A community practicing understanding and loving kindness may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
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When our heart is filled with loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, its capacity becomes boundless, immeasurable. With such a vast heart, immense as the wide-open sea, suffering cannot overpower us, just as a small handful of salt cannot make a great river salty. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Real love is wisdom. What most people think of as love is just an impermanent feeling. If you have a nice taste every day, you will soon get tired of it. In the same way, such love eventually turns into hatred and sorrow. Such worldly happiness involves clinging and is always tied up with suffering, which comes like the policeman following the thief.
Nevertheless, we cannot suppress nor forbid such feelings. We just should not cling to or identify with them but should know them for what they are. Then Dharma is present. One loves another, yet eventually the beloved leaves or dies. To lament and think longingly, grasping after that which has changed, is suffering, not love. When we are at one with this truth and no longer need or desire, wisdom and the real love that transcends desire fill our world. ~Ajahn Chah
People who lack compassion, love, and forgiveness suffer a lot.
When you can forgive, when you can accept, you feel light,
you can relate to other living beings.
Without compassion, you are utterly alone.
That is why compassion is the ground of happiness.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Control of the eye is good; good is control of the ear;
control of the nose is good; good is control of the tongue.
Control of the body is good; good is control of speech;
control of thought is good; good is control of all things.
A mendicant controlled in all things is freed from sorrow.
Whoever controls one’s hand, whoever controls one’s feet,
whoever controls one’s speech, whoever is well-controlled,
whoever finds inner joy, who is collected,
who is alone and content they call a mendicant.
The mendicant who controls one’s tongue,
who speaks wisely and calmly, who is not proud,
who illuminates the meaning of the truth,
that one’s words are sweet.
Whoever lives in the truth, who finds joy in the truth,
meditates on the truth, follows the truth,
that mendicant does not fall away from the truth.
Let one not despise what one has received
nor envy others.
A mendicant who envies others does not find peace.
A mendicant, who, though receiving little,
does not despise what one has received,
even the gods praise, if one’s life is pure and not lazy.
Whoever never identifies with name and form
and whoever does not grieve from not having anything
is called a mendicant.
The mendicant who lives in friendliness
with confidence in the doctrine of the Buddha
will find peace, the blessed place where existence ends.
Empty the boat, mendicant;
when emptied it will go quickly.
Having cut off desire and hate, you will go to freedom.
Cut off the five; get rid of the five; master the five.
A mendicant who has freed oneself from the five chains
is called “one who has crossed the flood.”Meditate, mendicant; do not be careless.
Do not think of pleasures
so that you may not for your carelessness
have to swallow the iron ball,
so that you may not cry out when burning, “This is painful!”
There is no meditation for one without wisdom,
no wisdom for one without meditation;
whoever has wisdom and meditation is close to nirvana.
A mendicant who with a peaceful heart
has entered an empty house,
has more than human joy when seeing the truth clearly.
When one has comprehended
the origin and destruction of the elements of the body,
one finds happiness and joy
which belong to those who know the eternal.
This is the beginning here for a wise mendicant:
control of the senses, contentment,
living according to the moral law,
associating with friends
who are noble, pure, and not lazy.
Let one live in love;
let one be adept in one’s duties;
then joyfully one will see the end of sorrow.
As the jasmine sheds its withered flowers,
people should shed desire and hate, mendicants.
A mendicant is said to be calm
who has a calm body, calm speech, and a calm mind,
who has mastered oneself
and rejected the baits of the world.
Lift up your self by yourself;
examine your self by yourself.
Thus self-protected and attentive
you will live joyfully, mendicant.
For self is the master of self;
self is the refuge of self.
therefore tame yourself,
like a merchant tames a noble horse.
Joyful and faithful in the doctrine of the Buddha,
the mendicant finds peace,
the joy of ending natural existence.
Whoever, even as a young mendicant,
applies oneself to the path of the Buddha
illuminates this world,
like the moon when free from clouds.
~The Dhammapada
I shall endure painful words
as the elephant in battle endures arrows shot from the bow;
for most people are ill-natured.
They lead a tamed elephant into battle;
the king mounts a tamed elephant.
The tamed are the best of people,
who endure patiently painful words.
Mules are good, if tamed,
and noble Sindhu horses and elephants with large tusks;
but whoever tames oneself is better still.
For with these animals no one reaches the untrodden country
where a tamed person goes on one’s own tamed nature.
The elephant called Dhanapalaka is hard to control
when his temples are running with pungent sap.
