Simply This Moment - Buddhist Meditation and Theravada ...

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mutti is releasing and anālaya is not letting anything find a roosting place in yourmind, not having a place where things can stick. I told someone this evening that,“With a ‘Teflon mind’ the thoughts and ideas don’t stick, they just slip away”.With these Dhamma teachings in the mind it becomes very easy to succeed inmeditation. You understand what you are doing and that helps the meditation. Youbegin to understand what it is you are doing that is obstructing success in themeditation. As far as this meditation is concerned, if you really practise the thirdnoble truth, if you really do let go without exception, freely opening up and nothaving a place where things can stick in the mind, you will find the mind opens upand becomes very peaceful and quiet. The mind goes through the stages of meditationall the way into the jhānas. It’s the natural unfolding of the peaceful mind.So often when we’re practising our meditation, we are following the second nobletruth instead, that is craving. It is concern for things in the world, and thoughts aboutthe past and the future. It is thoughts about family, thoughts about our health;thoughts about our comfort and our bodies, thoughts about the sounds that otherpeople are making, thoughts about heat and cold, thoughts about what you’re going todo tomorrow, thoughts about when you are going to do it, and where you are going togo. All of those thoughts are the concerns of the five-sense world. In Pāli they arekāma tahā: craving for comfort, for satisfaction, for fulfilment, for success in theworld of the five senses.We should know now from our own experience and through the Dhamma – theteachings of the Buddha, the four noble truths – that this concern is not the way ofpeace, of happiness, or of release in one’s meditation. It will only produce moresuffering, more frustration, more disappointment, and more pain in the mind. This iswhat is meant by ‘cause and effect’. We know where this path will lead us if wefollow it. So we should know that whenever there is pain, frustration, or despair inthe mind we have to work back to find the craving which is the cause. Learn fromyour mistakes. Learn from the wrong attitudes of the mind. Don’t be foolish andgenerate suffering, suffering, suffering, for your whole life and through many lives,through many world cycles. Don’t be stupid, learn from experience. If it’s suffering,85
if it’s despair, frustration, disappointment, or whatever, it is something to do with thefirst noble truth. The craving to be always comes from the illusion of self, attā.People often have very strong egos and a very strong sense of self from pride. Theyare the ones who find it very difficult to meditate.Sometimes one needs to develop humility, the ability to surrender. I notice thatpeople who have enormous faith are usually the ones who have an easier time doingthe meditation. They get into deep states of meditation because of faith in theteaching and faith in a teacher. Faith in the Buddha is something that overcomes faithin ones ego. Everyone has some sort of faith, some sort of belief, but so often it isbelief in oneself; in one’s own wisdom, in one’s own intelligence, in ones ownknowledge and that very often obstructs the progress on the path.When I teach retreats I often see this. Some of the Asian meditators are able to go fardeeper in their meditation, because generally speaking they trust what a monk says,they don’t argue with it, they don’t think twice about it, they just do it. They followthe instructions and it works. In contrast many Westerners are so independent,basically so conceited and arrogant, that sometimes we don’t want to follow what theteacher says, or what the Buddha says. We want to find out in our own way what wethink must be right. When one is not yet a Stream Winner that belief in ones ownideas and views is very uncertain, it creates so much of a burden, so much of anobstacle in your monastic life. Be careful what you put your faith in. As you knowfaith or saddhā, is one of the five spiritual qualities, the five indriyas. It’s veryimportant to have faith at the beginning of your practice because you haven’t grownin paññā, in wisdom yet. When one has gained wisdom, then that faith is confirmed.You are stronger in the faith because you have seen that truth for yourself. AjahnChah used to say that when you have been a monk for five years you have five percent of wisdom. Someone asked, “Does that mean when you have four years as amonk that you have four per cent wisdom?” He said, “No, when you’ve got fouryears you’ve got zero wisdom”. What he said was very wise: if you’ve got zerowisdom you have to accept it and do as you are told. Trust in Ajahn Chah and you’llgo much further than if you trust in yourself. I’ve seen that degree of faith, thatdegree of surrender, in some of the Asian meditators and because of that they follow86
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Simply ThisMoment!A COLLECTION OF T
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CONTENTSPage1 Ways and Means into J
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This gives one great insights into
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ūpaloka, even though we are only a
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too much body-awareness. With body-
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and thoughts - apart from the exper
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faculty of the mind to sustain and
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- and this is a natural phenomena -
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involved I stress the word ‘fully
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though he was a Noble disciple pass
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Anyone who claims the experience of
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Sometimes people have so little con
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the shelf and we know how this whol
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The Delusion of Freedom‘That whic
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monk telling me once that his fathe
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say that in the Anupada Sutta (MN 1
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it’s been still for a long time,
Page 36 and 37: 3 DETOXIFYING THE MIND2 nd of Febru
Page 38 and 39: consciousness - or as I would prefe
Page 40 and 41: is letting go of the pleasures of t
Page 42 and 43: never overcome thirst in that way.
Page 44 and 45: Use the triple practice of sãla, s
Page 46 and 47: after another, hundreds, thousands
Page 48 and 49: much fire in their minds. This is w
Page 50 and 51: 4 LOOKING FOR THE SWEET CHILLISeeki
Page 52 and 53: Listening to fine music. Is this it
Page 54 and 55: freedom is not freedom at all becau
Page 56 and 57: We have a story in Buddhism of the
Page 58 and 59: This is real contentment! This is r
Page 60 and 61: Watch this inner conversation going
Page 62 and 63: monastic life does respect the sile
Page 64 and 65: delusion because it has kept us goi
Page 66 and 67: This is the opposite of suffering.
