Question: Can you explain what you mean by the 'Four Brahmaviharas?

Question: Can you explain what you mean by the 'Four Brahmaviharas?

Ajahn Sumedho: The Four Brahmaviharas - metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha - are called the Divine Abodes. They are pure states of mind. They are natural responses of the pure mind. The mind is pure when we free ourselves from selfish interest - greed, hatred and delusion. When the mind is not caught up in these, the brahmaviharas are its natural abiding place.

Metta is a general attitude to living creatures - a sense of patience, loving-kindness and the absence of fault-finding. 

Karuna is more like compassion and pity; it's about feeling the suffering of others, recognising what suffering is like. This is where we feel compassion and empathy, which is different from feeling sorry for others in a sentimental way. 

Mudita is translated as sympathetic joy; the joy we find in the happiness of others. The joy we find in the beauty of the goodness of others. It is an antidote to jealousy. Often when we see someone better off, better looking, we feel jealousy. But mudita is the lovely quality of delight and appreciation for the beauty and success of others. 

And upekkha is the serenity of the mind - the serenity and emotional balance of the mind.

19 August 2023

My Father Really Loved Me By Ajahn Sumedho

My Father Really Loved Me
By Ajahn Sumedho

"My father died about six years ago. He was then 90 years old, and he had never shown love or positive feelings towards me. So from early childhood I had this feeling that he did not like me. I carried this feeling through most of my life; I never had any kind of love, any kind of warm relationship with my father. It was always a perfunctory: “Hello son, good to see you.”

And he seemed to feel threatened by me. I remember whenever I came home as a Buddhist monk he would say, “Remember, this is my house, you’ve got to do as I say.” This was his greeting – and I was almost 50 years old at the time! I don’t know what he thought I was going to do!

In the last decade of his life, he was quite miserable and became very resentful. He had terrible arthritis and was in constant pain, and he had Parkinson’s disease and everything was going wrong. Eventually he had to be put in a nursing home. He was completely paralysed. He could move his eyes and talk, but the rest of his body was rigid, totally still. He hated this. He was resentful of what had happened to him because before he had been a strong, independent, virile man. He had been able to control and manage everything in his life. So he hated and resented having to depend on nurses to feed him and so on.

My first year here I remember discussing my parents with my sister. She pointed out to me that my father was a very considerate man. He was very considerate and thoughtful towards my mother. He was always eager to help her when she was tired or unwell – a very supportive husband. Because I came from a family where it was normal for a man to be like that, I had never recognised those qualities. My sister pointed out that it is not often that a husband is supportive or helpful to his wife. For my father’s generation, women’s rights and feminism were not the issue. “I bring in the money, and you do the cooking and washing,” was the attitude then. I realised then that I had not only completely overlooked these good qualities, I had not even noticed them.

The last time I went to see him, I decided that I would try to get some kind of warmth going between us before he died. It was quite difficult to even think this because I had gone through life feeling that he didn’t like me. It is very hard to break through that kind of thing.

Anyway, his body needed to be stimulated, so I said, “Let me massage your leg.” And he said, “No, no, you don’t need to do that.” And I said, “You’ll get bedsores; you really have to have your skin massaged.” 

And he still said, “No, you don’t have to do it.” Then I said, “I would really like to do it.” And he said, “You don’t have to do it.” But I could tell that he was considering it. Then I said, “I think it’ll be a good thing and I’d really like to do it,” and he said, “So, you’d really like to do it?” and I said, “Yes.”

I started massaging his feet, his legs, his neck and shoulders, his hands and his face, and he really enjoyed the physical contact. It was the first time he had been touched like that… And I began to realise that my father really loved me, but he didn’t know how to say it because of his upbringing. He’d been brought up in an Edwardian time in a very formal environment. His had been a “don’t touch, don’t get emotional” sort of a family. They had no great emotional explosions; feelings were always controlled. Now I realised that my father was quite a loving sort of man, but he could not express his feelings because of his background. 

And I had this great sense of relief.

I couldn’t understand him when I was young because I did not understand his upbringing and what he had been through. It was only when I grew older that I began to understand the consequences of having such an upbringing. Once you are conditioned in that way, it is difficult to break out of it. I could see when I looked back that behind the behaviour of my father there was love, but it always came out in a commanding or demanding way because that is the only way he knew how to talk. Like the way he said, “Remember, this is my house, and you have to do what I say.” If I was going to be offended by that, I would have had a miserable time. But I decided not to pay any attention to that statement and not make a problem of it…"

This reflection by Luang Por Sumedho is from the book, Gratitude, (pdf) pp. 45-48.

Source: https://www.abhayagiri.org/reflections/532-my-father-really-loved-me?fbclid=IwAR2DjffwpEWIQxFrPF9eRojSF_brxH74YuRyU4jfp-yj21LNtzYj9ziLTr8

Gratitude Monastic Sangha pdf book:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/567-gratitude?fbclid=IwAR0xMR3o2MPjebU6jzvCSu5kfG02HO19lLH6BJR8U9qBfdvtU47operQh7s

8 August 2023

THE WAY IT IS Chapter: EVERYTHING THAT ARISES PASSES AWAY VEN. AJAHN SUMEDHO

THE WAY IT IS
Chapter: EVERYTHING THAT ARISES PASSES AWAY
VEN. AJAHN SUMEDHO

“What is a condition? The body that we're with, the emotions and feelings, the perceptions of the mind, conceptions and consciousness through the sense - these are conditions. A condition is something that is added, compounded, something that arises and passes away; it's not the uncreated, unborn, unoriginated ultimate reality… that concept and whatever you conceive, is a condition that arises and passes away. Any time you try to conceive yourself, any concept or memory of yourself as this or that is only a condition of your mind. It's not what you are - you're not a condition of your mind. So, sorrow, despair, love and happiness, are all conditions of mind and they are not all not-self.”

https://amaravati.org/dhamma-books/the-way-it-is/

***********  ********   **************** **********

“What is a condition? The body with which we are, the emotions and feelings, the mind's perceptions, conceptions and consciousness through sense - these are conditions. A condition is something that is added, composed, something that arises and passes; it is not the Uncreated, Unborn, Unoriginated, Ultimate Reality... But this concept and everything you conceive, is a condition that comes and goes. 

