by Ajahn Chah
Ajahn Chah was not afraid to test the extremes in his own practice, and he saw this experience as instructional for himself. He sometimes pushed people to very difficult limits and beyond. Such methods can be painful to undergo, but one comes to see where the mind holds on and limits itself and to see that the real suffering comes from the mind’s attachments, fears, and preconceptions.
He did not recommend fasting, vows of silence, or avoiding contact with others. He said, “We practice with our eyes open. If avoiding people and sense-contact were the way to enlightenment, the blind and the deaf should be enlightened.” Wisdom is to be found in the realm of sense-contact. The world is transcended by knowing the world, not by avoiding it. Living at close quarters with others in the same routines day after day, which is the way of life in his monasteries, can reveal a lot about one’s habits and the way one creates suffering for oneself. He often said, “If it’s hot and difficult, that’s it; that’s the place of practice.”
Teaching Dharma
AJAHN CHAH WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE to his disciples for guidance, but he did not conduct frequent interviews to determine their progress. He urged people to self-reliance through knowing their own minds and not getting attached to or doubtful about whatever occurred in meditation. He often told the sangha that he was giving them a suitable environment in which to develop their own practice. He said, “It’s like providing a pasture for your cows. If there’s a pasture that’s fenced in and has plenty of grass, the cows can eat grass and also be safe. If they are cows, they will eat. If they don’t want to eat the grass, they aren’t cows! Maybe they’re pigs or dogs. . . .”
His meditation instructions were usually simple. Concentration and insight are generally not dealt with as separate topics. Mindfulness and insight are threaded through most of the teachings and are spoken of on different levels of refinement. Also, other standard meditations such as recollection of death and generation of lovingkindness (metta) were often not taught systematically or formally, but more as themes for contemplation and as attitudes to be kept constantly in mind. He would present these ideas in ways that pierce the heart. On his visit to the United States in 1979, he established the theme of facing the executioner. “Imagine there was a fortune-teller whose predictions were always right. You go to see him, and he tells you, ‘Without question you are going to die in seven days.’ Would you be able to sleep? You would let go of everything and meditate day and night. In truth, this is what we are all destined for, and we are facing the executioner every moment.” And he recommended as homework thinking about one’s own death three times a day at the very least.
Understanding the Teachings
THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK follows Ajahn Chah’s oft-repeated statement:
First one learns Dharma, but does not yet understand it; then one understands, but has not yet practiced. One practices, but has not seen the truth of Dharma; then one sees Dharma, but one’s being has not yet become Dharma.
The point of this classification is that until reaching the level of being Dharma, one still has suffering, and one’s potential is not fully realized. Now that we are at a stage in the transmission of Buddhism to the West where many people have been sincerely studying and practicing the way of the Buddha for decades, this may be a concept that can be understood directly from experience. Ajahn Chah saw Dharma practice as a way of life and not merely a set of exercises or rituals, and the goal (though he rarely spoke of goals or attainments) as nothing less than the cessation of suffering, a state of clarity and peace in which the mind is no longer swayed by internal and external happenings. It might be helpful to keep this in mind when reading the teachings, which are full of repetition of basic themes and may at times appear to be too basic and simplistic. Ajahn Chah always urged his listeners to neither believe nor disbelieve his words, but rather to investigate the teachings to see how they related to personal experience.
Ajahn Chah was primarily a teacher of monks and nuns, people who have forsaken worldly ties and gone forth to a life of renunciation. While he was emphatic that Buddhist practice is not the exclusive province of monastics, he did emphasize the advantages offered by the discipline and simplicity of ordained life. Living in a monastery that is following the canonical discipline, one refrains from all harm. There is a community based on mutual helping, sharing, and respect. With minimal possessions, there is little to squabble over or covet. Dharma is something to be lived, an idea reflected in Thai words for spiritual practice. And living in this way for a number of years builds habits of attentiveness, restraint, and unselfishness; the result is often people who are strikingly happy.
Sometimes Ajahn Chah may sound moralistic to Western ears, in talking about things such as heedlessness or refraining from evil, for example. The Buddha explained evil as that which harms oneself and others, and he called heedlessness the way to death. Paying attention to the fine details of how one lives, in all situations, alone or with others, can refine the mind considerably and create a firm foundation for meditation practice. Talk of good and evil may rankle us due to habit—perhaps the result of too many joyless Sunday school lessons—but it may be worthwhile to think about the implications. Ajahn Chah speaks repeatedly of the need for moral conduct, but it is for the purpose of creating a relaxed mind and a harmonious living environment, not in response to commandments handed down from on high, the violation of which is met with punishment. As with all of his teachings, his instructions on morality and virtue have a practical purpose and do not involve taking anything on blind faith. He also speaks of the necessity of transcending both good and evil, but as in all schools of Buddhism, there is the need for close attention to them, not only at first, but most of the way through the path.
At other times he may seem to be speaking to Thai people and their cultural habits, such as when talking about the traditions of taking precepts, listening to teachings, making offerings, and having strange beliefs about what Buddhism is or what it can do for followers. With some reflection, however, similar patterns may be seen to exist in Western Judeo-Christian religious upbringings in general and among Western Buddhists in particular.
