The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.
30 January 2026
Q: How to quiet the mind when there are wars around us?
Than Ajahn: You have to learn how to meditate before you run into these things.
You have to train your mind first to be calm and still so whenever you run into anything you can control your mind and keep your mind still. But if you haven’t learned it then it will be natural that you react to things that you come across.
In Buddhism, we have to train ourselves to develop a lot of mindfulness before we can meditate. Mindfulness means to focus our mind on one thing at a time; don’t let the mind go running thinking about this and that.
You can use a mantra as the object of focus such as by reciting Budho Budho mentally or watching the body movement. Whatever your body is doing just keep watching your body activities, don’t let the mind go think about other things at the same time. Then you will be able to control your mind to be still then you can sit and meditate.
When you meditate, you can focus your attention on your breath. Just watch the breath comes in and goes out at the tip of the nose. Don’t do anything. Don’t think about anything. Just watch.
If you can focus on your breath and you can do it continuously, your mind can become still eventually.
When the mind becomes still, it doesn’t react to anything. It doesn’t react to the body’s feeling, to the sound or noises around you. The mind will be calm and equanimous. We call it ‘having equanimity’.
This is what we want to train our mind to become – to be able to remain still. And whenever we come across anything, we can just use the mantra to make the mind still. If you mind wants to react to anything, you can use mindfulness or the mantra to bring it to become still. But if you haven’t trained your mind, you will automatically react to things the way you used to react - when you run into good things, you react with happiness; and when you run into bad things, you react with bad feelings.
It's your reactions to things. Things are like this whether you are here or not. There were wars before and there will still be wars later on. So it’s just about how we react to things that we have to change. We shouldn’t react at all to anything. Just be merely observing and knowing what’s going on. If you can do this then there will be no stress, no bad feelings, no sadness, nothing. You just remain as if nothing happens.
1:34:40
Q: For people who haven’t practised but yet there are a lot of difficulties around the regions like right now, how do we support them? How do we support another beings? Is that possible to do so?
Than Ajahn: Well, if you have to deal with people, the Buddha said that you should use loving kindness toward people and animals.
Treat them nice. Be nice and be kind to them. Help them if you can.
But if it is beyond your ability then you just have to stop. You shouldn’t feel sad about it because it’s beyond your control. If there is anything that you can do, do it. If you cannot do it then you just have to accept that this is the limit of your ability to help them.
If not, you can become stressful yourself and you don’t want this to happen.
You want to remain calm regardless of what you do or don’t do. You should be able to remain calm and happy.
If you use loving kindness toward people like being nice, being kind to people, you can be happy that way.
But if it is beyond your ability to help them then you just have to use equanimity to prevent your mind to become sad or stressful.
But this is something you have to practise.
Like yoga, you have to practise. You can’t just start and be able to do it right away. It takes time to learn and takes time to get it into habit. It’s just a matter of changing the habits.
Our mind used to react to things so now we have to train it to react properly. React with loving kindness, not react with anger for instance. Not react with hatred because react with anger or hatred will create more stress than reduce suffering. React with loving kindness. And react with equanimity if it is beyond your ability to do something about it.
You have to train yourself by meditating. Because by meditating, if you succeed, you can get to equanimity.
Once you have equanimity, you can practise loving kindness.
With equanimity, you have happiness inside yourself. If you are happy, you can give, you can help other people.
If you are not happy, you are not able to help other people because you might be angry or sad. But if you are happy then you can help others.
Look at the time when it’s Christmas. People are happy to give and help each other but at some other time, people are not happy. So you have to practise meditation every day like you practise yoga. Then you’ll establish some equanimity in your mind that will enable you to be calm and peaceful if you can’t do anything about something. Or if you do something, you do it with loving kindness.
“Dhamma in English, Oct 5, 2024.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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