Whenever you try to conceive yourself, any concept or memory of yourself as this or that, is just a condition of your mind. You are not what you are – you are not a condition of your mind. Thus, sadness, despair, love, and happiness, are all conditions of the mind and THEY ARE ALL NOT-ME. "

Source: The Way It Is, Cap. What comes, comes.

VEN. AJAHN SUMEDHO

25 March 2023

AJAHN SUMEDHO

AJAHN SUMEDHO

SEEING AVERSION IN OURSELVES 

"We always start metta (or loving-kindness) practice with ourselves. We say, “May I be at peace. May I be happy or contented. May I be at ease with myself and with whatever is going on in my mind and body.” It is not difficult to be at ease with ourselves when everything is going well, but when things are not, we tend to try to annihilate the things we don’t like in ourselves.

People come to me all the time, asking, “How do I get rid of anger? How do I get rid of jealousy? How do I get rid of greed and lust? 

How do I get rid of fear? How do I get rid of everything? I could go to a psychiatrist, maybe; he might help me to get rid of it.” Or sometimes we practice meditation to get rid of all these awful things, so that we can achieve blissful states of mind and bodhisattva-like visions. We hope we will never have those nasty feelings ever again. On the one hand, there is the hope and longing to be happy. On the other hand, there is resentment and the reaction of disgust and aversion to our hellish, unpleasant mental states.

I notice that people in Britain are very self-critical, very self-disparaging. 

Then when I ask, “Do you practice metta?” the people who disparage themselves the most, who really need to practice metta, are the ones who say they can’t stand it. This ability to criticize ourselves sounds like we are being terribly honest, doesn’t it? We have intelligent, critical minds, so we think about ourselves in very negative ways. We criticise ourselves because a lot of the things we have done in the past come up in the present--memories, tendencies, or habits--and they don’t live up to what we would like them to be. Likewise, we don’t live up to what we think we should be.

Then, because we can be very self-critical and disparaging. We also tend to project our negative opinions onto others. I remember myself always being disappointed with people because they just couldn't live up to my standards, to the way I thought they should be. 

I'd see somebody and think, "Oh, here's one, here's the person, the truly kind, generous heart, the loving being. At last, I've found her." 

Then I would find out that she'd get angry, jealous, frightened, possessive, or greedy. And I'd think, "Oh, you've disappointed me. I'll have to look for someone else now. I'll have to find someone who can live up to my high standards." But then, when I'd really look at myself, I'd ask, "How well do I live up to these standards?" 

Then I could see that there were the same unpleasant conditions in me, also. 

When I was trying to be a good monk, I was desperately trying to live up to an ideal. I could do that to a certain degree. Through the life we live as monks and the restrictions on it, we are restrained from involving ourselves in heavy karmic activities. 

However, we still have to face the repressed emotional fears and desires of the mind--we really can’t get away with anything in this life. 

As monks, we must also be willing to allow even the most unpleasant, awful things to attain a conscious state, and we must confront these things. In meditation, we allow things that we’ve turned away from or rejected to take conscious form. In order to do this, we must develop metta, the attitude of patience and kindness toward these repressed fears and doubts, and toward our own anger.

When I was newly ordained, I thought of myself as a very good-natured person who wasn’t very angry and didn’t hate people. But after ordination when I started meditating, I began to feel vast amounts of hatred for everybody, and I thought, “This meditation is making me into a demon!” I had thought, “I’ll go and meditate, live out in the jungle alone, get very calm, and be able to communicate with celestial beings and stay in a high state of bliss.” 

Instead, when I first started meditating as a novice, the first two months were nothing but unmitigated aversion. I hated everyone I could think of. I even hated the people I loved, and I hated myself.

I began to see that this was a side of myself that had been repressed, expelled from my consciousness, by the ideal image of myself that I had tried to hold on to. I had never allowed real hatred, aversion, disappointment, or despair to be fully conscious; I had always reacted to it. Before I was ordained, I had a general weariness and despair with regard to social situations that arose because I had been living on the level of smiles and pleasant greetings. I had been getting along socially in a superficial way, so I had never allowed the fears and hatred to take a conscious form. In meditation, when I could no longer stop them, all these repressed feelings began to arise in consciousness.

There was resistance to them, of course, because that was the way I had always dealt with those conditions: “How do I get rid of them?” “How can I stop them?” “Oh, I shouldn’t be feeling like this; it’s disgusting!” 

“After all they’ve done for me, and I still hate them.” These feelings made me hate myself. 

So instead of trying to stop them, I had to learn to accept them. And it was only through acceptance that the mind was able to go through a kind of catharsis in which all the negativity manifested--and passed away."

* * *From "The Mind and the Way; Buddhist Reflections on Life"

Ajahn Sumedho

Ajahn Sumedho 

In London, I used to get very upset when travelling on the underground. I used to hate it, those horrible underground stations with ghastly advertising posters and great crowdsof people on those dingy, grotty trains which roar along the tunnels. I used to feel a total lack of mettā. I used to feel so averse to it all, then I decided to practise being patient and kind while travelling on the London Underground. Then I began to really enjoy it, rather than dwelling in resentment. I began to feel kindly towards the people there. The aversion and the complaining all disappeared – totally.

When you feel aversion towards somebody, you can notice the tendency to start adding to it, ‘He did this and he did that, and he’s this way and he shouldn’t be that way.’ Then when you really like somebody, ‘He can do this and he can do that. He’s good and kind.’ But if someone says, ‘That person’s really bad!’ you feel angry. If you hate somebody and someone else praises him, you also feel angry. You don’t want to hear how good your enemy is. When you are full of anger, you can’t imagine that someone you hate may have some virtuous qualities; even if they do have some good qualities, you can never remember any of them. You can only remember all the bad things. When you like somebody, even his faults can be endearing – ‘harmless little faults.’

So recognise this in your own experience; observe the force of like and dislike. Practising patience and kindness is a very useful and effective instrument for dealing with all the petty trivia which the mind builds up around unpleasant experience. Mettā is also a very useful method for those who have discriminative, very critical minds. 

They can see only the faults in everything, but they never look at themselves, they only see what’s ‘out there.’

It is now very common to always be complaining about the weather or the government. Personal arrogance gives rise to these really nasty comments about everything; or you start talking about someone who isn’t there, ripping them apart, quite intelligently, and quite objectively. You are so analytical, you know exactly what that person needs, what they should do and what they should not do, and why they’re this way and that. 

Very impressive to have such a sharp, critical mind and know what they ought to do. You are, of course, saying, ‘Really, I’m much better than they are.’ 