As in the original teachings of the Buddha, repetition is common in Ajahn Chah’s words. The need to drive a point home cannot be underestimated, especially with the precious Dharma that contradicts habitual thinking so deeply rooted in worldly beings. Again, we can ask ourselves how thoroughly we have understood and assimilated into our being these seemingly simple ideas.
Ajahn Chah was something of a reformer in Thai Buddhism. Like the Buddha, he taught in the vernacular and cut through stultified traditions of his time. He was just as likely to use analogies to dogs, mangoes, chickens, rice fields, and buffaloes as he was to employ the classic Buddhist terminology he had studied before taking up the way of an ascetic meditation monk. In keeping with his view that Dharma teaching is a matter of skillful means to make people see, he often said that one who teaches needs to know what is appropriate for those who are listening. He also rejected the sectarianism that sometimes poisons relations between the two main monastic groups in Thailand.
Organization of the Teachings
ALTHOUGH THIS BOOK HAS BEEN DIVIDED into chapters with certain themes, the teachings themselves do not fit into such neat pigeonholes, and there is an overlapping of topics. Ajahn Chah generally did not limit his Dharma talks to one specific subject at a time, unless he was giving meditation instructions or perhaps explaining the monastic rules to the community. Some common elements are as follows.
The teachings return again and again to the themes of cause and effect, impermanence, nonattachment, moral living, avoiding extremes, and not taking things too seriously. Occasionally, Ajahn Chah offered glimpses of the other shore, of the experience of one who has gone beyond the mundane, but for the most part, he dealt with the problems we face and the ways the Buddha taught for dealing with and putting an end to them. He compared speaking extensively about nirvana, the deathless state of bliss, to expla
ining colors to a blind person, and noted that people in the Buddha’s time complained that the World Honored One must be ignorant of nirvana, since he did not explain clearly what it was. Ajahn Chah often quotes the Pali term paccatam, which means the results of practice are to be experienced for oneself and cannot be given by another or understood through mere explanation.
Occasionally, Ajahn Chah spoke of the unconditioned, of original mind, of that which is beyond birth and death, and he seemed to get a great kick out of doing so. Hearing the Heart Sutra in rough translation from English to Thai, he remarked that it talks of deep wisdom beyond conventions, but this does not mean we can discard conventions; without conventions how could we teach, communicate, or explain anything? In the end, his concern was to train, not to entertain, to help purify people’s obscurations so they could see directly, just as one tries to cure a blind person’s malady rather than merely talking to him about colors. As the Buddha said, “I teach only two things, namely, suffering and the end of suffering.”
Right view is mentioned repeatedly. Ajahn Chah called it the foundation of the path, along with sila (moral conduct), and it is indeed the first factor in the Buddha’s Eightfold Path. It is meant in both an intellectual and an experiential sense, the latter being what is also called wisdom. Briefly, Ajahn Chah speaks of right view as understanding cause and effect; not holding things to be stable, sure, or permanent; seeing the unsatisfactory nature of conditioned existence (that is, everything that an ordinary, uninstructed person takes to be life); and not believing in the existence of a self. On the side of experience, it is a mode of being in which one does not react to internal and external phenomena with elation or depression, seeing them for what they actually are and thus not suffering. “Not suffering” is not a blank state, but one of peace, radiance, and joy—which is what most people who met him saw very strikingly in Ajahn Chah. This should be kept in mind when reading his description of wisdom and the state of peace as being beyond happiness or suffering. Obviously there is great happiness in liberation, but there is nothing in our ordinary experiences of happiness that remotely compares to it, nothing that can be conceived by the confused mind or found through the usual paths of seeking the pleasant and avoiding the unpleasant.
Although right view is the first path factor, it will pervade all the other aspects of the path if one is practicing correctly. It will be present and continuously amplified through the stages of understanding, practicing, seeing, and finally being Dharma. Another way to speak of right view is in terms of the two extremes, another common theme in the teachings.
When the Buddha gave his first sermon, the Discourse on Turning the Wheel of Dharma, he set out the Middle Way that avoids mistaken paths of spiritual practice, which he summarized as seeking gratification through sense pleasures and self-mortification. Ajahn Chah gives the two extremes a broader interpretation, describing them as the habits of reacting to whatever one encounters with elation and depression, joy and sorrow. One needn’t wear a hair shirt and whip oneself to fall into the extreme of self-torment; rather, it can be understood as bringing needless pain upon oneself through various habitual reactions, such as guilt or suppression. Nor does one have to be a jaded pleasure seeker to suffer from the extreme of indulgence. Again, these are hard facts that can be seen in our own experience. The seeing leads to weariness with worldly ways. Weariness is not exhaustion or a sense of apathy or aversion, but a turning away from that which is recognized to be fruitless and meaninglessly painful. It also brings about detachment. One is then ready to seek refuge in something reliable and meaningful, to live with restraint and mindfulness, and to free the mind to find its natural condition of peace and happiness.
