by Ajahn Chah
Do the trees in the forest teach us something? Sometimes we like some of the trees. We may feel they look beautiful and have a nice smell and so forth. The trees are just growing according to their nature, and on our own side, we develop these good feelings about them. It’s similar with the situation in the monastery. We don’t need to go teaching people, trying to impress something on them. We only need to develop ourselves through our own practice. This will naturally attract them.
I’ve thought about this for a long time. From my sixth year as a monk, I considered what it entails to establish a monastery, and I came to the conclusion that it is only important to be practicing well. It’s not necessary to look to anything else. We don’t need to go requesting donations or proclaiming ourselves to the public. If we are really practicing, the requisites of dwelling, food, robes, and medicines will come.
I really feel that if you are practicing well, the gods will know. They will gather around you. At the very least, they will want to offer food. If they don’t do this, they suffer headaches, and their heads will split open. They must have this desire to come. Not just here, but even if you are living on a mountain. Wherever you are, this will happen. Though they do not know you and have never seen or heard of you before, they must come because they are attracted by the virtuous quality of your practice.
Thus, practice is the most precious thing for us. If we really practice to the end, there will be no problems or obstacles. If you end up establishing a monastery, you needn’t go making requests for anything. People will come to offer what you need. They will come to build the place. We don’t have to ask people to lend a hand. They come naturally because we have been creating virtue; it comes flowing in like this. That we are able to live here now is because of our meritorious karma and good practice. If the community is quarreling, if the abbot is a worldly minded person, if there are disputes and contention, what can come of that? They may well come to burn us down.
Understand this. We can stay here now, totally dependent as we are on the support of laypeople, because of our practice. I try to stay to help out. One year, I went away. Everything started running out: no incense, no candles, no kerosene. Just about everything was finished. Nobody was coming to offer anything. Why was that? Because there were few here who were really practicing well. When I returned, you were all glad to see me. “Luang Por’s back! Great! Now there will be good meals again.” You think that all the good things left when I left. Who is it that takes them away? It’s just your own virtue or lack of it that determines this. Make your practice better and this won’t happen. You don’t need to worry. You only need to create virtue.
Wherever I go, I don’t lack for anything. Why? Because of renunciation. If I wanted to, I could fill bags with the offerings, but I prefer to share it all with the monks and nuns at Wat Pah Pong and the branch monasteries. Sometimes people bring medicine that is supposed to be specifically for me. If another monk is sick and needs it, I tell them to give it to him. If he takes the medicine, I feel better. I get well because of the merit involved. I don’t need to take the medicine myself.
At one time, Sariputta and Moggallana were residing on a mountain. Sariputta fell ill with severe pains in his stomach. He felt that he might even die. Moggallana asked him, “Have you ever been sick like this before?”
Sariputta answered, “Yes, I have. It’s been happening since I was a layperson.”
“What medicine did you take for it?”
“Before when this happened, my mother would boil green beans with milk and sugar and some other ingredients. After I ate them, the pains would go away.”
There were just the two of them, talking there on the mountain. The deity of that place heard them. Just as evening was coming, he went down to the village to find a lay patron. He grabbed the patron by the neck and dragged his son out, too. He was carrying on and making a great fuss. Why was he giving them such a hard time? “Are you going to prepare some medicine for the Venerable Sariputta? If you don’t offer him medicine, he will die. Are you going to let the Venerable Sariputta die?”
The patron understood. He gave his word that he would make the medicine. Then the deity vanished, and the man hurried to find some green beans and spent the night preparing them.
In the morning, Moggallana went for alms. Sariputta could not go because of the pain in his stomach. The patron presented the green beans, along with some other food. “I wish to offer this to the Venerable Sariputta.” Then he put it into the alms bowl.
When Moggallana reached the monastery, he took out his own food and offered the bowl with Sariputta’s food to him. Sariputta looked in the bowl and saw the green beans, prepared just as he had described the night before. Everything was exactly as he had told Moggallana.
Sariputta was upset. This was not in accord with the rules of a bhikkhu; an inappropriate request had obviously been made. “Venerable Moggallana, please spill this food out on the ground. Food that was requested of a patron without invitation is not appropriate, and I cannot accept it.” He was protecting his vows. When he spoke these words, all the deities heard. Moggallana picked up the alms bowl to pour it out, and just as the medicinal food hit the ground, Sariputta’s pain and illness disappeared.
This is called the medicine of Dharma. It has power and blessing like this. Sariputta was practicing to this extent. Even when the two monks were alone on a mountaintop the deity heard their conversation. And even when the deity caused the exact food that he needed to be given to him, Sariputta would not eat it because he was afraid of violating his precepts. This was how he guarded his mind
Practice should be like this. Please impress this upon your minds. You will not die! Today, after you finish your meal, you don’t need to worry about what you will get tomorrow. It will come. We don’t need to store up a lot. If we practice well, the provisions must come. It is said that whoever does not make offerings to those practicing authentically and virtuously will not feel good. They will have headaches. They will want to go to pay their respects and make offerings. Such feelings naturally come about in people because of this power.
