Contemplation

Contemplation

§ “Everything that happens to you has its causes. Once you contemplate it skillfully until you know its causes, you’ll be able to get past it.”

§ “Our defilements have made us suffer enough already. Now it’s our turn to make them suffer.”

§ There are two kinds of people: those who like to think and those who don’t. When people who don’t like to think start meditating, you have to force them to contemplate things. If you don’t force them, they’ll simply get stuck like a stump in concentration, and won’t get anywhere at all. As for those who like to think, they really have to use force to get their minds to settle down. But once they’ve mastered concentration, you don’t have to force them to contemplate. Whatever strikes the mind, they’re sure to contemplate it right away.”

§ “The discernment that can let go of defilement is a special discernment, not ordinary discernment. It needs concentration as its basis if it’s going to let go.”

§ “For insight to arise, you have to use your own strategies. You can’t use other people’s strategies and expect to get the same results they did.”

§ “When insights arise, don’t try to remember them. If they’re real insights, they’ll stay with you. If you try to memorize them, they’ll turn into labels and concepts, and will get in the way of new insights arising.”

§ A meditator in Singapore once wrote a letter to Ajaan Fuang, describing how he applied the Buddha’s teachings to everyday life: Whatever his mind focused on, he would try to see it as inconstant, stressful, and not self. Ajaan Fuang had me write a letter in response, saying, “Do things ever say that they’re inconstant, stressful, and not self? They never say it, so don’t go faulting them that way. Focus on what labels them, for that’s where the fault lies.”

§ “Even though your views may be right, if you cling to them you’re wrong.”

§ The wife of a Navy lieutenant was meditating at home when suddenly she had an urge to give Ajaan Fuang a good tongue-lashing. No matter how much she tried to drive the thought out of her mind, she couldn’t. Several days later she went to ask his forgiveness, and he told her, “The mind can think good thoughts, so why can’t it think bad thoughts? Whatever it’s thinking, just watch it — but if the thoughts are bad, make sure you don’t act in line with them.”

§ A high school student once said that in practicing meditation, if his mind thought good thoughts he’d let them pass, but if it thought bad thoughts he’d put a stop to them right away. Ajaan Fuang told him, “Just watch them. See who it is that’s thinking good thoughts and bad thoughts. The good thoughts and bad thoughts will disappear on their own, because they fall under the Three Characteristics of inconstancy, stress, and not-self.”

§ “If the mind is going to think, let it think, but don’t fall for its thoughts.”

§ “The defilements are like duckweed. You have to keep pushing them out of the way so that you can see the clear water underneath. If you don’t keep pushing them aside, they’ll move in to cover the water again — but at least you know that the water underneath them is clear.”

§ A woman complained to Ajaan Fuang that she had been meditating for a long time but still couldn’t cut any of her defilements. He laughed and said, “You don’t have to cut them. Do you think you can? The defilements were part and parcel of this world long before you came. You were the one who came looking for them. Whether or not you come, they exist on their own. And who says that they’re defilements? Have they ever told you their names? They simply go their own way. So try to get acquainted with them. See both their good and their bad sides.”

§ One day Ajaan Fuang was explaining to a new student how to watch the arising and passing away of the defilements. It so happened that she was a veteran reader of many Dhamma books, so she offered her opinion: “Instead of just looking at them this way, shouldn’t I try to uproot them?”

“If all you can think of is uprooting them,” he replied, “their fruit just might fall on the ground and start growing again.”

§ One of Ajaan Fuang’s students told him that she had reached the point in her meditation where she felt indifferent to everything she encountered. He warned her, “Sure, you can be indifferent as long as you don’t run into anything that goes straight to the heart.”

§ “Everyone lives with suffering, suffering, suffering, but they don’t comprehend suffering, which is why they can’t free themselves from it.”

§ “Those who know don’t suffer. Those who don’t know are the ones who suffer. There’s suffering in every life — as long as there are the five khandhas, there has to be suffering — but if you really come to know, you can live in ease.”

§ “When you’re sick you have a golden opportunity. You can contemplate the pains that arise from your illness. Don’t simply lie there. Meditate at the same time. Contemplate the behavior of the pains as they arise. Don’t let the mind fall in with them.”

§ One of Ajaan Fuang’s students was taking cobalt treatments for cancer until she developed an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. The doctors were at a loss as to what to do, so she suggested that they try the treatment without the anesthesia. At first they were reluctant to do so, but when she assured them that she could use the power of her meditation to withstand the pain, they finally agreed to give it a try.

After the treatment Ajaan Fuang visited her at the hospital. She told him that she had been able to concentrate her mind so as to endure the pain, but it had left her exhausted. He advised her: “You can use the power of concentration to fight off pain, but it squanders your energy. You have to approach the pain with discernment, to see that it’s not you. It’s not yours. Your awareness is one thing, the pain is something separate. When you can see it in this way, things will be easier.”

§ Several months later the same woman went to hear a famous Bangkok monk give a sermon on the cycle of life, death, and rebirth as an ocean of suffering. It had a profound effect on her, and afterwards she went to visit Ajaan Fuang and told him about it. As she was speaking, the image of the ocean struck her as so overwhelming that tears came to her eyes, so he said, “Now that you know it’s an ocean, why don’t you just cross over to the other side?” That was enough to stop her tears.

§ “The Buddha didn’t teach us to cure our pains. He taught us to comprehend them.”

§ “It’s true that illness can be an obstacle to your meditation, but if you’re intelligent enough to take illness as your teacher, you’ll see that the body is a nest of illnesses, and that you shouldn’t cling to it as yours. You can then uproot the attachments that are concerned about the body — because nothing in it is yours at all. It’s simply a tool for you to use to make good karma and pay off your old bad karma debts as you are able.”

§ “When you focus on seeing pain and stress, you have to get to the subtle levels — to the point where you see that stress arises the instant you open your eyes and see things.”

§ Advice for a woman who had to live with one illness after another: “Use your mindfulness to contemplate the body until you can visualize it as bones falling down in a heap, and you can set them on fire until there’s nothing left. Then ask yourself: Is that your self? Then why does it make you suffer and feel pain? Is there any ‘you’ in there? Keep looking until you reach the true core of the Dhamma — until there’s nothing of yours at all. The mind will then see itself as it really is, and let go of its own accord.”

§ “Tell yourself: The reason I still feel suffering is because I still have an ‘I’.”

§ “The day will arrive when death comes to you, forcing you to let go of everything of every sort. That’s why you should practice letting go well in advance so that you can be good at it. Otherwise — let me tell you — it’s going to be difficult when the time comes.”

§ “You don’t have to be afraid of death. You’d do better to be afraid of birth.”

§ “When you die don’t get caught up on the symptoms of dying.

§ “Lift the mind above what it knows.”

§ “Whatever dies, let it die, but don’t let the heart die.”