Ajahn Chah Quotes
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Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.
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In practice, some come to see easily, some with difficulty. But whatever the case, never mind. Difficult or easy, the Buddha said not to be heedless. Just that--don't be heedless. Why? Because life is not certain. Wherever we start to think that things are certain, uncertainty is lurking right there. Heedlessness is just holding things as certain. It is grasping at certainty where there is no certainty and looking for truth in things that are not true. Be careful! They are likely to bite you sometime in the future!
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Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again.
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When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body -- it will all get conquered like this.
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Sati is life. Whenever we don't have sati, when we are heedless, it's as if we are dead.
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Letting go a little brings a little peace. Letting go a lot brings a lot of peace. Letting go completely brings complete peace.
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If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer
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There are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That's how far away they live from themselves
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Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.
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At some point your heart will tell itself what to do.
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We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything.
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The one who recognizes the uncertainty of phenomena is the Dharma within you.
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If you let go completely you will have complete peace.
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Don’t be attached to visions or lights in meditation, don’t rise or fall with them. What’s so great about brightness? My flashlight has it. It can’t help us rid ourselves of our suffering.
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Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.
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You say that you are too busy to meditate. Do you have time to breathe? Meditation is your breath. Why do you have time to breathe but not to meditate? Breathing is something vital to peoples lives. If you see that Dhamma practice is vital to your life, then you will feel that breathing and practising the Dhamma are equally important.
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If it isn't good, let it die. If it doesn't die, make it good.
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If we want to really see the Buddha, we should observe his virtuous qualities. Whatever he taught, we should practise it. Only bowing to him is not enough. We need to renounce, give up, stop, so that we may see the Buddha.
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When we sit in meditation and hear a sound, we think, 'Oh, that sound's bothering me.' If we see it like this, we suffer. But if we investigate a little deeper, we see that the sound is simply sound. If we understand like this, then there's nothing more to it. We leave it be. The sound is just sound, why should you go and grab it? You see that actually it was you who went out and disturbed the sound.
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Regarding this Dhamma, it is not something that we can simply talk about or take another's word for it. We need to develop meditation so that the understanding arises clearly within oneself. It is not the case that merely by listening to another's explanation our defilements will disappear. When we gain some understanding we need to chew on it again so that we see it for ourselves with certainty: paccattam.
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Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free.
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The mind is intrinsically tranquil. Out of this tranquility, anxiety and confusion are born. If one sees and knows this confusion, then the mind is tranquil once more.
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You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.
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The heart is just the heart; thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. Let things be just as they are.