There are true ones and false ones. Are you self-aware? Awareness of the breath is something else. You can't base the meaning of your life on these things — and you don't have to. What's really scary is if you don't meditate enough for the problems to come out in the open in the first place. So you have to regard them as not being yours. Keep making a focused investigation until you reach the strategic point. A person may not realize for much of their life why they act the way they do until they become self-aware. ", Ajaan Fuang's answer: "Don't Westerners have hearts? ", § "Whatever work you're doing, keep an eye on your mind. There's suffering in every life — as long as there are the five khandhas, there has to be suffering — but if you really come to know, you can live in ease. And as for your true refuge — buddha — that's the awareness that lies further within. § "When you die don't get caught up on the symptoms of dying. But if a monk complained that the monastery attendants weren't doing as they were told, he'd say, "Did you ordain to have other people wait on you? We "here" are not aware of a thing "out there," with our awareness detecting it by stretching from where we are to where it is. So we give it work to do. ", § "When the meditation goes well, don't get excited. It so happened that she had frequent visions in her meditation, and so hearing this made her wonder why her path was so winding and convoluted. In fact, I usually end up with more energy than when I started. So learn how to squeeze out their uses and leave the dangers behind.". Keep on examining the body and dealing with the breath no matter what happens, because the important point is that you're training your mindfulness to stay with the body, to the point where it's strong enough to go above and beyond pain. The mind helps the breath, and the breath helps the mind until they can get fully acquainted. ", § A few months later the same nurse was sitting in meditation when a sense of peace and clarity in her mind became so intense that she felt she would never have a bad mood infiltrate her mind again. Just look at it. You've been born and died countless aeons. As they flew up into the sky, the turtle got to see many, many things he had never dreamed about on the earth below, and was having the time of his life. You've let go. Looking out to the south, in the inky darkness, they could see the bright lights of the fishing boats far out at sea. If you want to make merit, go ahead and do it on the day the thought occurs to you. ", § "Don't think that the small disciplinary rules aren't important. When you look at the breath you'll see that it doesn't have a body — no head, no legs, no hands, no feet, nothing at all. ", § A Bangkok housewife who was practicing meditation with Ajaan Fuang heard some of his other students say that meditation without visions was the straight path. Once you are fully aware of the aspects of the breath you already know in your body, you'll come to know all sorts of other aspects as well. ", § "Make the mind and the breath one and the same. As long as you stick with the practice, you won't fall back. After paying their respects, they asked for his prawat, or personal history. 9 Know you are one, Pure awareness. ", § "If you go teaching others before your own practice is up to standard, you do more harm than good. Thanks! If they don't learn the right way to deal with their visions, they'll get stuck on them and never be able to reach any higher level than that. ", § "When you're sick you have a golden opportunity. Then let go of that awareness, together with whatever knowledge you've gained, and there won't be anything left. In her vision she saw King Asoka beating her father mercilessly over a trivial infraction of palace etiquette. ", § "You can't plan the way your practice is going to go. Sabbe dhamma anatta: Everything that arises, the Buddha said, is inconstant and not self. ", § "A person who goes from teacher to teacher doesn't really have any teachers at all. ", § "When we see Hindus worshiping Siva lingas it looks strange to us, but actually everyone in the world worships the Siva linga — i.e., they worship sex, simply that the Hindus are the only ones who are open about it. We simply make up names for them. There will have to be bad days along with the good. If you're dense, you won't see it, you won't catch on to it, you won't go beyond birth and death.". ", § "When the breath fills the body, it's like water filling a jar to the brim. Impermanent. Examine it to see what's what, and that's when another level of insight will arise. Just stay with the present — that's enough. He replied, "The next time they say that, tell them — 'Look, I'm not practicing the Dhamma to be stupid. You can contemplate the pains that arise from your illness. But is it always what's really good for you? You have to go into the details like this if you want to gain anything good from it. If you want to pull it out in bunches, okay, but you have to replant it one hair at a time. ", § "When teaching people, you have to teach them in line with their temperaments and aptitudes, but eventually they all come to the same point: letting go. Ajaan Fuang assured him that it wouldn't: "We're going to focus on the breath. The defilements were part and parcel of this