Ajahn Chah

The knowing of the Buddha leads to letting go.

It results in abandoning and renunciation.

Because it's precisely this mind that leads us to get involved with both what's right and what's wrong.

If we're smart we get involved with those things that are right.

If we're stupid we get involved with those things that are wrong.

Such a mind is the world.

and the Blessed One took the things of this world to examine this very world.

Concerning this issue of Samatha and Vipassana, the important thing is to develop these states in our own hearts.

Only when we genuinely cultivate them ourselves will we know what they actually are.

We can go and study what all the books say about psychological factors of the mind.

But that kind of intellectual understanding is useless for actually cutting off selfish desire, anger and delusion.

We only study the theory about selfish desire, anger and delusion, merely describing the various characteristics of these mental defilements.

Selfish desire has this meaning.

Anger means that.

Delusion is defined as this.

Only knowing their theoretical qualities, we can talk about them only on that level.

We know and we are intelligent.

But when these defilements actually appear in our minds, do they correspond with a theory or not?

When, for instance, we experience something undesirable, do we react and get into a bad mood?

Do we attach?