Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.
AJAHN CHAHWhen coming out of sitting, don’t think that you’re coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures.
More Ajahn Chah Quotes
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Things are simply the way they are. They don’t give us suffering. Like a thorn: Does a sharp thorn give us suffering?
AJAHN CHAH -
Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again.
AJAHN CHAH -
In cultivating generosity, we are only oppressing our greed and attachment. This allows our true nature to come out and become lighter and freer.
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 -
To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, ‘Don’t cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.’
AJAHN CHAH -
Do not be in a hurry or try to push your practice. If you become peaceful, then accept it,; if you don’t become peaceful, then accept that also.
AJAHN CHAH -
Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won’t be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.
AJAHN CHAH -
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened.
AJAHN CHAH -
Don’t fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don’t fall for it. Its all a deception.
AJAHN CHAH -
If it shouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen.
AJAHN CHAH -
Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, THAT is your teacher.
AJAHN CHAH -
Isn’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.
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 -
Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don’t believe others, just listen to your mind. You don’t have to go anywhere else.
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