world long before you came. That's why you should practice letting go well in advance so that you can be good at it. Ajaan Fuang had me write a letter in response, saying, "Do things ever say that they're inconstant, stressful, and not self? When its lifespan is up, it'll go away on its own. ", § A woman came to Wat Dhammasathit to observe the precepts and meditate for a week, but by the end of the second day she told Ajaan Fuang that she had to return home, because she was afraid her family couldn't get along without her. During my first years back in Rayong, the monastery was an incredibly quiet and secluded place, with only a handful of monks and almost no visitors. § "To meditate is to practice dying, so that you'll be able to do it right. § One evening a school teacher was meditating at home and began remembering her previous lives all the way back to the time of King Asoka. To the source of the stream. You can then uproot the attachments that are concerned about the body — because nothing in it is yours at all. ", § "There's a passage where the Buddha asks, 'Days and nights pass by, pass by. In most cases of this sort, though, what he had to say had special meaning only for those directly involved, and so I'll ask to pass over them here. ", § The seamstress, after practicing meditation with Ajaan Fuang for several months, told him that her mind seemed more of a mess than it was before she began meditating. This is the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha appearing within you as your ultimate refuge. As they begin to mature they're sure to start seeing for themselves what's proper and what's not. Simply keep being real, being true in what you do, and your meditation will make progress. ", § One day Ajaan Fuang asked, as if out of the blue, "If your clothing fell down into a cesspool, would you pick it back up again? No one could until she met one monk who told her that it was in arahant language, and only an arahant could understand what it said. Your happiness, eventually from you. When the mind isn't willing to settle down and be still, it's a sign that it wants exercise. 3. “Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”. You remove your concerns for it. ", § "How do you use your powers of observation to get acquainted with the breath? When they found it, they offered it free of charge on their return. And no matter how many hours it takes to talk things over with them, it's no waste of time at all. ", § She kept following Ajaan Fuang's instructions until one day it occurred to her, "If I keep giving, giving, giving like this, will I have anything left for myself?" Your objective sense is itself that which your thought is, that which you see, hear, taste, touch and smell, and the objects of these themselves. Have you ever seen a post planted in the mud? It'll gradually grow stronger, and the mind will grow calm. Observe the breath as it goes in and out, noticing whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable, broad or narrow, obstructed or free-flowing, fast or slow, short or long, warm or cool. ", § There is an old tradition in Buddhism — based on the Apadana tales — that whenever you make a gift to the religion or perform some other meritorious deed, you should dedicate the merit of the deed to a particular goal. ", § Some of Ajaan Fuang's students would have visions of themselves or their friends in previous lifetimes and get all excited about what they saw. Self-awareness is a rare characteristic for most people. In addition to the passages from The Language of the Heart, I have included almost all of Transcendent Discernment along with highlights from the commemorative volume. I am that change, then," you think and say. ", § "Right where there's no one to be pained, no one to die. You can get more done by looking at your own faults instead. ", § "Some people talk about, 'temporary nibbana, temporary nibbana,' but how can nibbana be temporary? Still, he maintained an exhausting teaching schedule, although he rarely gave sermons to large groups of people. They can't expect the merit to come looking for them. Don't be in such a hurry to get rid of them. When that's the case, who's being stupid? The land had been donated shortly after a fire had stripped it of all its vegetation, and the hillsides were covered mostly with cogon grass. They found a large pile of trash that someone had thrown away up there, and one of the group complained, "How could anyone be so disrespectful as to do something like this?" And where is that? ", § "As soon as we're born, we're sentenced to death — just that we don't know when our turn will come. It is the very Awareness Itself, pure, uncontaminated, undefiled, un-tampered with by the introduction of any name or definition, any personal sense. It is your very own awareness itself. ", § "Students who get stuck on their teachers are like gnats. ", § If any of his students were bearing a grudge about something, he would tell them: "You can't even sacrifice something as minor as this? What happens is that it reaches a point of fullness — the Dhamma within it is full — and it lets go. One evening another student was conversing with Ajaan Fuang at the same time that a group of people were sitting around them in meditation. Take our quiz and find out now! ", § One