Luang Por Liem: The Ways of the Peaceful - Wat Pah Nanachat

permanent. All these are just states of mind that, after having
arisen, will naturally have to cease.
By understanding our experiences like this, we won’t get lost
thinking, “this is good” or “this is bad”. These kinds of thoughts
are just attributes of delusion and wrong view – nothing else, so
the Buddha taught us to focus and reflect on seeing them as
phenomena of the mind 7 – being born, existing and passing away.
There is no need for one to be a slave of these processes, a slave
of the world, or a slave of the defilements of pleasant and
unpleasant feelings. One should see that these processes always
imply a feeling that something is lacking. They are of the kind
that one can say is never full, that doesn’t know the point when
there’s enough – just like a flame can never get enough fuel.
Focusing on these processes as simply arising, existing and
passing away, we are able to turn ourselves away from them. We
can get out of the situation not becoming slaves of desires or
tanha, craving. Generally, tanha is a feeling that is coupled with
dukkha, a feeling that is difficult to bear with, a feeling of nonfreedom.
We need to investigate these feelings, and this will bring
us to experience peace of mind – peace from pleasant and
unpleasant feeling. We can live like samanas then, like “peaceful
ones”.
Let us take these meditation objects and develop them, apply
them and bring them to life, so that we know this world. Knowing
the world, we know this reality, and what our human birth is
about. Being a true human being means being somebody who
7 namadhamma: mental phenomena, as opposed to rupadhamma, the
phenomena of the physical world (literally: form).
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