by Ajahn Chah
If there’s a fire spreading in a neighborhood and some houses are burning to the ground, the firefighters will first try to protect the houses that have not yet caught fire. They can’t do much about the buildings that are almost gone. Many are still standing, so there’s more value in saving those. That’s how firefighters work.
If we try to solve everyone’s problems, no matter how intractable, we are likely to end up running out of time. The first thing we need to do is make a good example of ourselves. Instead of doing things in a worldly or selfish way, if we do things according to Dharma, someone who has the right karmic conditions may take notice and have some interest in listening to our words. They will attract that type of person.
Whenever Dharma arises in someone’s heart, it will benefit the world. Good people will appreciate that, but evil people won’t. Some things you might not like, but worldly people will call them Dharma. You don’t see it like that, so you won’t have faith in their way and they won’t believe in your way. They will take delight in doing the worldly things you see no value in. In all ages, it has been like this. We need something to measure by; if everyone is good, there are no bad people. If there are no bad people, there won’t be any problems, and without problems to resolve, it might be difficult to develop wisdom.
Since I came to Wat Pah Pong, I’ve been thinking about this. With a monastic community living in the forest, it has become a place where people are forbidden to seek animals for food. I thought it would be good to have a protected spot like this, where animals can live free of fear and the forest can remain intact. I thought it was a good thing; but still I met with criticism. “What are you living here for? Did you just come here to protect trees? Is that all a monk does? You are supposed to be renouncing all things of this world, so why are you so concerned about trees and animals?”
I listened to their words, but I felt some compassion for the squirrels and other small animals and didn’t want them being shot by hunters. “Are you raising animals? Aren’t they wild animals? This isn’t the business of monks.”
I thought it over—suppose we build a wall around the monastery? So we did, but people got upset with me. My intentions were good, really. Then there were the village dogs. They came here and chased the squirrels. They hurt and killed a lot of them. This was very painful to see. What could we do about it? We needed to find a way to keep dogs out of our monastery. Finally, after many months, I realized my thinking was wrong.
This is just the nature of these animals. If we could drive the dogs away, the squirrels would become stupid. When there is some danger for them, they become more clever and careful. They get their own kind of wisdom from the dogs being around.
In this way, wrong is good, because it is paired with right and leads us to what is right and good. We examine our actions and consider whether they are right or wrong. When a carpenter is cutting wood, he has to measure his lengths. Short will instruct long, and long will instruct short. The world is like this, all things existing along with their opposites. I came to realize that I had to let go, leave the dogs and the squirrels to sort things out according to their natural existence. And yet now the squirrel population is thriving. They have become more resourceful and clever.
So the problem was mine. I wanted to prevent the dogs from biting the squirrels. I wanted to prevent people from criticizing. But it’s natural for people to have criticism according to their point of view. I decided I had to solve the problem right where it was. I learned to stop struggling with things.
Living in the forest at Wat Pah Pong, there were difficult situations. Things troubled me here, so I had to learn to settle them here. Malarial fever was pretty serious, bringing me close to death for several years. But I was content to be here. Staying and seeing it through, you learn something. When your strength of mind increases, difficult situations and problems become less powerful. Why does their strength decrease? Simply because yours has grown, so theirs is less by comparison, even if it’s the same as before.
This is all quite ordinary. You don’t need to think about it too much. Instead, you should just do what you can do. You don’t need to do things that bring you suffering. If you are creating suffering in your heart, there must be something wrong with the teachings! The point of Dharma practice is to make an end of suffering, so why are you increasing your suffering? We need to see where we are wrong. If someone doesn’t want to listen to our words and we get upset over that, we are in the wrong. We’re supposed to be practicing to be free of suffering, so why are we creating suffering? We are very mistaken indeed. Look at this point. You don’t need to have lofty thoughts of nirvana. Just look within. Where else should you be looking to conquer? Please consider this.
GLOSSARY
AFFLICTIONS (P. kilesa) The mental defilements of desire, aversion, and delusion.
AJAHN (P. acarya) Teacher.
AJAHN MUN (1870–1950) The most renowned meditation master of the twentieth century in Thailand, and the teacher of most of the great masters in the Northeast of Ajahn Chah’s generation.
ANANDA The Buddha’s attendant and close disciple.
ARAHANT The final level of enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism. Literally, “the one far from the afflictions” or “one who has destroyed the enemy.”
ARIYA The Noble Ones, those who have attained the levels of enlightenment and thus are no longer ordinary beings.
BHIKKHU A fully ordained monk. Literally, “one who sees danger in the round of samsara.”
BUDDHO The name of the Buddha, commonly used as a meditation object in Thailand, meaning “the one who knows.”
DEITIES (P. devata ) Worldly gods subject to birth and death; the highest of the six realms of samsara.
DHAMMO A meditation object, similar to Buddho.
DHARMA The teaching of the Buddha; ultimate truth. Literally, “that which exists.” (With uppercase D.)
DHARMA Phenomena. (With lowercase d.)
DUKKHA Unsatisfactoriness, the suffering nature of existence; the first of the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha.
EIGHTFOLD PATH The fourth of the truths taught by the Buddha; the way leading out of unsatisfactory experience, consisting of right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.
EIGHTH REBIRTH One who enters the stream to nirvana will be reborn no more than seven times before attaining final enlightenment.
EIGHT WORLDLY DHARMAS Gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, happiness and suffering.
FIVE AGGREGATES Bodily form, feelings, perception/memory, mental formations, and consciousness.
FOUR FOUNDATIONS OF MINDFULNESS The basic meditation system in Theravada Buddhism, which includes mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind, and dharmas.
FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS The first teaching of the Buddha: the truths of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path leading out of suffering.
HUNGRY GHOSTS Unfortunate beings who cannot find food or drink, usually depicted as having huge bellies, tiny mouths, and limbs like sticks. The cause of such birth is said to be greed and miserliness.
KHANDHA Aggregate: the classification of psychophysical components mistakenly thought to constitute a person or self. Literally, “heap.”
KUTI A monastic dwelling, usually a small cabin raised on pillars.
LOWER REALMS States of extreme suffering.
LUANG POR (TH.) Title of respect and affection for an older monk. Literally, “Revered Father.”
MAGHA PUJA Major Buddhist holiday commemorating the formation of the Sangha.
MERIT (P. punya) Positive qualities of mind and the activities that accumulate them.
MOGGALLANA One of the Buddha’s two foremost disciples, known for his magical powers.
NAGAS Serpentlike water deities in Buddhist mythology. NEYYA A person who is trainable.
NIRVANA The enlightened state, the unconditioned; the extinction of greed, hatred, and delusi
on.
NONRETURNER (P. anagami) The third level of enlightenment, before arahant; a being who is not reborn into the world, but completes the path in an immaterial realm.
ONCE-RETURNER (P. sakadagami) The second level of enlightenment after stream entry; a person who will have only one more rebirth in the world.
PACCEKA BUDDHA One who attains enlightenment without a teacher and does not have the ability to teach others; usually depicted as living in solitude.
PADAPARAMA A person who understands, at most, the words of the text; an idiot.
PALI The dialect of Sanskrit in which the Buddha taught.
PERFECTIONS (P. parami) Spiritual qualities that are cultivated as a support for realizing enlightenment. In Theravada Buddhism, there are ten: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, effort, forbearance, truthfulness, resolution, lovingkindness, and equanimity.
RAINS RETREAT (Th. Pansa; P. vassa) A three-month period (mid-July through mid-October) corresponding to the Asian monsoon season, during which the monastic communities reside in one place without traveling; traditionally a time of intensive practice.
REQUISITES The material supports for monastic life: robes, alms food, a dwelling place, and medicines.
SAMADHI Concentration meditation; meditative stability.
SAMANA An ordained person, a renunciant. Literally, a “tranquil one.”
SAMATHA Tranquility meditation.
SAMSARA The round of birth and death, the cycle of unsatisfactory conditioned existence.
SANKHARA All conditioned phenomena, that is, anything that has a beginning and an end, birth and death. As the fourth of the aggregates, it refers to thought or mental formations. In the Thai vernacular, it can refer to the body.
SARIPUTTA The other of the Buddha’s foremost disciples, known for his wisdom.
SASANA (Sometimes Buddhasasana.) Buddhism, traditionally translated as “the dispensation of the Buddha” but commonly known as “the Buddha’s way.”
SILA Virtue or morality, and the code of conduct and precepts that is in accord with and leads to virtue.
SKILLFULNESS (P. kusala) Intelligence that discerns what is wholesome and skillful; positive actions that are accompanied by understanding.
SONGKRAN (Th.) Traditional Asian New Year on April 13. Coming at the end of the dry season, it involves water ceremonies.
SOTAPANNA One who attains the first level of enlightenment. Having entered the stream to full enlightenment, this person will be reborn seven times at most. Literally, “stream enterer.”
TATHAGATA An epithet for the Buddha. Literally, “the One Thus Gone.”
THREE JEWELS The Buddha, the awakened one; the Dharma, his teachings; and the Sangha, the community of practitioners who have realized the truth of the teachings.
TUDONG (Th.) (P. dhutanga) Ascetic observances permitted for Theravadin monks.
UBON UBONRACHATANI the province in Northeast Thailand where Ajahn Chah lived and where Ajahn Mun was born.
UGGHATITANYU A person of quick understanding or intuition; a genius.
UPAYA Skillful means, helpful ways of teaching and training others.
VIPACITANYU A person who understands a concept after a detailed explanation; an intellectual.
VIPASSANA Insight meditation. Literally, “special seeing.”
VISAKHA PUJA Holiday commemorating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death (parinirvana).
WAT (Th.) Monastery.
P = Pali; Th = Thai.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
BORN IN BROOKLYN IN 1948, Paul Breiter traveled to Thailand in 1970 where he took ordination as a monk. Shortly thereafter, he met Ajahn Chah and became his student. Breiter learned Thai and the local Lao dialect (Isan) and served as Ajahn Chah’s translator for the many Western students who came to study with him. He kept a journal of his translations of Ajahn Chah’s Dharma teachings, some of which he published with Jack Kornfield as A Still Forest Pool (Quest Books, 1985). He also translated a volume of a text on monastic discipline, known as Vinayamukha (Entrance to the Vinaya; Mahamakuta Royal Academy, 1983). Breiter traveled with and translated for Ajahn Chah when he visited the United States in 1979. He later published an account of his time studying with Ajahn Chah called Venerable Father: A Life with Ajahn Chah (self-published, 1993; Buddhadhamma Foundation, Bangkok, 1994).
After disrobing in 1977, Breiter returned to the United States and continued his Buddhist studies with Roshi Kobun Chino Otogawa of the Soto Zen school, and then with Lama Gonpo Tsedan of the Nyingmapa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He currently works for the U.S. Postal Service.
CREDITS
THANKS TO THE FRIENDS who provided pictures of Ajahn Chah from their personal collections. Thanks particularly to the monks of Bung Wai International Forest Monastery, Ubon, Thailand; and to the monks of Abhayagiri Monastery, Redwood Valley, California, who generously provided their only prints of precious historical photographs.
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