But with mettā, you are not blinding yourself to the faults and flaws in everything. You are just peacefully co-existing with them. You are not demanding that it be otherwise.

So mettā sometimes needs to overlook what’s wrong with yourself and everyone else – it doesn’t mean that you don’t notice those things, it means that you don’t develop problems around them. You stop that kind of indulgence by being kind and patient – peacefully co-existing.

Source: Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless

Chapter: Kindness

By AJAHN SUMEDHO

22nd October, 2022

INVESTIGATING THE MIND by AJHAN SUMEDHO ( From book – THE WAY IT IS )

INVESTIGATING THE MIND
by AJHAN SUMEDHO
( From book – THE WAY IT IS )

“The Buddha is the teacher, that within us which reminds us to observe the impermanent nature of all conditions and not to take any of them as reality. When we do, wheat happens? We have wars, strikes, battles and endless problems that exist in the world because ignorant beings take these conditions as reality. They attach to the mortal body as an identity. We get absorbed into these various symbols and concepts, and in that absorption we have to be born and die in those conditions. It’s like getting attached to something that is moving, such as greed, and being pulled along by that movement. So we’re born and die at that time. But when we don’t attach any more then we’re avoiding suffering from the movement and the limitations of changing conditions.

Now talking like this, people might question: ‘How do you live in this society then, if it’s all unreal?’ The Buddha made a very clear distinction between conventional reality and ultimate reality. On the conventional level of existence we use conventions that bring harmony to ourselves and to the society we live in. What kind of conventions bring harmony? Well, things like being good, being mindful, not doing things that cause disharmony, such as stealing, cheating and exploiting others; having respect and compassion for other beings, being observant, trying to help: all these conventions bring harmony.

So in the Buddhist teaching on the conventional level, we live in a way that supports doing good and refraining from doing evil with the body and speech. It’s not as if we are rejecting the conventional world ‘I want nothing  to do with it because it’s an illusion’ – that’s another illusion. 

Thinking that the conventional world is an illusion is just another thought.

In our practice, we see that thought is thought, ‘the world is an illusion’ is a thought. But here and now, be aware that all we are conscious of is changing. Live mindfully, put effort and concentration into what you do, whether you’re sitting walking, lying down or working. Whether you’re a man or a woman, a secretary, housewife or laborer or executive or whatever, apply effort and concentration. Do good and refrain from doing evil. This is how a Buddhist lives within the conventional forms of society. But they are no longer deluded by the body or the society, or the things that go on in the society, because a Buddhist is one who examines and investigates the universe by investigating their own body and mind.”

https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/26/Way-it-is-by-ajahn-sumedho.pdf

Ajahn Sumedho

Ajahn Sumedho

Q : What most impressed you about Ajahn Chah?

A : Luang Por Chah had a great deal of mettā (loving-kindness) and I felt welcomed by the way he received me at Wat Pah Pong – he seemed to be interested in me. I felt intuitively that this was a very wise man. At the time I couldn’t understand Thai very well, but what I saw of how he lived his life and his general way of being was very pleasing to me. His teaching was very direct and he was able to see very quickly where I was at.

He didn’t want me to spend time reading or studying, just to practise. He emphasized everybody’s paṭipat (practice). When I first came to him, he told me to put my books away and to just read the citta, my mind. I was happy to do that, because I was weary of studying Buddhism and wanted to practise it instead of just reading about it. This was what he was encouraging me to do.

Though he gave a lot of talks, which I couldn’t properly understand for the first two years, he emphasized kor wat (monastic duties), the way you live in the monastery: paying attention, being mindful with food and the robes, and with the kuṭī (hut) and the monastery. He was like a mirror that would reflect my state of mind. He always seemed to be completely present. I’d get carried away with thoughts and emotions sometimes, but by just being around him, I found that I could suddenly let go – I could drop what I was holding onto without even telling him. His presence helped me to see what I was doing and what I was attached to. So I decided that I would live with him as long as I could, since such monks are hard to find. I stayed with him for ten years at Wat Pah Pong and at various branch monasteries.

Ajahn Sumedho - Buddhist Meditation

The aim of Buddhist meditation is to let go of these conditions of the mind, which doesn't mean denying, or getting rid of, or judging them. It means not believing them or following them; instead we listen to them as Dhamma, as conditions of the mind that arise and cease.With an attitude of awakened, attentive awareness, we learn to trust in ...just being the listener, the watcher, rather than being somebody trying to meditate to get some kind of result.

If we try to think about meditation practice as this or that, we're creating an image that we're trying to realise, rather than just trusting in the attentiveness of the mind, in mindfulness; letting go of the desire to find or grasp anything. As soon as we think about ourselves, we become a person - somebody - but when we are not thinking, the mind is quite empty and there is no sense of person. There is still consciousness, sensitivity, but it's not seen in terms of being a person, of being a man or a woman; there is just awareness of what is happening - what the feeling is, the mood, the atmosphere that one is experiencing in this moment. We can call this intuitive awareness. It is not programmed and conditioned by thought or memory or perception.

We are renouncing, abandoning, letting go of things. To the worldly mind, it might sound as though we're getting rid of something, or condemning the sense world, the pleasures and the beauty that we can all experience as human beings; rejecting it, because we see it as evil or wrong. But renunciation isn't a moral judgement against anything. 

Rather, it's a moving away from that which complicates and makes life difficult, towards the ultimate simplicity of pure mindfulness in the present moment; because enlightenment is here and now, the Truth is now. There is not anyone who can become anything, there is not anyone who is born or who will die - there is only this eternal now. This awareness is what we can tune into, as we let go of the appearances and the habitual tendencies.

When we emphasise our personality we create problems, because the personal qualities are different for each one of us. We have our common human problems: old age, sickness and death; all men have certain things in common; all women have certain conditions in common. But then there are certain attitudes, cultural expectations and assumptions, which are conditioned into the mind, instilled into us after we are born. Through mindfulness, we are able to get beyond this conditioning of the mind to the pure consciousness that isn't conditioned, but which is like the background, the emptiness, the blank sheet on which words are written. Our perceptions arise and cease on that blank sheet, that emptiness. 

The personality, the self-consciousness, the fears and the desires of the mind are what they are; we are not trying to dismiss them or add to them, or make any problems or difficulties around them. We are willing to let them be what they are. 

They feel this way, they have this quality; they arise and cease. In that cessation there's the realisation of the peace, the bliss or the serenity of being, and there's no self in it. 

