Pure Inspiration

Chittapala – 109
obstacles will not arise tomorrow. One must continually examine the
mind to see that craving is not arising.
When studying, read the suttas (discourses) and select the most useful
parts for practice. It is not helpful to just read and read because one
tends to forget. Collect useful sections under headings. Study and
recitation are means only and are useful at certain times. Practice is
most important. Study can become just another piyarūpaṁ sātarūpaṁ
(dear and pleasing form), a condition for clinging. Concern with
words can take one in the wrong directions, one may become a scholar.
Going towards the ‘true idea’, one turns away from the ‘sign’. Going to
the sign, one goes away from the ‘true idea’. Recitation is very useful
to combat thīnamiddha (sloth and torpor), a great danger when one is
living alone). Contemplating the dhamma awakens the mind.
Sīla is the basis and should be kept perfectly. If there are occasional
light transgressions of the Pāṭimokkha (major disciplinary rules),
these can be rectified. Pāṭimokkha is only to do with speech and body,
but the ten kammapatha (ways of action) should be kept perfectly.
Mind is most important to look after, because then one’s speech and
bodily actions will fall into line. Don’t let vinaya become a ‘bugbear’.
Differences in practice (between monks) are not so important. If
practice is not clung to and one is firm in it, that is okay.
It is difficult when one is young to go out alone. I wouldn’t advise
cārikā at all because one meets so many things, one is continually
confronted with sense objects. Before setting out, one must be
established in asubhasaññā and aniccasaññā (the perceptions of
unattractiveness and impermanence). On cārikā, one must consider
whether the mind is developing well and whether one is affected by