Wisdom of the Masters
Venerable Ajahn Chah - Unshakeable Peace (Part 1) Theravada Forest Tradition
12 Jun 2021
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What teachings of Ajahn Chah are highlighted in this episode?
Unshakable Peace by Ajahn Chah
The whole reason for studying the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, is to search for a way to transcend suffering and attain peace and happiness. Whether we study physical or mental phenomena, the mind or its psychological factors, It's only when we make liberation from suffering our ultimate goal that we're on the right path. Nothing less.
Suffering has a cause and conditions for its existence.
Please clearly understand that when the mind is still, it's in its natural, normal state. As soon as the mind moves, it becomes conditioned, sankhara. When the mind is attracted to something, it becomes conditioned. When aversion arises, it becomes conditioned. The desire to move here and there arises from conditioning.
If our awareness doesn't keep pace with these mental proliferations as they occur, the mind will chase after them and be conditioned by them.
Whenever the mind moves, at that moment, it becomes a conventional reality.
So the Buddha taught us to contemplate these wavering conditions of the mind. Whenever the mind moves, it becomes unstable and impermanent, unsatisfactory.
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Chapter 2: How can we transcend suffering according to Buddhist teachings?
and cannot be taken as a self. These are the three universal characteristics of all conditioned phenomena. Anicca, dukkha, anatta. The Buddha taught us to observe and contemplate these movements of the mind.
It's likewise with the teaching of dependent origination.
Deluded understanding is the cause and condition for the arising of volitional karmic formations. Which is the cause and condition for the arising of consciousness? Which is the cause and condition for the arising of mentality and materiality?
And so on. Just as we've studied in the scriptures.
The Buddha separated each link of the chain to make it easier to study. This is an accurate description of reality. But when this process actually occurs in real life, the scholars aren't able to keep up with what's happening. It's like falling from the top of a tree to come crashing down to the ground below. We have no idea how many branches we've passed on the way down.
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Chapter 3: What are the causes of suffering as explained by Ajahn Chah?
Likewise, when the mind is suddenly hit by a mental impression, if it delights in it, then it flies off into a good mood. It considers it good without being aware of the chain of conditions that led it there. The process takes place in accordance with what is outlined in the theory, but simultaneously it goes beyond the limits of that theory.
There's nothing that announces.
This is delusion. These are volitional karmic formations and that is consciousness. The process doesn't give the scholars a chance to read out the list as it's happening. Although the Buddha analysed and explained the sequence of mind moments in minute detail, To me, it's more like falling out of a tree.
As we come crashing down, there's no opportunity to estimate how many feet and inches we've fallen. What we do know is that we've hit the ground with a thud and it hurts.
The mind is the same.
When it falls for something, what we're aware of is the pain. Where has all this suffering, pain, grief and despair come from? It didn't come from theory in a book.
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Chapter 4: How does the mind's conditioning affect our perception of reality?
There isn't anywhere where the details of our suffering are written down. Our pain won't correspond exactly with the theory, but the two travel along the same road. So scholarship alone can't keep pace with the reality. That's why the Buddha taught to cultivate clear knowing for ourselves. Whatever arises, arises in this knowing.
when that which knows, knows in accordance with the truth, then the mind and its psychological factors are recognized as not ours. Ultimately, all these phenomena are to be discarded and thrown away as if they were rubbish.
We shouldn't cling to or give them any meaning.
The Buddha did not teach about the mind and its psychological factors so that we'd get attached to the concepts. His sole intention was that we would recognize them as impermanent Unsatisfactory and not self. Then let go. Lay them aside. Be aware and know them as they arise. This mind is already being conditioned.
Chapter 5: What are the three universal characteristics of all conditioned phenomena?
It's been trained and conditioned to turn away and spin out from a state of pure awareness. As it spins, it creates conditioned phenomena which further influence the mind and the proliferation carries on. The process gives birth to the good, the evil and everything else under the sun. The Buddha taught to abandon it all.
Initially, however, you have to familiarize yourself with the theory in order that you'll be able to abandon it all at the later stage. This is a natural process. The mind is just this way. Psychological factors are just this way.
Take the Noble Eightfold Path for example.
When wisdom, pañña, views things correctly and with insight, this right view then leads to right intention, right speech, right action, and so on. This all involves psychological conditions that have arisen from that pure knowing awareness. This knowing is like a lantern shedding light on the path ahead on a dark night. If the knowing is right, it is in accordance with truth.
