Look at your own mind. The one who carries things thinks he’s got things, but the one who looks on sees only the heaviness. Throw away things, lose them, and find lightness.
AJAHN CHAHThe ultimate truth is like the flavour of an apple which you can’t see with the eye or hear with the ear.
More Ajahn Chah Quotes
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People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one.
AJAHN CHAH -
Wherever we start to think that things are certain, uncertainty is lurking right there. Heedlessness is just holding things as certain. It is grasping at certainty where there is no certainty and looking for truth in things that are not true. Be careful! They are likely to bite you sometime in the future!
AJAHN CHAH -
Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again.
AJAHN CHAH -
When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.
AJAHN CHAH -
When we sit in meditation and hear a sound, we think, ‘Oh, that sound’s bothering me.’ If we see it like this, we suffer. But if we investigate a little deeper,
AJAHN CHAH -
Don’t be attached to visions or lights in meditation, don’t rise or fall with them.
AJAHN CHAH -
At some point your heart will tell itself what to do.
AJAHN CHAH -
One man watches a river flow by. If he does not wish it to flow, to change ceaselessly in accord with its nature, he will suffer great pain.
AJAHN CHAH -
Do not be a bodhisattva, do not be an arahant, do not be anything at all. If you are a bodhisattva, you will suffer, if you are an arahant, you will suffer, if you are anything at all, you will suffer.
AJAHN CHAH -
Know and watch your heart. It’s pure but emotions come to colour it. So let your mind be like a tightly woven net to catch emotions and feelings that come, and investigate them before you react.
AJAHN CHAH -
If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand.
AJAHN CHAH -
Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.
AJAHN CHAH -
There are people who are born and die and never once are aware of their breath going in and out of their body. That’s how far away they live from themselves
AJAHN CHAH -
Another man understands that nature of the river is to change constantly, regardless of his likes and dislikes, and therefore he does not suffer.
AJAHN CHAH -
The heart of the path is quite easy.
AJAHN CHAH -
Whenever we feel that we are definitely right, so much so that we refuse to open up to anything or anybody else, right there we are wrong. It becomes wrong view.
AJAHN CHAH -
Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.
AJAHN CHAH -
What’s so great about brightness? My flashlight has it. It can’t help us rid ourselves of our suffering.
AJAHN CHAH -
There’s no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love and hate and let things be. That’s all that I do in my own practice.
AJAHN CHAH -
The mind is intrinsically tranquil. Out of this tranquility, anxiety and confusion are born. If one sees and knows this confusion, then the mind is tranquil once more.
AJAHN CHAH -
Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.
AJAHN CHAH -
Where does rain come from? It comes from all the dirty water that evaporates from the earth, like urine and the water you throw out after washing your feet.
AJAHN CHAH -
If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate.
AJAHN CHAH -
Breathing is something vital to peoples lives. If you see that Dhamma practice is vital to your life, then you will feel that breathing and practising the Dhamma are equally important.
AJAHN CHAH -
The sound is just sound, why should you go and grab it? You see that actually it was you who went out and disturbed the sound.
AJAHN CHAH -
The Dhamma is revealing itself in every moment, but only when the mind is quiet can we understand what it is saying, for the Dhamma teaches without words.
AJAHN CHAH