1. Retreat held in Barre, Massachusetts, 1979.
2. From a conversation with an air-force doctor in Bangkok.
4
SEEING DHARMA
Kondanya Knows
WE ARE PRACTITIONERS OF DHARMA. All dharmas are nature, existing as it is. Nature is exclusively and completely Dharma. Those things are not yet clear to us because we haven’t come to know the way to practice, so we need to rely on the instructions and training of a qualified teacher. Nature also teaches us: things such as trees are born from their causes and grow accordingly. This is nature showing us something, but we are not yet able to see that the trees are teaching us. All the way from their birth to growing, blossoming, and giving fruit, we merely see them as supplying fruit for us to eat. We don’t see them as something for us to turn inward and reflect upon. We should know that Dharma is the tree teaching us, but we don’t realize that yet.
When the tree gives fruit, we gather and eat it indifferently without any real investigation or consideration. The sweet and sour tastes of fruit are their nature; these characteristics are Dharma, and the fruits are teaching us something, but we don’t understand that. When the leaves of the tree wither and die, they fall. We only see it as leaves falling, and we tread on them or sweep them up without any investigation. We don’t realize this is Dharma, teaching something for us to hear.
The leaves of the tree fall, then the new buds appear. We see this cycle but don’t really think much about it, so we don’t learn anything of significance from it. If we were to turn it inward, we would see that our own birth and death are not so very different from that of trees. This body comes into being as a result of various causes and depends on the four elements for its existence. It grows and comes to fruition of different kinds, just like a tree. And the falling leaves and new buds are no different from the lives of people. Take a look at this. We are constantly
growing, and conditions are constantly changing. Like the trees; just as trees are, so are we. All humans are born in the beginning, change in the middle—their physical constituents changing into something different from what they were—and pass away in the end. The natural phenomena of trees, vines, and shrubs are continuously and unceasingly in a state of flux, and if we turn this inward, we will understand birth, aging, and death within ourselves, just as we see them externally.
When you understand Dharma from listening to the words of a qualified teacher, it truly pricks your heart: outer and inner are the same. Sankhara (conditioned phenomena), with or without consciousness occupying them, are the same—not different at all. If we understand this, then seeing the way trees are, we will see the nature of our aggregates of body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness. With this kind of understanding we are called people who understand Dharma.
Being people who understand Dharma, we will strive to see Dharma everywhere and in all things, to see the characteristics of our five khandhas—that they are continually in a state of flux, moving, changing, and transforming without any letup. Whether we are standing, sitting, walking, or lying down, we employ mindfulness to guard and watch at all times. Seeing external objects, it is the same as seeing internal phenomena. Seeing internal phenomena is the same as seeing external phenomena, because they are of the same nature. When it is like this, we are hearing the teaching of the Buddha. With this understanding, it is said that the Buddha nature, meaning the one who knows, is awakened. There is knowledge of internal and external phenomena and the ability to explain the facets of Dharma in various ways according to what we have seen.
Photographer unknown
Ajahn Chah, circa 1982.
We are constantly hearing the teachings of the Buddha whether we are walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, and whenever we are seeing forms, hearing sounds, savoring tastes, and so on. It is exactly as if the Buddha were teaching us, because the Buddha is just this one who knows dwelling within our hearts. Knowing and seeing and investigating the Dharma like this, the Buddha is present. It is not that the Buddha entered final nirvana long ago and cannot teach us now. The Buddha nature, which means our own minds when clear knowledge has arisen, will lead us to investigate and know all dharmas. This knowing of the Dharma is the Buddha himself. If we establish Buddha in our hearts, having this awareness and sensitivity, then as we go on investigating, we will see all things as no different from ourselves. Living creatures, plants and animals, poor people and those in difficulty, rich people, dark- or light-skinned people are no different from us, because all of them are of the same characteristics. With this understanding, wherever we stay, we will be content and at ease. The Buddha will be there, constantly instructing and assisting us.
Without this understanding, we will always have the desire to hear teachings. We will want to seek out different teachers, one after the next, and will always be asking when we can get still another teaching, all the while not yet understanding Dharma. The Buddha said that becoming enlightened to the Dharma is a matter of understanding nature, things as they are. If we don’t know nature, when we meet with situations, we are thrown into turmoil and are always in a state of struggle. We are delighted with things and get lost, being fooled by them; we are upset by things and fooled by them. We are deluded in nature, fooled by nature, and are at the mercy of our moods and emotions. Being deluded about nature like this means that we do not understand Dharma. So the Enlightened One explained about what is natural.
This nature is not something mysterious. In nature, things appear, change, and come to an end. It is the same for the material objects created by people. The pots and dishes we use, for example, are also created by causes and conditions, which are the conceptions and intentions of human beings. They are used for a while, they become worn, and finally break and fall apart. That is ordinary for them. Trees, plants, and mountains, as well as animals and humans, are the same: coming into existence; changing and deteriorating; and in the end, breaking up and disappearing.