It will pervade and illuminate each of the other steps on the path in turn. Whatever we experience, it all arises from within this knowing.
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Chapter 6: How does one cultivate awareness to recognize the nature of the mind?
If this mind did not exist, the knowing would not exist either. All this is phenomena of the mind. As the Buddha said, the mind is merely the mind. It's not a being, a person, a self or yourself. It's neither us nor them. The Dharma is simply the Dharma. It's a natural selfless process. It does not belong to us or anyone else.
It's not anything.
Whatever an individual experiences, it all falls within five fundamental categories, or khandhas, body, feeling, memory and perception, thoughts and consciousness.
The Buddha said to let it all go. Meditation is like a single stick of wood.
Insight, Vipassana, is one end of the stick. and serenity, samatha, the other. If we pick it up, does only one end come up, or do both?
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Chapter 7: What is the relationship between serenity and attachment in meditation?
When anyone picks up a stick, both ends rise together. Which part then is vipassana, and which is samatha? Samatha. Where does one end and the other begin? They are both the mind. As the mind becomes peaceful, initially the peace will arise from the serenity of Samatha. We focus and unify the mind in states of meditative peace, Samadhi.
However, if the peace and stillness of Samadhi fades away, suffering arises in its place. Why is that? Because the peace afforded by Samatha meditation alone is still based on attachment. This attachment can then be a cause of suffering.
Serenity is not the end of the path.
The Buddha saw from his own experience that such peace of mind was not the ultimate. The causes underlying the process of existence had not yet been brought to cessation. the conditions for rebirth still existed.
Chapter 8: How does understanding the nature of existence lead to peace?
His spiritual work had not yet attained perfection. Why? Because there was still suffering. So based on that serenity of Samatha, he proceeded to contemplate, investigate and analyse the conditioned nature of reality, until he was free of all attachments, even the attachment to serenity. Serenity is still part of the world of conditioned existence and conventional reality.
Clinging to this type of peace is clinging to conventional reality. And as long as we cling, we will be mired in existence and rebirth. Delighting in the peace of Samatha still leads to further existence and rebirth. Once the mind's restlessness and agitation calms down, one clings to the resultant peace. So the Buddha examined the causes and conditions underlying existence and rebirth.
As long as he had not yet fully penetrated the matter and understood the truth, he continued to probe deeper and deeper with a peaceful mind, reflecting on how all things, peaceful or not, come into existence. his investigation forged ahead until it was clear to him that everything that comes into existence is like a lump of red hot iron.
The five categories of a being's experience are all a lump of red hot iron. When a lump of iron is glowing red hot, Is there anywhere it can be touched without getting burnt? Is there anywhere at all that is cool? Try touching it on the top, the sides or underneath. Is there a single spot that can be found that's cool? Impossible. this searing lump of iron is entirely red-hot.
We can't even attach to serenity. If we identify with that peace, assuming that there is someone who is calm and serene, this reinforces the sense that there is an independent self or soul. This sense of self is part of conventional reality. Thinking, I'm peaceful, I'm agitated, I'm good, I'm bad, I'm happy or I'm unhappy. We are caught in more existence and birth. It's more suffering.
If our happiness vanishes, then we're unhappy instead. When our sorrow vanishes, then we're happy again. Caught in this endless cycle, we revolve repeatedly through heaven and hell. Before his enlightenment, the Buddha recognized this pattern in his own heart. He knew that the conditions for existence and rebirth had not yet ceased. His work was not yet finished.
Focusing on life's conditionality he contemplated in accordance with nature. Due to this cause there is birth. Due to birth there is death. And all this movement of coming and going So the Buddha took up these themes for contemplation in order to understand the truth about the five khandhas. Everything mental and physical, everything conceived and thought about without exception is conditioned.
Once he knew this, He taught us to set it down. Once he knew this, he taught to abandon it all. He encouraged others to understand in accordance with this truth. If we don't, we'll suffer. We won't be able to let go of these things. However, once we do see the truth of the matter, we'll recognize how these things delude us. As the Buddha taught, the mind has no substance. It's not any thing.
The mind isn't born belonging to anyone. It doesn't die as anyone's. This mind is free, brilliantly radiant and unentangled with any problems or issues. The reason problems arise is because the mind is deluded by conditioned things, deluded by this misperception of self.
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