itslikethis-ajahn-chah

Better & BetterWhen discernment arises, you can abandon your defilements. As yourdiscernment grows, your behavior will change. You’ll abandon your old ways.It’s like going into the forest to look for fruit. At first you find some fruit that’snot especially good, but even though it’s sour, you take it. You carry it in yourbasket until you find fruits that are better than that. You throw the old fruits outof your basket. It’s because you see that the new ones are better that you changewhat you’re carrying.The same with the mind: When you see the harm and drawbacks of yourold ways, you keep on abandoning them. The more you look, the more you keepon abandoning. When you practice, you’ll think, “This is it. This is good.” Butwhen you practice further—“Oh. What happened then wasn’t really refined.”So you abandon that, too.The CompassIt’s like having a compass that points north and south. You go into theforest carrying the compass with you, and it will still point north and south. Butsuppose that the day after you go into the forest you open your compass anddecide that the south end of the needle is pointing west, and the north end of theneedle is pointing east. That’s when you have to realize that it’s just a matter ofyour own thinking. You’re thinking wrong. The needle’s still pointing north andsouth all the time, but you understand that it’s pointing east and west. You“know” and you follow this kind of knowledge. But it’s an issue of yourthoughts, which you can dissolve; an issue of your feelings, which you candissolve. The compass is always pointing north and south, north and south, butyou feel that it’s pointing east and west. The mistake is with you.