year — when Ajaan Fuang was seeing a Chinese doctor in Bangkok for his skin disease and staying at Wat Asokaram — a group of nuns and laypeople came to practice meditation with him every night. "When the mind 'goes out' from defilement, it's still there, but when new kindling comes, it doesn't catch fire, doesn't latch on — not even to itself. They turned on their tape recorders and then sat in meditation, waiting for a Dhamma talk, and this was what they heard: "That's today's Dhamma: two words — bud- and dho. ", § "Meditators who live close to their teacher, but who don't understand him, are like a spoon in a pot of curry: It'll never know how sweet, sour, salty, rich or hot the curry is. The breath doesn't belong to Buddhism or Christianity or anyone else. If you can't see whether the breath is for real, look further in until it's clearly there. But if you want what's really true and good in life, you have to depend on yourself — teach yourself, train yourself, depend on yourself in every way. ", § "The mind is like a king. ", § "When you get so that you catch on to the meditation, it's like a kite that finally catches the wind. ", § "Their taking what's yours is better than your taking what's theirs. Why go spreading your ignorance around? In putting this book together, I have had the opportunity to reflect on the student/teacher relationship as it exists in Thailand, and in Ajaan Fuang's dealings with his disciples, both lay and ordained. § "The heart when it's released is like the fire element in the air. The very same elements. Now if it so happens that your mind is strong and your mindfulness sharp while you're doing this, that's when insight occurs. Otherwise you'll turn into a half-baked arahant. They prefer make-believe instead. You reap results all along the way. Its basic nature is awareness. The mind will be still; the body weightless. "That's a person. They appear for you to see so that you'll learn more about the results of karma. ", § "Your concentration has to be Right Concentration: just right, on an even keel, all the time. ", § "Observing the breath is the cause, the pleasure that arises is the result. If you think you answered incorrectly, you can always go back to any question and change your answer. If they're crude and sloppy, you'll get nothing but crude and sloppy results. And you don't have to feel doubts about the practice, for all the qualities you need to develop in the practice are already present within you. So pull yourself out of all that, and take a good look at yourself until things are clear within you. This is the way to freedom. In fact, the "three" are one and the same awareness (existence). As soon as they defecate they have to run to their mother to have her lick them off. It is the gentle, intuitive Presence as one lingers in bed upon first greeting the day. ", § "It's true that illness can be an obstacle to your meditation, but if you're intelligent enough to take illness as your teacher, you'll see that the body is a nest of illnesses, and that you shouldn't cling to it as yours. I’ve tried to understand it by listening to your talks and reading your books, but I don’t seem to get very far. ", § "When people say something is good, it's their idea of good. In other words, you have to be self-aware.You have to have the capacity for introspection.The concept of self-awareness, or self-knowledge, is quite old altho… ", § "When insights arise, don't try to remember them. The texts say, 'Cago patinissaggo mutti analayo': You move out of the breath. It's like having a teacher following you around, in public and in private, keeping watch over you, telling you what to do and what not to do, making sure that you stay in line. On seeing this, Ajaan Lee said nothing, but simply set out walking north along the railroad tracks. ", § Advice for a student who was letting the pressure at work get her down: "When you do a job, don't let the job do you. ", § When I went to Wat Asokaram — a very large monastery — for my first Rains Retreat, Ajaan Fuang told me, "If they ask you questions in Thai, answer in English. One woman asked him if he treated kidney diseases, and he answered, "I treat only one kind of disease: diseases of the mind. ", § "When you start out sitting in meditation, it takes a long time for the mind to settle down, but as soon as the session is over you get right up and throw it away. Because he had requested a few years earlier that his body not be cremated, plans began immediately to build him a mausoleum. ", § "Don't make a journal of your meditation experiences. § When I first went to Wat Dhammasathit, the trip from Bangkok was an all-day affair, since the roads were much worse and more roundabout than now. Like right now, while you're sitting in meditation here. He taught all of his disciples to take refuge in themselves, for we can depend on others only for a little while. Don't get pulled into following it. ", § "If there are any sensual pleasures you really hunger for, it's a sign you enjoyed them before in a previous life. There's nothing, not even self. One day a monk who had lived several years with him couldn't help but complain, "Why is it that when you get good amulets, you never give any to me, and always to everybody else?
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