Ajahn Chah Quotes

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don’t accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you a will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace.

You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.

Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

If it isn't good, let it die. If it doesn't die, make it good.

The heart is the only book worth reading.

But when I know that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.

If you have time to be mindful, you have time to meditate.

If we see everything as uncertain, then their I value fades away.

These days people don't search for the Truth. People study simply in order to find knowledge necessary to make a living, raise families and look after themselves, that's all. To them, being smart is more important than being wise!

Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.

Mindfulness is life. Whenever we don’t have mindfulness, when we are heedless, it’s as if we are dead.

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one. When nature finally calls, they have no idea where to go and are in a mess.

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. Ajahn Chah

Strengthening the mind is not done by making it move around as is done to strengthen the body, but by bringing the mind to a halt, bringing it to rest.

Only when the mind sees for itself, can it uproot and relinquish attachment.

Someone commented: "I can observe desire and aversion in my mind, but it's hard to observe delusion." Ajahn Chah replied: " You're riding on a horse and asking where the horse is?

Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this - just let it all be.

Buddhism is a religion of the heart. Only this. One who practices to develop the heart is one who practices Buddhism [...] Use your heart to listen to the Teachings, not your ears.

Just try to keep your mind in the present. Whatever arises in the mind, just watch it and let go of it. Don't even wish to be rid of thoughts. Then the mind will return to its natural state. No discriminating between good and bad, hot and cold, fast and slow. No me and no you, no self at all—just what there is. When you walk there is no need to do anything special. Simply walk and see what is there. No need to cling to isolation or seclusion. Wherever you are, know yourself by being natural and watching. If doubts arise, watch them come and go. It's very simple. Hold on to nothing. It's as though you are walking down a road. Periodically you will run into obstacles. When you meet defilements, just see them and overcome them by letting them go. Don't think about the obstacles you've already passed; don't worry about those you have not yet seen. Stick to the present. Don't be concerned about the length of the road or the destination. Everything is changing. Whatever you pass, don't cling to it. Eventually the mind will reach its natural balance where practice is automatic. All things will come and go of themselves.

Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught us that sort of home is not our real home. It's a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace.

First you understand the Dhamma with your thoughts. If you begin to understand it, you will practice it. And if you practice it, you will begin to see it, you are the Dhamma and you have the joy of the Buddha.

Even though some of you may experience some peace when you sit in meditation, don’t be in a hurry to congratulate yourselves. Likewise, if there is some confusion, don’t blame yourselves. If things seem to be good, don’t delight in them, and if they’re not good don’t be averse to them. Just look at it all, look at what you have. Just look, don’t bother judging. If it’s good, don’t hold fast to it; if it’s bad, don’t cling to it. Good and bad can both bite, so don’t hold fast to them.

If your mind is happy, then you are happy anywhere you go. When wisdom awakens within you, you will see Truth wherever you look. Truth us all there is. It’s like when you’ve learned how to read - you can then read anywhere you go.

Buddha once saw a jackal, a wild dog, run out of the forest where he was staying. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and then out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. Then it went into a cave, only to run out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up. The jackal had the mange. When it stood, the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running, it was still uncomfortable, so it would stop. Standing, it was still uncomfortable, so it would lie down. Then it would jump up again, running to the underbrush, the tree hollow, never staying still. The Buddha said, “Monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon? Standing, it suffered. Running, it suffered. Sitting, it suffered. Lying down, it suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting. It blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush, and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things. The problem was with his mange.” We are just the same as that jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don’t exercise sense restraint, we blame our suffering on externals. Whether we live in Thailand, America or England, we aren’t satisfied. Why not? Because we still have wrong view. Just that! So wherever we go, we aren’t content. But just as that jackal would be content wherever it went as soon as its mange was cured, so would we be content wherever we went once we rid ourselves of wrong view.

Your doubts about your teacher can help you. Take from your teacher what is good, and be aware of your own practice. Wisdom is yourself to watch and develop.

Give up everything, even peace.

We never really get away with anything.

The untrained mind is stupid.” —AJAHN CHAH, meditation master

The Buddha told his disciple Ananda to see impermanence, to see death with every breath. We must know death; we must die in order to live. What does that mean? To die is to come to the end of our doubts, all our questions, and just be here with the present reality. You can never die tomorrow; you must die now. Can you do it? If you can do it, you will know the peace of no more questions.

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace. —The Venerable Ajahn Chah, twentieth-century Buddhist monk In

We can compare practice to a bottle of medicine a doctor leaves for his patient. On the bottle are written detailed instructions on how to take the medicine, but no matter how many hundred times the patient may read the directions, he is bound to die if that is all he does. He will gain no benefit from the medicine. And before he dies, he may complain bitterly that the doctor wasn’t any good, that the medicine didn’t cure him. He will think that the doctor was a fake or that the medicine was worthless, yet he had only spent his time examining the bottle and reading the instructions. He hadn’t followed the advice of the doctor and taken the medicine. However, if the patient had actually followed the doctor’s advice and taken the medicine regularly as prescribed, he would have recovered. Doctors prescribe medicine to eliminate diseases from the body. The Teachings of the Buddha are prescribed to cure diseases of the mind and to bring it back to its natural healthy state. So the Buddha can be considered to be a doctor who prescribes cures for the illnesses of the mind which are found in each one of us without exception. When you see these illnesses of the mind, does it not make sense to look to the Dhamma as support, as medicine to cure your illnesses?

