Ajahn Chah Quotes

If you want a chicken to be a duck, and a duck to be a chicken, you will suffer.

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.

All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things.

To practice Dhamma means to observe and examine oneself.

Remember you dont meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things.

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.

Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.

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.

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.

Things are simply the way they are. They don’t give us suffering. Like a thorn: Does a sharp thorn give us suffering?