Everyone has that potential, that ability to realise this. We describe it as seeing the Dhamma, the way it is - it's not a matter of becoming anything at all. 

Ajahn Sumedho.

Consciousness, thus unestablished, not proliferating, not performing any function, is released. Owing to its release, it stands still. Owing to its stillness, it is contented. Owing to its contentment, it is not agitated. 

Not agitated, he (the monk) is totally unbound right within. He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'

"For one knowing in this way, seeing in this way, monk, there is the immediate ending of fermentations." 

SN22.55

The Freedom That Comes from Practice ~ Ajahn Sumedho

The Freedom That Comes from Practice
~ Ajahn Sumedho

At Wat Pah Pong the emphasis was on communal activities, working together, eating together, etc., with all its rules. I knew that if I was going to live as a bhikkhu I needed the bhikkhu’s training and I hadn’t been getting that at the meditation centre that I had been in before.

What Luang Por gave me was a living situation to contemplate. You developed an awareness around the monastic tradition and it was something that I knew I needed. I needed restraint and containment. I was a very impulsive person with a tremendous resistance to any kind of authority. I had been in the navy for four years and had developed an aversion to authority and rank. And then before I went to Thailand I had spent a few years at Berkeley, California, where it was pretty much a case of ‘doing your own thing’. There was no sense of having to obey anybody or live under a discipline of any sort.

But at Wat Pah Pong I had to live following a tradition that I did not always like or approve of in a situation where I had no authority whatsoever. I had a strong sense of my own freedom and rights and asserting them, but I had no idea of serving anyone else. Being a servant was like admitting you were somehow inferior. 

So I found monastic life very useful for developing a sense for serving and supporting the monastic community.

What impressed me so much about Luang Por was that although he seemed such a free spirit, an ebullient character, at the same time he was very strict with the Vinaya. It was a fascinating contrast. In California the idea of freedom was being spontaneous and doing what you felt like; and the idea of moral restraint and discipline in my cultural background was like this big ogre that’s coming to squash you, with all these rules and traditions — you can’t do this and you can’t do that — and pressing down on you so much.

So my immediate reaction in a strict monastery like Wat Pah Pong was to feel oppressed. And yet my feeling about Luang Por was that although his actions were always within the margins of the Vinaya, he was a free being. He wasn’t coming from ideas of doing what he liked but from inner freedom. So in contemplating him I began to look at the Vinaya so as to use it, not just to cut yourself off or to oppress yourself, but for freedom. It was like a conundrum: how do you take a restrictive and renunciant convention and liberate your mind through those conventions? 

I could see that there were no limits to Luang Por’s mind.

Oftentimes attachment to rules makes you worry a lot and lack confidence, but Luang Por was radiant. He was obviously not just someone just keeping a lot of rules, anxious about his purity. He was a living example of the freedom that comes from practice.

This reflection by Ajahn Sumedho as recounted by Ajahn Jayasaro is from the booklet, Twain Shall Meet.

Ajahn Sumedho - 'Kamma and Rebirth'

Ajahn Sumedho - 'Kamma and Rebirth'

For peace of mind, when somebody does something wrong, recognize it as a kammic ornamentation. Thinking, ‘How dare they do that? How dare they say that? How many years have I been teaching now, giving myself up for the welfare of all sentient beings and I don’t get any thanks for it’ is an unpleasant mental state. It’s the result of wanting everybody else never to fail me and always live up to my expectations, or at least cause me no problems – of wanting people to be other than they are. 

But if I don’t expect you to be anything, I don’t create anyone in my mind. If I think, ‘That’s so and so, who did this, and then he did that’ I’m creating a person out of kammic conditions, and I suffer accordingly with an unpleasant memory every time I see you. And if you’re ignorant and do something to me, and I do the same to you, we just reinforce each other’s bad habits.

We break these habits by recognizing them, by letting go of our grudges and memories, and by not creating thoughts around the vipāka, the conditions of the moment. By being mindful we free ourselves from the burden of birth and death, the habitually recreated pattern of rebirth. 

We recognize the boring, habitual recreations of satisfactoriness, the obsessions with worry, doubt, fear, greed, hatred and delusion in all their forms. When we’re mindful, there’s no attachment to ideas and memories of self, and creativity is spontaneous.

There’s no one who loves or is loved; there’s no personal being who is created. In this way we find the real expression of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity which is always fresh, always kind, patient and ever-forgiving of oneself and others.

http://www.atamma.org/dhamma-documents/kamma-and-rebirth/

Learn to Listen and Trust ~ Ajahn Sumedho

Learn to Listen and Trust
~ Ajahn Sumedho

So awakeness, then, is learning to listen and trust in the most simple state of being. It’s not jhāna or absorption in anything. It’s pure attention. So if you trust in this purity, there is no fault in it. There are no faults in purity, are there? It’s perfect. There’s no impurity. This is where to trust, in this attentiveness to the present.

Once you try to find it, then you start going into doubt. Trust it rather than think about it. Just trust in the immanent act of being awake, attentive in this moment. When I do this, my mind relaxes. I hear the sound of silence. There’s no self. There’s purity. If I start feeling that I should be doing something, then I’m aware of it. I’m aware of the kamma-vipāka (result of action) of having been through the American education system and having driven myself through this incredibly compulsive way of living life. So the kamma-vipāka arises. In this state of purity, it’s not personal. It’s not saying, ‘Ajahn Sumedho is pure now.’ It’s beyond that.

You’re not talking about it in any kind of personal way. It’s a recognition, a realization. It’s what you truly are, not a creation. I’m not creating the purity. I’m not creating an ideal of it and then deluding myself with it.

This is where trust comes in, because your personality-view is not going to trust awareness. 

Your personality-view is going to say, ‘There’s nothing pure about you. You just had some dirty thoughts. 

You’re really feeling pretty upset and angry about something someone said about you. After all these years, you’re still filled with impurities.’ This is the old inner tyrant. This is the personality-view. It’s the victim and the victimizer. As the victim it says, ‘Poor me, I’m so impure,’ while as the accuser it says, ‘You’re not good enough, you’re impure.’

You can’t trust it. Don’t take refuge in being a victim or a victimizer. But you can trust in this awakened awareness. And that trust is humbling. It isn’t like believing in something. It’s learning to relax and be. 