How does the Dhamma teach the proper way of life? It shows us how to live. It has many ways of showing it - on rocks or trees or just in front of you. It is a teaching but not in words. So still the mind, the heart, and learn to watch. You’ll find the whole Dhamma revealing itself here and now. At what other time and place are you going to look?

Only one book is worth reading: the heart.

When we practice only when we're feeling good, how are we going to get anywhere like that?

There's only one book worth reading: the mind

When light is produced, we no longer worry about getting rid of darkness, nor do we wonder where the darkness has gone. We just know that there is light.

Wherever the mind has a lot of attachment, we will experience intense suffering, intense grief, intense difficulty right there. The place we experience the most problems is the place we have the most attraction, longing and concern. Please try to resolve this. Now, while you still have life and breath, keep on looking at it and reading it until you are able to ‘translate’ it and solve the problem.

The forest is peaceful, why aren't you? You hold onto things causing your confusion. Let nature teach you. Hear the bird's song then let go. If you know nature, you'll know Dhamma. If you know Dhamma, you'll know nature.

Love and hate are both suffering, because of desire. Wanting is suffering, wanting not to have is suffering. Even if you get what you want, it's still suffering because once you've got it, you then live in the fear of losing it. How are you going to live happily with fear?

Good actions bring good results; bad actions bring bad results. Don’t expect the gods to do things for you, or the angels and guardian deities to protect you, or the auspicious days to help you. These things aren’t true. Don’t believe in them. If you believe in them, you will suffer. You will always be waiting for the right day, the right month, the right year, the angels, or the guardian deities. You’ll only suffer that way. Look into your own actions and speech, into your own kamma. Doing good, you inherit goodness, doing bad you inherit badness.

Outward, scriptural study is not important. Of course, the Dharma books are correct, but they are not right. They cannot give you right understanding. To see the word hatred in print is not the same as experiencing anger, just as hearing a person's name is different from meeting him. Only experiencing for yourself can give you true faith.

It’s all Dhamma if we have mindfulness. When we see the animals that run away from danger, we see that they are just like us. They flee from suffering and run towards happiness. They also have fear. They fear for their lives just as we do. When we see according to truth, we see that all animals and human beings are no different. We are all mutual companions of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come, pleasant and unpleasant, you see them and there is no attachment, They come and they pass. Even if the worst kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to fade away. If you react to them, by liking or disliking, that is not wisdom. You're only creating more suffering for yourself.

You can pull on the end of a rope, but if the other end is stuck, the rope will never budge. In order to make it come free, you need to find out where it is stuck, you need to seek out the source or the root of the problem. We must use our practice fully to discover how we are stuck, to discover the heart of peace. We must follow the ox's tracks from the beginning, from the point at which it left the corral. If we start in the middle of the trail, we will not be able to tell whose ox's tracks they are, and thus we could be led anywhere.

Old folks here will tell you there’s fire in dry bamboo. In the past, matches were hard to come by and didn’t always work. When people went into the forest, they could just find some dry wood, and they knew there was fire in it. Whenever they wanted to cook, they only had to rub two pieces of dry bamboo together to start a fire. They would just keep rubbing them together. At first the wood was cold. Rubbing for a while, it got hot, then after some time there was smoke. But it did take a while to get hot, and even more time to make smoke and finally fire. Now we, their children and descendants in these times, don’t have much patience. If we try to rub pieces of bamboo to make fire, within two minutes we’re getting restless. We get fed up and put the sticks down: “Time to take a break!” Then when we pick them up again, we find they’re cold. We start rubbing once more, but we’re starting from the beginning again so they don’t get hot very quickly, and again we get impatient. Like this, we could keep at it for an hour or a whole day and wouldn’t see any fire. We rub and stop, rub and stop. Then we start to criticize the old people: “These old-timers are crazy. I don’t know what they’re talking about. They must be lying. I’ve been rubbing the sticks all this time and still there’s nothing.” This is what happens if our understanding and commitment to practice don’t go far enough. There’s not enough heat, but we expect to have fire. The old folks have done that, but they know it takes some effort. You have to keep rubbing without taking a break; if you take a break, you only get cold sticks.

To use an analogy from the Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah: if getting upset about something unpleasant is like being bitten by a snake, grasping for what’s pleasant is like grabbing the snake’s tail; sooner or later, it will still bite you.

Remember you don't meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go.