Page 68 and 69: ight view. It’s very hard for a h
Page 70 and 71: always be on the wrong path, and on
Page 72 and 73: “Look, if this is causing sufferi
Page 74 and 75: out of control. The monastery goes
Page 76 and 77: the past and the future, and we’r
Page 78 and 79: at all. Who can trust memory? In me
Page 80 and 81: can. Give it full attention every m
Page 82 and 83: in the morning, afternoon or evenin
Page 84 and 85: yourself from all that’s happened
Page 88 and 89: instructions without question.It’
Page 90: comes into the mind, then we start
Page 93 and 94: hold in the mind’s eye and I was
Page 95 and 96: of letting go, not stages of attach
Page 97 and 98: Sayutta there is something that imp
Page 99 and 100: pushes you out of sasāra whether y
Page 101 and 102: 7 DHAMMA PRACTICE10 th May 2000I’
Page 103 and 104: Adult people look after their own k
Page 105 and 106: many people in the world who write
Page 107 and 108: What if you make that your goal, an
Page 109 and 110: things really complicated. It’s s
Page 111 and 112: ‘The monks here, or the teacher,
Page 113 and 114: and surrender to the path. Surrende
Page 115 and 116: 8 HUMAN RIGHTS IN BUDDHISMDhammalok
Page 117 and 118: doesn’t really have any meaning o
Page 119 and 120: These things are not freedoms, they
Page 121 and 122: told me in Malaysia and Singapore t
Page 123 and 124: When Jerusalem fell in 70AD, becaus
Page 125 and 126: To question is a right for people.
Page 127 and 128: embarrassed by my fellow Buddhists.
Page 129 and 130: many countries between laws which a
Page 131 and 132: It’s a very narrow truth. The tru
Page 133 and 134: guilty you have to be punished! You
Page 135 and 136: the Zendo - but the more you smile
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Having planed off the rough parts,
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got the flu and cancelled your appo
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I was taught to choose to watch the
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From Diversity to UnityMeditation i
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usually if someone is dead they wou
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There are other cases like that. On
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10 CONDITIONED REALITYDhammaloka Bu
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The Buddha very clearly outlined th
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even your bare perception is alread
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way, there has to be some other exp
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Seeing Truth and RealityI want part
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talked with one of the people - who
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was able to follow to get into deep
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ideas are not actually the true Nib
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that the air around it is not movin
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and find out what that pain really
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mantras, all words of instructions,
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just observing. Surely the thinking
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without valuing, without weighing o
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so difficult to attain. It is becau
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12 REFLECTIONS THAT ARE CONDUCIVETO
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the mind, and that’s the jhānas.
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need the calm which is developed by
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can try it with virāga.VirāgaPeop
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with all of its difficulties and al
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clinging stops us from experiencing
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the thirteenth giving up the critic
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13 THE OUTFLOWINGS OF THE MIND12 th
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from peace. The will ‘to be’ is
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the future, to fantasies, to the pa
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taught here. Going into the present
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that the core of all this is ‘emp
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14 STARVING THE TIGER TO DEATHOverc
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inappropriate for a monk to be doin
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When a person really understands wh
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getting angry and upset. This way y
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You will find simplicity means that
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use them to make progress in your m
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By developing seclusion from all th
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People in the world say everything
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15 THE LAW OF CONDITIONALITY3 rd Ja
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elate that sort of smell to a very
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When you start to see the will ceas
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up. You see that anger is not the c
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Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a
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Once you can see this whole cause a
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whether you like it or not. So you
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anymore than you can break the laws
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is the barrier of the five hindranc
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experiences, resting on them, based
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attention to the sensory world, we
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Instead of having kāmacchanda we h
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distraction of ill-will? Outside, w
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Sloth and TorporSloth and torpor ar
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wherever you want mind, I’m compl
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Wherever there’s thinking, it goe
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17 I KNOW YOU MĀRA25 th August 200
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“Come on, who do you think you ar
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you don’t have a clue, that so ma
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unfolding. In fact, the more you le
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they’ve got into that habit. What
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As the Buddha said in the Indriya S
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about anything because worrying is
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seeing clearly. Sometimes people ge
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There is just so much happiness. Th
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see so much detail. It was always t
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after us, yet there is this loud mu
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When you start to see that, it’s
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this. So if we see where that disco
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mindfulness, you get pīti, more jo
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you can meditate, you can teach, be
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and restlessness cannot survive. Th
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19 PERFECT STILLNESS29 th June 2005
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Have You Come Here to Die?At one re
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At the last retreat I taught in Ipo
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process is about. You also understa
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go of everything. Letting go is wha
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the moment. It doesn’t matter wha
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moving up and down, the nimmitta is
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So, look upon your life as a journe
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Nirodha. Nirodha means cessation, t
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20 THE ENDING OF EVERYTHING7 th Dec
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delusion, to think of things as bei
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samatha and also the word upasama b
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quoting the suttas here; they are t
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I was talking earlier this evening
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opposite is true. The less ‘self
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senses are. Before that it’s just
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The mind creates; this is what it d
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Get into the jhānas, the real jhā
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whatever things come into existence
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2. Dukkha - suffering.3. Anattā -
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Painissagga: “Letting go”, aban
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