Trust in the ability simply to be here, open and receptive to whatever is happening now. Even if what’s happening is nasty, or whatever the conditions you’re experiencing are, that’s not a problem if you trust in this purity.

This reflection by Luang Por Sumedho is from the Ajahn Sumedho Anthology, 

Volume 4 — The Sound of Silence.

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedho. PRAISEWORTHY ~ Ajahn Sumedho

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedho.
PRAISEWORTHY
~ Ajahn Sumedho

The advantages of community life lie in our ability to be sensitive and caring, to be considerate and thoughtful of other human beings. A life without generosity, respect and giving to others is a joyless life. 

Nothing is more joyless than selfishness.

If I think of myself first, what I want and what I can get out of this place, that means I might live here, but I will not have any joy living here. I might because of my seniority be able to intimidate, and because of my size be able to push my weight around and get my way, but I am not going to be joyful by doing that. 

Just asserting myself and getting my way is not the way to peacefulness, equanimity and serenity of the heart.

As we gain seniority in the Sangha, we have to think more about other people. We need to consider how to train and look after the juniors and how to help the seniors. Nothing is more depressing than to be in a community of bhikkhus who don’t really bother and just want to do what they want. They are so blind or self-centred they don’t look and see, they don’t ask, they don’t notice – you have to tell them everything. 

It is very frustrating to have to live with people who are not willing to put forth the effort to try to notice and to take on responsibility…

To offer one’s services and be eager to help is really praiseworthy. It is something I appreciate very much. It is not always what one wants to do, but it is a very lovely gesture and very important.

This reflection by Luang Por Sumedho is from the book, Peace is a Simple Step (Ajahn Sumedho Anthology, Volume 1), (pdf) pp.168, 172.

Universal Loving Kindness by Luang Phor Sumedho

Universal Loving Kindness
by Luang Phor Sumedho

..Metta, loving kindness, is an all-inclusive practice. Although liberation comes through letting go of our attachment to the conditioned world, if we concentrate on this alone we may develop an attitude which is excluding, almost annihilistic. The tendency will be to see conditions solely in terms of not being attached to them, or even trying to get rid of them. But with metta, we are relating to all conditioned experience with an attitude of kindness, accepting things as they are. 

Consider what this does to the mind as a practice. We contemplate all phenomena, all sentient beings, in terms of loving-kindness rather than in terms of which is best, which is worst, what we like, what we don’t like.

... Metta is non-discriminatory. It doesn't mean liking one thing rather than another, it isn't a question of singling out: "I love this person, I don't love that one." Ours is a highly critical society. We are brought up to emphasise what's wrong with ourselves, our family and friends, the government, the country, the world at large - and so we become very conscious of the negative. We see the fault in people or things and become obsessed with that, and are no longer able to see what's right about them. In practising metta, however, we deliberately avoid clinging to faults and weaknesses. We're not blind to them, we're not promoting them, rather we maintain an attitude of kindness and patience towards defects in ourselves and others.

... In contemplating the law of kamma, we realise that it is not a matter of seeking revenge but of practising metta and forgiveness, for the victimiser is, truly, the most unfortunate of all. 

There is a justice in the world. If we do wrong we may not be discovered and punished by society, but we don't get away with things. We must be reborn again and again until we do resolve our kamma. We don't know how many lifetimes we have had so far, but here we are in this incarnation, with our own particular character and kammic tendencies. We have had the good fortune to come across the Dhamma, and so we have been given great gifts with which to resolve things. But how many people have such opportunities? Considering the billions who now live on this planet, there really are very few who have that chance.

... The urge to seek revenge is a common human reaction, but in terms of the law of kamma we can contemplate it and ask, "Is that really how I want to conduct my life? Isn't it better to forgive and to develop compassion towards all sentient beings, demonic, angelic, whatever they may be?"

Generosity is, of itself, better than mean-heartedness. There is a joyfulness to it, for sharing brings gladness into our lives.

... Where we can get confused is that we have idealistic concepts of what we should be: "I shouldn't want to get my own back, I shouldn't have vengeful feelings for victimisers. Ajahn Sumedho says I should have metta for them!" Then we might feel, "No, I can't, it's too hard. I can have metta for everyone else, but not that person. He's totally hateful." But we can have metta for that very feeling - an attitude of kindness rather than criticism. We know it for what it is, we don't indulge it or repress it, we are simply patient with that particular state as it is in the present moment.

o o o 0 o o o

... The basic pattern of Theravadan Buddhist practice is dana, sila, bhavana - generosity, morality and meditation. Dana means simply to be a generous person, not selfish, able to share what one has with others; that is the basis for being a good human being. Generosity is highly developed in countries such as Thailand, and in general Thai people like themselves rather than hating themselves, as many of us do in the West. Generosity is, of itself, better than mean-heartedness. There is a joyfulness to it, for sharing brings gladness into our lives. With sila, morality, there are precepts to be kept, actions to refrain from; as we practise this we learn to take responsibility for our actions and speech. The two together, dana and sila, bring us a sense of self-respect. Then there is meditation, bhavana, through which we begin to relinquish all the delusions we have about 'self'. The whole process is one of purification.

... So as we meditate, we can even be glad when unpleasant states keep coming up! By having metta for these wretched creatures we lock away inside us, we're opening the door of the prison. We're letting them go, but it's out of compassion rather than the desire to be rid of them. If we contemplate it in this way, these things can be borne, because we are looking at them with wisdom, rather than seeing them as 'me' and 'my problems'. As long as they are 'mine', I can only hate myself for thinking or feeling that way.

... We are not trying to say it's something it is not, but with metta we allow it to be. We're willing to be with it and, as its nature is impermanent, it does not stay. In that willingness to let things be what they are we liberate ourselves from them. What is more, as we become increasingly skilful at releasing these habits, there is a sense of lightness, because the heart isn't burdened by guilt, dislike, blame and all the rest.

... In the Western world, especially, it is very important to develop this attitude of patience and non-aversion to everything about ourselves: our fears and desires, our emotional habits, our sicknesses, our physical aches and pains; to all the mental and physical phenomena we experience; to arthritis, cancer, crumbling bones, old age, all the rest of it. This doesn't mean we don't try to heal the body. To do so comes quite naturally, and we do the best we can. 

Trying to make the body feel well can be a loving-kindness towards it. But to hate the body because it's sick or painful or old leads to misery, and is an obstruction to spiritual development.

