One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness or death?
AJAHN CHAHIsn’t it wonderful how the sky can take that dirty water and change it into pure, clean water? Your mind can do the same with your defilements if you let it.
More Ajahn Chah Quotes
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The forest is peaceful, why aren’t you? You hold on to things causing your confusion. Let nature teach you.
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When nature finally calls, they have no idea where to go and are in a mess.
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Raise families and look after themselves, that’s all. To them, being smart is more important than being wise!
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We don’t meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering.
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Then we don’t have to celebrate it or let anybody know about it, simply let the mind have firm confidence in the goodness and keep going like this.
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To observe and watch one’s own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues.
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Regarding this Dhamma, it is not something that we can simply talk about or take another’s word for it.
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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.
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Hear the bird’s song then let go. If you know nature, you’ll know truth. If you know truth, you’ll know nature.
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Read yourself, not books. Truth isn’t outside, that’s only memory, not wisdom. Memory without wisdom is like an empty thermos bottle – if you don’t fill it, it’s useless.
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We protect virtue so that virtue will protect us.
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If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don’t have to run away.
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You should know both the universal and the personal, the realm of forms and the freedom to not cling to them.
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Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.
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Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.
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The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there. Where suffering lies is right where non-suffering will arise, it ceases at the place where it arises.
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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.
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In cultivating generosity, we are only oppressing our greed and attachment. This allows our true nature to come out and become lighter and freer.
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When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. And when we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy.
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Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool.
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When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing.
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You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha.
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We see that the sound is simply sound. If we understand like this, then there’s nothing more to it. We leave it be.
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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.
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Time is our present breath.
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When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body — it will all get conquered like this.
AJAHN CHAH