He does not eat a morsel when bound;
the elephant longs for the elephant grove.
If one becomes lazy and a glutton,
rolling oneself about in gross sleep,
like a hog fed on grains,
that fool is born again and again.
This mind of mine used to wander
as it liked, as it desired, as it pleased.
I shall now control it thoroughly,
as the rider holding the hook controls the elephant in rut.
Do not be thoughtless; watch your thoughts.
Extricate yourself from the wrong path,
like an elephant sunk in the mud.
If you find an intelligent companion
who will walk with you,
who lives wisely, soberly, overcoming all dangers,
walk with that person in joy and thoughtfulness.
If you find no intelligent companion
who will walk with you,
who lives wisely and soberly,
walk alone like a king who has renounced a conquered kingdom
or like an elephant in the forest.
It is better to live alone;
there is no companionship with a fool.
Let a person walk alone with few wishes, committing no wrong,
like an elephant in the forest.
Companions are pleasant when an occasion arises;
sharing enjoyment is pleasant.
At the hour of death it is pleasant to have done good.
The giving up of all sorrow is pleasant.
Motherhood is pleasant in this world;
fatherhood is pleasant.
Being an ascetic is pleasant;
being a holy person is pleasant.
Virtue lasting to old age is pleasant;
faith firmly rooted is pleasant;
attainment of wisdom is pleasant;
avoiding wrong is pleasant.
~The Dhammapada
By Ajahn Chah
Some people die, some people almost die — that’s how it is to be stuck in the way of the world. Worldly wisdom seeks after the senses and their objects. However wise it is, it’s only wise in a worldly sense. No matter how appealing it is, it’s only appealing in a worldly sense. However much happiness it is, it’s only happiness in a worldly sense. It isn’t the happiness of liberation; it won’t free you from the world.
We have come to practice as monks in order to penetrate true wisdom, to rid ourselves of attachment. Practice to be free of attachment! Investigate the body, investigate everything around you until you become weary and fed up with it all and then dispassion will set in. Dispassion will not arise easily however, because you still don’t see clearly.
We come and ordain — we study, we read, we practice, we meditate. We determine to make our minds resolute but it’s hard to do. We resolve to do a certain practice, we say that we’ll practice in this way — only a day or two goes by, maybe just a few hours pass and we forget all about it. Then we remember and try to make our minds firm again, thinking, “This time I’ll do it right!” Shortly after that we are pulled away by one of our senses and it all falls apart again, so we have to start all over again! This is how it is.
Like a poorly built dam, our practice is weak. We are still unable to see and follow true practice. And it goes on like this until we arrive at true wisdom. Once we penetrate to the Truth, we are freed from everything. Only peace remains.
Our minds aren’t peaceful because of our old habits. We inherit these because of our past actions and thus they follow us around and constantly plague us. We struggle and search for a way out, but we’re bound by them and they pull us back. These habits don’t forget their old grounds. They grab onto all the old familiar things to use, to admire and to consume — that’s how we live.
The sexes of man and woman — woman cause problems for men, men cause problems for women. That’s the way it is, they are opposites. If men live together with men, then there’s no trouble. If women live together with women, then there’s no trouble. When a man sees a woman his heart pounds like a rice pounder, “deung, dung, deung, dung, deung, dung.” What is this? What are those forces? It pulls and sucks you in — no one realizes that there’s a price to pay!
It’s the same in everything. No matter how hard you try to free yourself, until you see the value of freedom and the pain in bondage, you won’t be able to let go. People usually just practice enduring hardships, keeping the discipline, following the form blindly and not in order to attain freedom or liberation. You must see the value in letting go of your desires before you can really practice; only then is true practice possible.
Everything that you do must be done with clarity and awareness. When you see clearly, there will no longer be any need for enduring or forcing yourself. You have difficulties and are burdened because you miss this point! Peace comes from doing things completely with your whole body and mind. Whatever is left undone leaves you with a feeling of discontent. These things bind you with worry wherever you go. You want to complete everything, but it’s impossible to get it all done.
Take the case of the merchants who regularly come here to see me. They say, “Oh, when my debts are all paid and property in order, I’ll come to ordain.” They talk like that but will they ever finish and get it all in order? There’s no end to it. They pay up their debts with another loan, they pay off that one and do it all again. A merchant thinks that if he frees himself from debt he will be happy, but there’s no end to paying things off. That’s the way worldliness fools us — we go around and around like this never realizing our predicament.