.. Practice is always in the present. Noting our experience, seeing it clearly, is in the present; we begin where we are now. We need to trust more in liberation in the present.

... By reminding ourselves to have metta for the feelings we experience – not thinking about them or analysing them but going to the place in the body itself, to the mental quality, really embracing that - really being willing to feel those particular emotions, they become bearable. 

By changing our attitude to one of acceptance rather than of rejection, to interest, rather than just wanting to get rid of them, we find that they are things we can tolerate. Then they cease on their own, for all conditions are impermanent.

... It is question of changing our attitude from, "I don't like this in myself, I want to get rid of it", to, "Oh, so this is what I'm feeling..." and having patience and a willingness to experience what is, in the present moment. This willingness to feel jealousy or anxiety enables us to take an interest in it as experience - because that which is aware is not worried, is not angry, is not the condition that is present. We start to develop confidence in this state of pure awareness. 

Through that patient attitude the conditioned realm stops being an endless struggle to control or get rid of things. More and more there is a sense of resting in the silence of the mind in that pure state of being in the present.

... In terms of Dhamma, it isn't a question of justifying our own weaknesses, it isn't some kind of cop-out. 

It is understanding that this is the nature of humanity, it is how things are. We are not ideals. Ideals are static, pure, unchanging, and yet we hold to them as how things should be, and despise ourselves because we can't be an ideal! But when we contemplate ourselves in terms of Dhamma we see that the body, the feelings, the consciousness, are constantly changing. We have so many things to deal with: first there are the instinctual drives of our basic animal nature - the need for food, for survival, and so forth - then our whole emotional range, and all the different things that have happened to us or that we've done. We tend to be so involved with life and to interpret it all in a very personal way. Sexual desire, for instance, becomes a personal problem rather than a natural energy which comes simply from having a body.

... But the natural state of the body is not that of some cold, sculpted piece of marble that holds its beauty under all conditions. It's soft, with blood coursing through it, it has nerves and various bodily functions, and we have to live with it. We have to bear the changing and ageing of this body and of the world around us. That is why meditating on impermanence helps us to break out of the assumption that somehow things should be fixed in an ideal state.

... Through seeing the impermanence in things, understanding that in this realm there can be no such thing as perfection, we begin to realise we don't have to waste our time on trying to control life, to force it to fit our fixed ideas. To attempt to do that is exhausting and debilitating. 

When we realise there is no need to do it, and begin to have this sense of flowing with life, then we feel, 

"This is my path, these conditions I experience are my kamma, and I'll work with them", rather than thinking, "Oh these conditions shouldn't be happening, I shouldn't have them. They're an obstruction to my path."

From Forest Sangha Newsletter, 

October 1997, Number 42

December 24, 2004

🙏 Anumodana: Kalyanamitta's photos

Bowing, an Opening of the Heart ~ Ajahn Sumedho

Bowing, an Opening of the Heart
~ Ajahn Sumedho

Bowing…this is another tradition. Learn how to bow mindfully, putting one’s head down, surrendering oneself physically, giving oneself in the act of bowing, instead of just saying, “I am not aggressive, I am not proud and arrogant.” If you get proud that you bow so well, or if you start hating people that do not bow, then … !

This is an act of devotion, and devotion is an opening of the heart, of the emotions rather than the intellect. 

“How much do I gain from bowing?” You can try to figure out its advantages or disadvantages, whether it’s the real Dhamma, or it’s necessary or unnecessary. But any opinion and view that you have about it is just another opinion and view.

Bowing is something that is done or not done - giving or not giving – but heedlessness is always this rationalisation, this wanting to criticise or analyse or find reasons for doing or not doing something. If we live our lives in wisdom, then we do or not do. With awareness, we know what to do – the generous, the beautiful, the kind, the spontaneous; good actions are done through awareness, through a seeing and understanding of time and place. Or there is awareness of not doing, of wrong impulses, selfish impulses – these we do not act upon.

This reflection by Ajahn Sumedho is from the book, Cittaviveka.

https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books2/Ajahn_Sumedho_Cittaviveka.htm

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedho

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedho

"Another experience I learned from was the custom of washing the feet of the senior monks when they returned from the almsround. 

After they walked barefoot through the villages and rice paddies, their feet would be muddy. There were foot baths outside the dining hall. 

When Ajahn Chah would come, all the monks – maybe twenty or thirty of them – would rush out and wash Ajahn Chah's feet. 

When I first saw this I thought, 'I'm not going to do that – not me!' Then the next day, thirty monks rushed out as soon as Ajahn Chah appeared and washed his feet – I thought, 'What a stupid thing to be doing – thirty monks washing one man's feet. I'm not going to do that.' 

The day after that, the reaction became even more violent ... thirty monks rushed out and washed Ajahn Chah's feet and ... 'That really angers me, I'm fed up with it!  I just feel that is the most stupid thing I've ever seen – thirty men going out to wash one man's feet!  He probably thinks he deserves it, you know – it's really building up his ego. 

He's probably got an enormous ego, having so many people wash his feet every day. I'll never do that!'  

I was beginning to build up a strong reaction, an overreaction. I would sit there really feeling miserable and angry. I'd look at the monks and I'd think, 'They all look stupid to me. I don't know what I'm doing here.' 

But then I started listening and I thought, 'This is really an unpleasant frame of mind to be in. Is it anything to get upset about? They haven't made me do it. It's all right; there's nothing wrong with thirty men washing one man's feet. It's not immoral or bad behaviour and maybe they enjoy it; maybe they want to do it – maybe it's all right to do that ... Maybe I should do it!' 

So the next morning, thirtyone monks ran out and washed Ajahn Chah's feet. There was no problem after that. It felt really good: that nasty thing in me had stopped."

~ Ajahn Sumedho

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedo.

"Sometimes insight arises at the most unexpected times. This happened to me while living at Wat Pah Pong. The Northeastern part of Thailand is not the most beautiful or desirable place in the world with its scrubby forests and flat plain; it also gets extremely hot during the hot season. 

We'd have to go out in the heat of the mid-afternoon before each of the Observance Days and sweep the leaves off the paths. There were vast areas to sweep. We would spend the whole afternoon in the hot sun, sweating and sweeping the leaves into piles with crude brooms; this was one of our duties. 

I didn't like doing this. I'd think, 'I don't want to do this. I didn't come here to sweep the leaves off the ground; I came here to get enlightened – and instead they have me sweeping leaves off the ground. Besides, it's hot and I have a fair skin; I might get skin cancer from being out here in a hot climate.' 