There are two kinds of suffering,” Ajahn Chah told him, “the suffering we run from because we are unwilling to face the truth of life and the suffering that comes when we’re willing to stop running from the sorrows and difficulties of the world. The second kind of suffering will lead you to freedom.

If we are still suffering, how can we teach other to be free? Ajahn Chah replied, ‘First of all, be very honest. Don’t pretend that you are wise in ways you are not. Tell people how you are yourself. And then take the measure of things. In weightlifting, if you’re strong, you know that through practice you can lift a really big weight. Maybe you’ve seen someone lift a weight bigger than you can. You can tell your students, ‘If you practice, you can lift that big weight, but don’t try it yet. I can’t even do it, but I’ve seen people do it.’ Be willing to express what is possible without trying to fool someone that you’ve done it.

There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering which leads to more suffering, and the suffering which leads to the end of suffering. The first is the pain of grasping after fleeting pleasures and aversion for the unpleasant, the continued struggle of most people day after day. The second is the suffering which comes when you allow yourself to feel fully the constant change of experience - pleasure, pain, joy, and anger - without fear or withdrawal. The suffering of our experience leads to inner fearlessness and peace.

Người đời chúng ta không thích đau khổ, chúng ta muốn hạnh phúc. Tuy nhiên trong thực tế, hạnh phúc chỉ là một hình thức vi tế của đau khổ. Đau khổ tự nó là hình thức thô kịch. Có thể ví hạnh phúc và đau khổ như đầu và đuôi của một con rắn. Đầu rắn là đau khổ, đuôi là hạnh phúc. Cái đầu của con rắn thật sự nguy hiểm, nó có nọc độc. Nếu sờ đụng ắt nó cắn ngay tức khắc. Nhưng, không nói chi cái đầu, nếu chỉ nắm đuôi rắn thôi, nó cũng quay đầu lại cắn y hệt như vậy, bởi vì đầu và đuôi, cả hai đều thuộc về một con rắn.

Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha. —Ajahn Chah

There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first. —Ajahn Chah

Ajahn Chah, the Thai Forest monk and teacher, asked his students one day when they passed a big boulder, “Do you think that boulder is heavy?” His students said, “Yes, it’s extremely heavy.” Then Ajahn Chah said, “Only if you try to pick it up!” So, we can avoid unnecessarily picking up boulders when we let go of fighting the challenges in our lives. If we can change something, we should do it, without complaining, judging, or blaming. But if we can’t do anything to change it, we can learn to accept it. Shantideva, the eighth-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar, says it this way: “Why worry if you can do something about it? And why worry if you cannot do anything about it?

Once Luang Por Chah was going to visit a branch monastery down near the Cambodian border. The road through the hills down to the borderlands was very twisting and precipitous. Luang Por Chah was in the front of the little pickup truck with a young Western monk and the driver, while there were a few other monks on the benches in the back. The Western monk soon realized that the driver was extremely reckless, and he became convinced the driver had a death wish. They were haring around the steep mountain roads, with enormous drops and blind corners, screeching around one bend after another. The monk sat there the whole time thinking, ‘We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!’ and he kept looking over to Ajahn Chah to see if he was reacting, and whether he was going to ask the driver to slow down. Instead Ajahn Chah sat there quite calmly looking out of the windscreen and didn’t say a thing. To the young monk’s amazement they got through the hills safely and arrived at their destination. When they got there Ajahn Chah turned around to him with a big grin and said, ‘Scary ride, huh?

~ If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely you will be free. Ajahn Chah

At some point in life, we all ask the same question: Who am I? And no one really knows the answer. The self is a slippery subject—especially when it’s the subject that is regarding itself as an object! So let’s begin by grounding this airy topic with an experiential activity—taking the body for a walk. Then we’ll investigate the nature of the self in your brain. Last, we’ll explore methods for relaxing and releasing “self-ing” in order to feel more confident, peaceful, and joined with all things. (For more on this profound matter, which reaches beyond the scope of a single chapter, see Living Dhamma by Ajahn Chah, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, or The Spiritual Teaching of Ramana Maharshi.)

Initially the training in Ajahn Chah’s tradition requires long periods of communal walking and sitting practice, and frequent all-night sittings in the Buddha Hall. After training together with the collective of monks, you may then be directed to a period of practice in solitude for some months. For this part of the training, monks live in isolated caves or in more distant parts of jungles and mountains, a long morning’s walk from the last remote village. Or, in certain retreat centers, small huts are provided for solitary intensive meditation. My own training included a solitary retreat for one year and three months. I didn’t leave my room, just meditated fifteen to eighteen hours a day, sitting for an hour, walking for an hour, then sitting again. I’d see my teacher every two days for a fifteen-minute interview. You don’t have to be in solitude very long before any pride you have goes away. It is quite humbling. Your mind will do anything. Every past thing you’ve ever done or imagined comes back. Every mood, every fear, every longing, your loneliness, your pain, your love, creativity, and boredom appear with great intensity.