Virtue, concentration, and wisdom together make up the Path. But this Path is not yet the true teaching, not what the teacher actually wanted, but merely the Path that will take you there. For example, say you traveled the road from Bangkok to Wat Pah Pong; the road was necessary for your journey, but you […]
Practicing meditation is just like breathing. While working we breathe, while sleeping we breathe, while sitting down we breathe… Why do we have time to breathe? Because we see the importance of the breath, we can always find time to breathe. In the same way, if we see the importance of meditation practice we will […]
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate. Ajahn Chah
No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding. Ajahn Chah
Our birth and death are just one thing. You can’t have one without the other. It’s a little funny to see how at a death people are so tearful and sad, and at a birth how happy and delighted. It’s delusion. I think that if you really want to cry, then it would be better […]
What is Dhamma? Nothing isn’t. Ajahn Chah
There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free. Ajahn Chah
The Dhamma has to be found by looking into your own heart and seeing that which is true and that which is not, that which is balanced and that which is not balanced. Ajahn Chah
There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering, which leads to more suffering, and the suffering, which leads to the end of suffering. The first is the pain of grasping after fleeting pleasures and aversion for the unpleasant, the continued struggle of most people day after day. The second is the suffering, which comes when […]
When we talk about Dhamma, although we may say a lot, it can usually be brought down to four things. They are simply to know suffering, to know the cause of suffering, to know the end of suffering and to know the path of practice leading to the end of suffering. This is all there […]
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. Ajahn Chah
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. Ajahn Chah
If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate. Ajahn Chah
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. Ajahn Chah
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace. Ajahn Chah
The Buddha wanted us to contact the Dhamma, but people only contact the words, the books and the scriptures. That is contacting that which is “about” Dhamma, and not contacting the “real” Dhamma as taught by our Great Teacher. How can people say that they are practicing well and properly if they only do that? […]
When we know the truth, we become people who don’t have to think much, we become people with wisdom. If we don’t know, we have more thinking than wisdom or no wisdom at all. A lot of thinking without wisdom is extreme suffering. Ajahn Chah
Regardless of time and place, the whole practice of Dhamma comes to completion at the place where there is nothing. It’s the place of surrender, of emptiness, of laying down the burden. This is the finish. Ajahn Chah
A clever person watches others, but he watches with wisdom, not with ignorance. If one watches with wisdom, once can learn much. But if one watches with ignorance, one can only find faults. Ajahn Chah
If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good. Ajahn Chah