I was standing out there one afternoon, feeling really miserable, thinking, 'What am I doing here?  Why did I come here? Why am I staying here?' There I stood with my long crude broom and absolutely no energy, feeling sorry for myself and hating everything.

Then Ajahn Chah came up, smiled at me and said, 'Wat Pah Pong is a lot of suffering, isn't it?' and walked away. So I thought, 'Why did he say that?' and, 'Actually, you know, it's not all that bad.'  He got me to contemplate: 

Is sweeping the leaves really that unpleasant? ...  No, it's not.  It's a kind of neutral thing; you sweep the leaves, and it's neither here nor there ...  

Is sweating all that terrible?  Is it really a miserable, humiliating experience?  Is it really as bad as I'm pretending it is? ... No – sweating is all right, it's a perfectly natural thing to be doing.  And I don't have skin cancer and the people at Wat Pah Pong are very nice. The teacher is a very kind wise man.  The monks have treated me well.  The lay people come and give me food to eat, and ... What am I complaining about?' 

Reflecting upon the actual experience of being there, I thought, 'I'm all right.  People respect me, I'm treated well.  I'm being taught by pleasant people in a very pleasant country.  There's nothing really wrong with anything, except me; I'm making a problem out of it because I don't want to sweat and I don't want to sweep leaves.' Then I had a very clear insight. I suddenly perceived something in me which was always complaining and criticising, and which was preventing me from ever giving myself to anything or offering myself to any situation."

~ Ajahn Sumedho

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedho ~ Peace is a Simple Step

The teachings of Ajahn Sumedho 
~ Peace is a Simple Step

We are prone to having blind attachments. For example, say you’re locked up in a foul, stinking prison cell, and the Buddha comes and says, ‘Here’s the key. All you have to do is take it and put it in the hole there underneath the door handle, turn it to the right, turn the handle, open the door, walk out and you’re free.’ 

But you might be so used to being locked up in prison that you don’t quite understand the directions, so you say, ‘Oh, the Lord has given me this key’, and you hang it on the wall and pray to it every day. 

That might make your stay in prison a little more happy, you might be able to endure all the hardships and the stench of your foul-smelling cell a little better; but you’re still in the cell because you haven’t understood that it wasn’t the key in itself that was going to save you. Due to lack of intelligence and understanding, you just grasped the key blindly. 

That’s what happens in all religion; we just grasp the key to worship it, pray to it, but we don’t actually learn to use it. 

So the next time the Buddha comes and says, ‘Here’s the key’, you might be disillusioned and say, ‘I don’t believe any of this. I’ve been praying for years to that key and not a thing has happened! 

That Buddha is a liar!’ And you take the key and throw it out of the window. That’s the other extreme. But you’re still in the prison cell – so that hasn’t solved the problem either. 

But a few years later the Buddha comes again and says, ‘Here’s the key’, and this time you’re a little wiser and recognize the possibility of using it effectively, so you listen a little more closely, do the right thing and get out.

The key is like religious convention, like Theravada Buddhism: it’s only a key, only a form; it’s not an end in itself. 

We have to consider, and to contemplate how to use it. What is it for? 

We also have to expend the energy to get up, walk over to the door, insert the key in the lock, turn it in the right direction, turn the knob, open the door and walk out. The key is not going to do that for us; it’s something we have to carry out for ourselves. 

The convention itself cannot do it because it’s not capable of making the effort; it doesn’t have the energy or anything of its own other than what you put into it, just as the key can’t do anything for itself. Its usefulness depends on your efforts and wisdom.

The practice of the dhamma is learning to take a particular key and use it to open the door and walk out. Once you’re out, you know. There’s no more doubt.

— Ajahn Sumedho, 

Peace is a Simple Step

Who We Really Are By AJAHN SUMEDHO

Who We Really Are
By AJAHN SUMEDHO

There are different ideas about enlightenment: instant or gradual. Some may say: "Enlightenment is now", while others say thatit has to be done gradually, stage by stage, lifetime by lifetime. Both these are true - but not right, right but not true. They are just different ways of contemplating and reflecting on the experience of the moment. The idea of instant enlightenment is very appealing to the modern mind: one LSD tablet and we're there - without having to go through a monastic training or give up anything at all; instant enlightenment!

But we have to recognise the limitation of the thinking mind. These concepts - instant and gradual - are just ways of reflecting, they're not positions that we take. Take the word, 'enlightenment', itself: maybe we see it as some kind of absolutely fantastic experience in which we are completely taken over by the light and totally transformed from a selfish, deluded being into a completely wise one - seeing it as something very great and grand. Most of us feel that we cannot reach such a high state, because the personality view is very negative. We tend to emphasise what is wrong, our faults, weaknesses, our bad habits; these are seen as obstructions to this experience of enlightenment. But such thoughts cannot be trusted. So I often say to people: "Whatever you think you are, that's not what you are!"

The aim of Buddhist meditation is to let go of these conditions of the mind, which doesn't mean denying, or getting rid of, or judging them. It means not believing them or following them; instead we listen to them as Dhamma, as conditions of the mind that arise and cease.With an attitude of awakened, attentive awareness, we learn to trust in just being the listener, the watcher, rather than being somebody trying to meditate to get some kind of result.

Source: Who We Really Are

By AJAHN SUMEDHO

https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Ajahn_Sumedho_Who_We_Really_Are.htm

❖ Remembering Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa ❖

 ❖ Remembering Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa ❖

~ By Ajahn Sumedho ~

I’ve always regarded Ajahn Buddhadāsa, along with Luang Por Chah, as one of my primary teachers. I could relate to their way of teaching because it was so direct and simple. Ajahn Chah wasn’t intellectual at all – he hardly ever wrote anything – he always emphasized paṭipadā, practice. He said, “In Thailand monks read too much. They learn Pāli and Abhidhamma, but they don’t ever practice.” So he was trying to fill in a gap there by emphasizing paṭipadā.

In the 1960s Tan Buddhadāsa was very controversial in Thailand. He wrote a book called Tua Goo Khong Goo, which translated into English as Me and Mine, but everybody was shocked by this because it’s a coarse way of saying “me and mine.” I was teaching English for a while at Thammasat University in Bangkok before I ordained, and there they were talking about this monk and his book. I was trying to learn Thai and thought, “What’s wrong with that?” Of course Americans don’t have that structure, so it was quite unique to me. But then I realized Buddhadāsa was trying to shock Thais into trying to appreciate their own religion, kind of shake them up, because in those days, in the ‘60s, every Thai considered themselves a Buddhist, but it was a very ceremonial tamboon taam prapenee (traditional merit-making) kind of thing, and they didn’t know very much beyond it.