So when the ascetic Anya Kondanya listened to the words of the Buddha as the first disciple, the realization he had was nothing very complicated. He understood that whatever comes into existence will naturally undergo change and finally cease to be. That is the nature of things. Previously, Kondanya had not realized this. He had not considered this fact and seen it clearly. Or perhaps he had thought about it, but had not contemplated it thoroughly; thus he had not let go. He had still clung to the five aggregates. But when he sat before the Buddha and listened to the teachings for the first time with clear mindfulness, the Buddha nature awakened in him, and he was able to receive authentic transmission of one level of Dharma, which was that all sankhara are uncertain. All things that are born will undergo transformation and finally cease to be; that is what is ordinary and natural for them.
The understanding that arose in Kondanya upon hearing the words of the Buddha was different from anything he had experienced before. He realized the mind as it actually is, so it is said the Buddha arose within him. Then the Lord Buddha proclaimed that Kondanya had attained the eye of wisdom and seen Dharma. What did it mean, that he had seen the Dharma? He had attained knowledge and vision that all things arise in the beginning, change in the middle, and pass away in the end. “All things” means all phenomena of body and mind, and these characteristics apply to all of them without exception.
When this understanding clearly penetrated the heart of Anya Kondanya at the moment when he sat before the Buddha, it became the cause that enabled him to remove all clinging to sankhara from his mind. The view that holds the body to be one’s own and to be oneself, and leads one to believe in a self, was clearly seen and uprooted. Once belief in a self was uprooted, the mind of skeptical doubt also came to an end. There was no more bewilderment about phenomena, his knowledge of things having been transformed. As for superstitious attachment to conventions, rites, and rituals, his practice had become correct and straight, so there was no more doubt or hesitation, no more groping or fumbling about cause and effect. If the body were to become sick or experience any other changes, he would not have any hazy notions about it; the ending of doubt had removed attachment and clinging. If there is still attachment, we will still be groping after the meaning of things that happen to the body, and this groping is superstition. But when belief in and attachment to the body as ourselves or our own is removed, there is no longer uncertainty or superstitious notions.
So when the Supreme Teacher expounded Dharma, Anya Kondanya opened the eye of Dharma. He now saw clearly. His view of things was reversed. When this seeing became clear and focused, his clinging was uprooted. When clinging was done away with, the one who knows had truly arisen. Before there had been knowledge, but he had not been able to remove clinging. This meant that he knew the Dharma but did not see Dharma; or we could say that he saw Dharma but had not become one with Dharma, because he did not know the actual condition of things. Thus, the Supreme Teacher proclaimed, “Kondanya knows.”
Normally, we are deluded and confused about nature, for example, our bodies. They are composed of earth, water, fire, and air. That is one aspect of nature, material phenomena that can be seen with the eyes. This form of nature is nourished by food, grows and changes, and eventually disappears.
Internally, there is the one who is in charge of the body, the consciousness or faculty of knowing. When this knowing occurs through the eye, it is called the eye consciousness, or the sense of sight. When it occurs through the ear, it is called the sense of hearing. When it occurs through the nose, it is called the sense of smell; and so on for the tongue, body, and mind. There is one knowing, but we call it different things when it occurs through different senses. Six types of consciousness are mentioned in the teachings, but it is only a convention to specify when we are knowing at different points of sense contact, through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, or the mind. In truth, there are not six. It is one faculty of k
nowing that is capable of awareness at these six points. And this one mind, this one who knows, has the potential to know things as they really are, which is knowing nature.
Whenever this one who knows is still obscured, its knowing is only the knowing of delusion, knowing in wrong ways, having a wrong understanding of things. It is just the same fundamental awareness, nothing other. Knowing and seeing correctly or knowing and seeing wrongly are functions of this one faculty of awareness. Thus when we talk about wrong view and right view, we are not talking about two separate things, two separate minds or places of origin. When delusion is present, it hides the truth and obscures the mind, and our awareness is mistaken. When our awareness is wrong, our view is wrong. Following that, actions will be wrong, livelihood will be wrong, all will be wrong; and this all begins with wrong understanding.
The factors of the path arise in the same place and follow this same progression. Right view also arises from the one who knows, this faculty of awareness. When it is correct, then the incorrect will vanish. When it is right, that which is wrong will vanish. Thus, when the Buddha was developing the perfections as the bodhisattva, performing great austerities and living on minute amounts of food to the point where his body became severely emaciated, some insight was born within him. He realized that all the buddhas of the past were enlightened through the mind, not through the body. The body by itself doesn’t know anything. Feeding it or not feeding it is not the point. Others can even kill this body without harming the mind. So after he had this change of outlook, after he attained enlightenment and began to teach, he pointed out that the enlightenment of all the buddhas was attained through cultivation of mind. When he looked deeply within his own mind, he gave up practicing the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification, and he pointed this out clearly in his first teaching.
