é™æ€è¯ Readings For Silent Reflection
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Always recite "Nanmo Amituofo" _/|\_
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一å�¥éš�缘太éš�ä¾¿ã€‚å› ä¸ŠåŠªåŠ›ï¼Œ 果上éš�缘。
We must put in effort in whatever we do, accept whatever outcome after trying our best.
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Life is impermanent. Do seize every moment and be mindful about our words and deeds.
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Some people will hear the words, "Nothing is mine," and they will get the idea they should throw away all their possessions. With only superficial understanding, people will get into arguments about what this means and how to apply it.
"This is not my self," doesn't mean you should end your life or throw away your possessions. It means you should give up attachment. There is the level of conventional reality and the level of ultimate reality - supposition and liberation. On the level of convention, there is Mr. A, Mrs. B, Mr. M., Mrs. N. and so on. We use these suppositions for convenience in communicating and functioning in the world.
The Buddha did not teach that we shouldn't use these things, but that we shouldn't be attached to them. We should realize that they are empty. -
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When people would say to Ajahn Chah that they found it impossible to practice in society, he would ask them, "If I poked you in the chest with a burning stick, would you say that indeed you were suffering, but since you live in society you can’t get away from it?"
Ajahn Chah’s response makes a point not unlike the Buddha’s parable of the poisoned arrow. The Buddha tells of a man who had been shot by an arrow and would not let anyone pull it out until his questions about the arrow, the bow and the archer were all answered. The only problem was that the wounded man would probably die before he could get the replies to all his questions. What the wounded man had to realize was that he was in pain and dying, and he should do something about that right away.
Ajahn Chah emphasized this point over and over again in his teachings: you’re suffering; do something about it now! He wouldn’t spend much time talking about peace, wisdom, or Nibbanic states but rather the practice of constantly being aware of what was happening within the body and mind within the present moment, learning how to simply watch and let go. Meditation, he’d say, was not getting things, but getting rid of things. Even when asked about the peace one could attain through practice, he would instead rather speak of the confusion that one should first get rid of, for, as he put it, peace is the end of confusion.
Ajahn teaches on suffering and meditation practice but also gives us some insight into impermanence, virtue, non-self and so on. Ajahn Chah" used to say, "I’m always talking about things to develop and things to give up, but, really there’s ‘nothing’ to develop and ‘nothing’ to give up.
- Dhamma Garden -