Before ordaining I studied with Tan Chao Khun Chodok, who led a meditation movement at Wat Mahathat in the Yup-Nor Pong-Nor style (focusing the mind on the surface of one’s abdomen as it rises and falls in time with one’s breath). In the morning I’d teach at Thammasat University, then I’d cross the street to Wat Mahathat and sit samādhi (meditation). So that was starting to take place, he was teaching even laypeople to meditate.

I became a bhikkhu in 1967 and went to Wat Pah Pong in Ubon for my first phansa, the rains retreat. I didn’t speak any Thai nor the Isaan dialect they use there, so I didn’t know what was happening most of the time. Luang Por Chah didn’t know any English at all, but there were two Thai bhikkhus who could speak English. So the first month these two monks would help translate and I would talk with Ajahn Chah, and he would instruct me through their translations. Then after a month these two bhikkhus left and I was there without any English-speaking people around me.

Luang Por Chah was always very good at saying things like, “to observe yourself, observe what arises in your mind.” Of course, when you’re thrown into a situation so extreme from what you’re used to – suddenly you’re in northeast Thailand in a very strict monastery with a discipline – it brought up all kinds of emotions. Because I’m from the United States, from California, I was used to a totally different expectation and lifestyle, and I felt a lot of negativity, just critical mind, and being confused and misinterpreting things. But Ajahn Chah’s genius was to get me to look at what I was thinking. Not to believe it but just to observe it in this anicca (impermanence) practice, the conditions of arising and ceasing. And so I could actually do that.

Luang Por Chah never physically met Ajahn Buddhadāsa, but he liked his teachings, so we had a lot of the literature from Suan Mokkh. They were publishing some of Buddhadāsa’s teachings in little thin pamphlets, and Ajahn Chah always encouraged us to read those. I learned to read Thai by reading, kind of translating or understanding Buddhadāsa. After three years at Wat Pah Pong in Ubon, you’re allowed to go on tudong, a wandering practice, so I went with a Thai monk from there to Suan Mokkh and met Tan Buddhadāsa...

(Reflections offered by Ajahn in 2015 at BIA. To read the full text of the article, please see: https://www.suanmokkh.org/articles/39)

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For other teachings by Luang Por Sumedho, please visit Amaravati Monastery website:

www.amaravati.org/speakers/ajahn-sumedho/ (Talks)

www.amaravati.org/book-authors/ajahn-sumedho/ (Books)

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Photograph: 'Ajahn Sumedho and Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa at Suan Mokkh in 1991' (Ref. Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives S-246)

Thoughts on Practice in a Thai Megalopolis ❖ ~ By Ajahn Sumedho ~

 ❖ Thoughts on Practice in a Thai Megalopolis ❖
~ By Ajahn Sumedho ~

(In response to the question, “May we have your suggestions regarding what else BIA could do, to support Ajahn’s projects and promote Buddha-Dhamma?”)

Well, I think you’re doing it at this center. It is a special place. Thai people are open, they want to know. I’ve seen significant change in the many years I’ve been connected to Thailand, especially in the middle class. People aren’t content with just old traditional Buddhism. There is this very pure tradition, it’s very strong in Thailand.

Buddhism does tend to get bogged down in ceremonies and traditional forms – not to put that down, because that kind of preserves the religion itself – but now is a time when Thai people, I think, are ready to develop more on the paṭipadā level, practice level.

And for that they need encouragement because, sometimes, meditation is presented like it’s too hard. I hear it all the time both from Thais and Western people about how difficult meditation is. They don’t have time, and maybe they’ve been practicing a long time and the result isn’t very good, or they’ve got too many emotional problems and things like this, so there are all kinds of believable excuses.

But that’s because they don’t understand what meditation really is about. It often times is presented as you got to really give up everything and shut yourself away in a cage until you’re enlightened. That’s one way of looking at it, but for modern people in a city like this, they can’t do that. The Buddha’s teaching is not about arranging conditions so that they don’t irritate you, it’s about awakening to the present moment.

Thai people in Bangkok have a lot of practice in patience, such as driving a car in the morning traffic jams, things like that.

You shouldn’t see that as an obstruction to meditation but as an opportunity. To observe – not to seek peace and calm – just observe the tendency to be frustrated when you can’t move or if you are stuck for a long time and you have an important appointment.

Things like this. You can observe this obsessive, anxious impatience in modern life. In the more rural areas – the old rice-growing communities in Isaan – they used to be very patient because they lived by the seasons, when rice was growing and when it wasn’t, and when there was harvesting. They had a lovely cultural quality, but that time is gone.

Now you’ve got modern technology, and people are educated and have information, but then there are traffic jams and pollution and environmental problems.

Everything is building up into worries and fears and what not. So it’s important to realize that with the Buddhist teachings you’re actually observing in yourself how you’re worried about the future, or you’re angry because the car in front of you won’t move. You’re not trying to get rid of the anger, but just to develop a sense of awareness that anger arises and ceases. It’s non-judgmental. It isn’t like you say: “Oh, I get angry too easily” and making it into a personal problem, but just notice the way it is, that whatever you’re experiencing right now is changing. If you just let it be what it is, it will naturally flow and end.

And so people begin to realize that it isn’t asking the impossible, or that you have to be a specially refined person or a gifted person to be able to do it. Just learn to get the right attitude and learn how to trust yourself more, not on a personal ego level, but from observing how things are.

When we do that, then we find our own personal problems fade out. But if you don’t know that, then your own personal problems can just become obsessive forms of anxiety and fear over sometimes nothing at all, like what the neighbor thinks of me – one can make up a whole scenario of paranoia just by grabbing hold of that one.

(*) Dhamma reflection offered by Ajahn to volunteers and staff on his first visit to BIA in January 2015, first-published here in August 2020 on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives.

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For other teachings by Luang Pu Sumedho, please visit Amaravati Monastery website:
www.amaravati.org/speakers/ajahn-sumedho/ (Talks)

www.amaravati.org/book-authors/ajahn-sumedho/ (Books)

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Photograph: 'Ajahn Sumedho at BIA' taken on 13 January 2015