By Ajahn Chah
The Buddha talked about desire and the six things by which desire is gratified: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch and mind-objects. Desire and lust for happiness, for suffering, for good, for evil and so on, pervade everything!
Sights…there isn’t any sight that’s quite the same as that of a woman. Isn’t that so? Doesn’t a really attractive woman make you want to look? One with a really attractive figure comes walking along, “sak, sek, sak, sek, sak, sek,” — you can’t help but stare! How about sounds? There’s no sound that grips you more than that of a woman. It pierces your heart! Smell is the same; a woman’s fragrance is the most alluring of all. There’s no other smell that’s quite the same. Taste — even the taste of the most delicious food cannot compare with that of a woman. Touch is similar; when you caress a woman you are stunned, intoxicated and sent pinning all around.
There was once a famous master of magical spells from Taxila in ancient India. He taught his disciple all his knowledge of charms and incantations. When the disciple was well-versed and ready to fare on his own, he left with this final instruction from his teacher, “I have taught you all that I know of spells, incantations and protective verses. Creatures with sharp teeth, antlers or horns, and even big tusks, you have no need to fear. You will be guarded from all of these, I can guarantee that. However, there is only one thing that I cannot ensure protection against, and that is the charms of a woman.[4] I can not help you here. There’s no spell for protection against this one, you’ll have to look after yourself.”
Mental objects arise in the mind. They are born out of desire: desire for valuable possessions, desire to be rich, and just restless seeking after things in general. This type of greed isn’t all that deep or strong, it isn’t enough to make you faint or lose control. However, when sexual desire arises, you’re thrown off balance and lose your control. You would even forget those raised and brought you up — your own parents!
The Buddha taught that the objects of our senses are a trap — a trap of Mara’s.[5] Mara should be understood as something which harms us. The trap is something which binds us, the same as a snare. It’s a trap of Mara’s, a hunter’s snare, and the hunter is Mara. Continue reading
Like flowers and fruit in the wind they, too, fall in different stages of life. Some people die while still in the womb, others within only a few days after birth. Some people live for a few years then die, never having reached maturity. Men and women die in their youth. Still others reach a ripe old age before they die. When reflecting upon people, consider the nature of fruit in the wind: both are very uncertain. ~Ajahn Chah
A Dhammatalk by Ajahn Chah
In every home and every community, whether we live in the city, the countryside, the forests or the mountains, we are the same in experiencing happiness and suffering. So many of us lack a place of refuge, a field or garden where we can cultivate positive qualities of heart. We experience this spiritual poverty because we don’t really have commitment; we don’t have clear understanding of what this life is all about and what we ought to be doing. From childhood and youth until adulthood, we only learn to seek enjoyment and take delight in the things of the senses. We never think that danger will threaten us as we go about our lives, making a family and so on.
If we don’t have land to till and a home to live in, we are without an external refuge and our lives are filled with difficulty and distress. Beyond that, there is the inner lack of not having sīla and Dhamma in our lives, of not going to hear teachings and practice Dhamma. As a result there is little wisdom in our lives and everything regresses and degenerates. The Buddha, our supreme teacher, had mettā (loving-kindness) for beings. He led sons and daughters of good family to be ordained, to practice and realize the truth, to establish and spread the Dhamma to show people how to live in happiness in their daily lives. He taught the proper ways to earn a livelihood, to be moderate and thrifty in managing finances, to act without carelessness in all affairs.
But when we are lacking in both ways, externally in the material supports for life and internally in spiritual supports as well, then as time goes by and the number of people grows, the delusion and poverty and difficulty become causes for us to grow further and further estranged from Dhamma. We aren’t interested in seeking the Dhamma because of our difficult circumstances. Even if there is a monastery nearby, we don’t feel much like going to listen to teachings because we are obsessed with our poverty and troubles and the difficulty of merely supporting our lives. But the Lord Buddha taught that no matter how poor we may be, we should not let it impoverish our hearts and starve our wisdom. Even if there are floods inundating our fields, our villages and our homes to the point where it is beyond our capability to do anything, the Buddha taught us not to let it flood and overcome the heart. Flooding the heart means that we lose sight of and have no knowledge of the Dhamma.
There is the ogha (flood) of sensuality, the flood of becoming, the flood of views and the flood of ignorance. These four obscure and envelop the hearts of beings. They are worse than water that floods our fields, our villages or our towns. Even if water floods our fields again and again over the years, or fire burns down our homes, we still have our minds. If our minds have sıla and Dhamma we can use our wisdom and find ways to earn a living and support ourselves. We can acquire land again and make a new start. Continue reading
