves, which eventually leads to becoming a Buddha. This is because thinking and considering solves problems by themselves without anyone teaching them, because no one can teach them. For example, the Buddha who wanted to escape from suffering, no one could teach him. At most, he could only teach him at the level of meditation. He calmed his mind and he would be happy and free from suffering while in meditation. However, when he came out of meditation, his mind began to think and fabricate about this and that, which eventually turned into suffering.
The Buddha therefore had to study and find ways to overcome suffering. At first, he thought that his body was the problem, so he let go of his body by not eating, which was not the right way because suffering did not lie in his body, but in his mind, which was attached to the body as his own. Therefore, he had to pry his mind away from his body by letting his body follow its own nature and take care of it. When the time came for something to happen to him, he let it be. That is, he prepared his mind in advance that he would grow old, get sick, and die. But while he was not sick, old, or dead, he did not have to do anything. He could use it to make merit.
If he was not free from suffering, he could use this body to practice Dhamma.
Phra Ajahn Suchart Aphichato
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
