The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
10 February 2026
"The one who practices is the mind."
Question: When you come home tired, should you walk or sit?
Phra Ajarn: It depends on what you like.
Walking or sitting is not the one who practices. The one who practices is the mind.
The mind can practice by walking or sitting.
The one that will enable you to practice is mindfulness.
If you work all day with mindfulness, when you come home you can immediately say "Buddho". You will be calm immediately because other work will disappear from the mind because it is all in the past. The mind will be in the present all the time. But most of the time, it is not like that. When you come home, you still bring work home with you, bringing the past into the present.
So you cannot recite "Buddho" because you still think about work because you do not have mindfulness. If you have mindfulness, your body will be there. If you have mindfulness, there will only be the present. No matter what happens, it will pass away as soon as it happens. Mindfulness will pull the mind to stay in the present, not letting it go to the past or the future because the present is where cause and effect arise.
Effects do not arise in the past, they do not arise in the future. Causes do not arise in the past, they do not arise in the future. Causes must arise in the present, and effects must arise in the present. It is like Venerable Ananda who had problems with the past and the future.
The past was the Buddha's prophecy that said, "Ananda, you will attain enlightenment within 3 months." Venerable Ananda thought about the prophecy all the time. Then I worry about the future, it's almost 3 months and I still haven't achieved it. I tried to exert great effort, but I still haven't succeeded. My mind keeps going back and forth between the past and the future. At first, I believed in the Buddha's prediction that it was accurate. But when the time was near and I still hadn't achieved it, I started to hesitate and doubt.
My mind didn't meditate, I didn't stay in the present, I didn't calm my mind to let go, I was just worried about the past and the future. When it was almost dawn, I resigned myself that no matter how I practiced, I would never attain it, so I stopped practicing and went to sleep.
When I was about to go to sleep, I just let go.
When I let go of the past and the future, I came back to the present. I let go of everything and I was able to let go.
Mindfulness will pull my mind to stay in the present because the present is the origin of both cause and effect. Whatever I do, I must do it only in the present.
The path to Nirvana is in the present. The practice for the path to Nirvana is in the present. The Four Noble Truths are in the present. The path to the cessation of suffering is in the present. It's not in the past or the future. Everything is in the present. Even we are in the present.
We're not anywhere else. Right now, we're nowhere.
Our past doesn't exist. Our future doesn't exist. We're right here. But we send it to think about the past, send it to think about the future.
Phra Ajahn Suchart Aphichato
Wat Yan Sangwararam, Chonburi
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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