A Dhammatalk by Ajahn Chah

Our way of practice is looking closely at things and making them clear. We’re persistent and constant, yet not rushed or hurried. Neither are we too slow. It’s a matter of gradually feeling our way and bringing it together. However, all of this bringing it together is working towards something, there is a point to our practice.

For most of us, when we first start to practice, it’s nothing other than desire. We start to practice because of wanting. At this stage our wanting is wanting in the wrong way. That is, it’s deluded. It’s wanting mixed with wrong understanding.

If wanting is not mixed with wrong understanding like this, we say that it’s wanting with wisdom (paññā)2. It’s not deluded – it’s wanting with right understanding. In a case like this we say that it’s due to a person’s pāramī or past accumulations. However, this isn’t the case with everyone.

Some people don’t want to have desire, or they want not to have desires, because they think that our practice is directed at not wanting. However, if there is no desire, then there’s no way of practice.

We can see this for ourselves. The Buddha and all his disciples practiced to put an end to defilements. We must want to practice and must want to put an end to defilements. We must want to have peace of mind and want not to have confusion. However, if this wanting is mixed with wrong understanding, then it will only amount to more difficulties for us. If we are honest about it, we really know nothing at all. Or, what we do know is of no consequence, since we are unable to use it properly.

Everybody, including the Buddha, started out like this, with the desire to practice – wanting to have peace of mind and wanting not to have confusion and suffering. These two kinds of desire have exactly the same value. If not understood then both wanting to be free from confusion and not wanting to have suffering are defilements. They’re a foolish way of wanting – desire without wisdom.

In our practice we see this desire as either sensual indulgence or self-mortification. It’s in this very conflict that our teacher, the Buddha, was caught up, just this dilemma. He followed many ways of practice which merely ended up in these two extremes. And these days we are exactly the same. We are still afflicted by this duality, and because of it we keep falling from the Way.

However, this is how we must start out. We start out as worldly beings, as beings with defilements, with wanting devoid of wisdom, desire without right understanding. If we lack proper understanding, then both kinds of desire work against us. Whether it’s wanting or not wanting, it’s still craving (tanhā). If we don’t understand these two things then we won’t know how to deal with them when they arise. We will feel that to go forward is wrong and to go backwards is wrong, and yet we can’t stop. Whatever we do we just find more wanting. This is because of the lack of wisdom and because of craving.

Pink Orchids. Photo credit: Randy

It’s right here, with this wanting and not wanting, that we can understand the Dhamma. The Dhamma which we are looking for exists right here, but we don’t see it. Rather, we persist in our efforts to stop wanting. We want things to be a certain way and not any other way. Or, we want them not to be a certain way, but to be another way. Really these two things are the same. They are part of the same duality.

Perhaps we may not realize that the Buddha and all of his disciples had this kind of wanting. However the Buddha understood regarding wanting and not wanting. He understood that they are simply the activity of mind, that such things merely appear in a flash and then disappear. These kinds of desires are going on all the time. When there is wisdom, we don’t identify with them – we are free from clinging. Whether it’s wanting or not wanting, we simply see it as such. In reality it’s merely the activity of the natural mind. When we take a close look, we see clearly that this is how it is.

The Wisdom of Everyday Experience

So it’s here that our practice of contemplation will lead us to understanding. Let us take an example, the example of a fisherman pulling in his net with a big fish in it. How do you think he feels about pulling it in? If he’s afraid that the fish will escape, he’ll be rushed and start to struggle with the net, grabbing and tugging at it. Before he knows it, the big fish has escaped – he was trying too hard.

In the olden days they would talk like this. They taught that we should do it gradually, carefully gathering it in without losing it. This is how it is in our practice; we gradually feel our way with it, carefully gathering it in without losing it. Sometimes it happens that we don’t feel like doing it. Maybe we don’t want to look or maybe we don’t want to know, but we keep on with it. We continue feeling for it. This is practice: if we feel like doing it, we do it, and if we don’t feel like doing it, we do it just the same. We just keep doing it.

If we are enthusiastic about our practice, the power of our faith will give energy to what we are doing. But at this stage we are still without wisdom. Even though we are very energetic, we will not derive much benefit from our practice. We may continue with it for a long time and a feeling will arise that aren’t going to find the Way. We may feel that we cannot find peace and tranquillity, or that we aren’t sufficiently equipped to do the practice. Or maybe we feel that this Way just isn’t possible anymore. So we give up!

At this point we must be very, very careful. We must use great patience and endurance. It’s just like pulling in the big fish – we gradually feel our way with it. We carefully pull it in. The struggle won’t be too difficult, so without stopping we continue pulling it in. Eventually, after some time, the fish becomes tired and stops fighting and we’re able to catch it easily. Usually this is how it happens, we practice gradually gathering it together.

It’s in this manner that we do our contemplation. If we don’t have any particular knowledge or learning in the theoretical aspects of the teachings, we contemplate according to our everyday experience. We use the knowledge which we already have, the knowledge derived from our everyday experience. This kind of knowledge is natural to the mind. Actually, whether we study about it or not, we have the reality of the mind right here already. The mind is the mind whether we have learned about it or not. This is why we say that whether the Buddha is born in the world or not, everything is the way it is. Everything already exists according to its own nature. This natural condition doesn’t change, nor does it go anywhere. It just is that way. This is called the Sacca Dhamma. However, if we don’t understand about this Sacca Dhamma, we won’t be able to recognize it.

So we practice contemplation in this way. If we aren’t particularly skilled in scripture, we take the mind itself to study and read. Continually we contemplate (lit. talk with ourselves) and understanding regarding the nature of the mind will gradually arise. We don’t have to force anything.

Constant Effort

Until we are able to stop our mind, until we reach tranquillity, the mind will just continue as before. It’s for this reason that the teacher says, ”Just keep on doing it, keep on with the practice!” Maybe we think, ”If I don’t yet understand, how can I do it?” Until we are able to practice properly, wisdom doesn’t arise. So we say just keep on with it. If we practice without stopping we’ll begin to think about what we are doing. We’ll start to consider our practice.

Nothing happens immediately, so in the beginning we can’t see any results from our practice. This is like the example I have often given you of the man who tries to make fire by rubbing two sticks of wood together. He says to himself, ”They say there’s fire here”. and he begins rubbing energetically. He’s very impetuous. He rubs on and on but his impatience doesn’t end. He wants to have that fire. He keeps wanting to have that fire, but the fire doesn’t come. So he gets discouraged and stops to rest for awhile. He starts again but the going is slow, so he rests again. By then the heat has disappeared; he didn’t keep at it long enough. He rubs and rubs until he tires and then he stops altogether. Not only is he tired, but he becomes more and more discouraged until he gives up completely. ”There’s no fire here!” Actually he was doing the work, but there wasn’t enough heat to start a fire. The fire was there all the time but he didn’t carry on to the end.

This sort of experience causes the meditator to get discouraged in his practice, and so he restlessly changes from one practice to another. And this sort of experience is also similar to our own practice. It’s the same for everybody. Why? Because we are still grounded in defilements. The Buddha had defilements also, but He had a lot of wisdom in this respect. While still worldlings the Buddha and the arahants were just the same as us. If we are still worldlings then we don’t think rightly. Thus when wanting arises we don’t see it, and when not wanting arises we don’t see it. Sometimes we feel stirred up, and sometimes we feel contented. When we have not wanting we have a kind of contentment, but we also have a kind of confusion. When we have wanting this can be contentment and confusion of another kind. It’s all intermixed in this way. Continue reading →