Understanding cause and effect and the correct and incorrect approaches to practice leads to another common theme, silabbataparamasa, usually translated as “attachment to rites and rituals.” It is one of the three fetters of mind removed by attainment of stream entry, the first level of enlightenment, the other two fetters being skeptical doubt and mistaken belief in the existence of a self. It is another idea that bears explanation. Although Theravada Buddhism is known for its unelaborate modes of practice, there is still a fair amount of ritual involved in its traditional forms. It could also be argued that even keeping precepts or sitting down to meditate are rituals of a sort. Ajahn Chah’s interpretation of silabbataparamasa has been translated here as superstitious attachment to rites and rituals, in other words, to any spiritual conventions. It is a belief that certain actions or modes of behavior by themselves will produce benefits, ranging from good health and riches to meditative states and enlightenment, without understanding or any change of habits being necessary. These actions can be the making of offerings; taking part in ceremonies, such as going for refuge or requesting precepts; or observing the outward disciplines of keeping rules and practicing formal meditation. Ajahn Chah often spoke of his own tribulations and mistaken attitudes in his earlier years. He told of one of his teachers, Ajahn Kinnaree: “Just sitting and sewing his robes, he was meditating much better than I was when I tried to sit and practice samadhi for long periods. If I sat all night, it only meant that I suffered all night . . . I would watch him do walking meditation. Sometimes he would just take a few steps and get tired, so he would go and lie down. But he was receiving more benefit than I did when I walked for hours.”
Ajahn Chah also made constant references to doubt, as it is naturally present when one’s views are not clear and when practice is falling away from the path. It can manifest in many ways, some of them quite subtle: doubts about the teachings, about one’s own ability, about the teacher and spiritual companions, about the way of practice. Ajahn Chah repeatedly points out how doubt hampers one’s commitment to spiritual practice and keeps one in a constant search for intellectual answers, and says that the antidote is looking directly at experience, including the experience of doubt itself.
Translation and Terminology
VARIATIONS IN STYLE AND TONE may be noticed in the different teachings. Apart from the limitations of the translator, there are a few reasons for this. First, two languages are being spoken. In Northeast Thailand, where Ajahn Chah lived and established his monasteries, the native language is the Isan dialect of Thai, similar to Lao. As years passed and people from other parts of Thailand, as well as Westerners who had learned or were learning Central Thai, came to study with him, he began to teach more in Thai. Lao is generally earthier, more informal, and even more a language of feeling than is Thai—especially in Ajahn Chah’s case, as it was his mother tongue. Speaking to people he had known all his life, his words tended to be more informal, even blunt, sometimes scolding. He spoke Thai to people from all walks of life and corners of Thailand and the world. Sometimes his language was simple, a little slow and perhaps pedagogical, as when instructing a group of middle-class people from Bangkok; sometimes grandfatherly, as when teaching young foreigners; sometimes humorous and extremely relaxed. He mainly taught and trained monastics, but gave a wealth of teaching to laypeople as well.
As to which voice was that of the “real” Ajahn Chah, no one who met him would venture to guess. He was a supreme actor who responded to situations with wisdom and compassion and an extraordinary array of skillful means, and he displayed a wide range of personalities while doing so. He was able to be comforting, inspiring, or terrifying, yet could also exhibit the most polished comic talent, with a flawless timing and delivery that literally stopped people speechless in their tracks. Recollections of senior disciples were often startling to those who only knew Ajahn Chah in his later years and had fixed ideas about him. The former depicted him as tough and unsentimental, even ferocious, a man of mystery and a wielder of occult powers. But whoever he may have been, perhaps the most important fact is the great love that so many people came to feel for him over the years of his teaching activities.
Those who have studied other schools of Buddhism or even other Theravada teachings may find that Ajahn Chah’s use of Buddhist t
erminology does not correspond exactly to usual and accepted interpretations. His teaching was mostly nontechnical and informal. Like most meditation teachers in Thailand, he did not teach from texts, and he often spoke of teaching as being only the appropriate use of skillful means to point out the correct way, to clear misconceptions, and to help avoid deviations in practice. Thus, some misunderstanding could occur if the words are taken too literally or as having a fixed meaning. He sometimes speaks of the mind in the classical terminology of the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, thinking, and consciousness, and at other times simply as feeling and thinking. The latter is also used to describe a person’s basic outlook on life, or worldview. He often refers to “the one who knows,” a common theme in Thai Buddhist teaching, sometimes in a neutral sense as mind itself, a basic awareness with the potential for delusion or wisdom; or he may speak of it as an awakened knowing, even as Buddha nature (a concept rarely broached in Theravada Buddhism).
There are also Thai Buddhist terms derived from the Pali language that may not have the same meaning and significance as the corresponding Sanskrit terms employed in Mahayana. Other terms are used informally and in a fluid way by Ajahn Chah, whereas in Mahayana they may always have a specific meaning. And there are common Thai words of Buddhist origin that have taken on a different flavor in the vernacular.