Right Practice - Steady Practice¹

Whatever happens, don't let your mind stray off the track. Look within yourself and you will see clearly. For the best practice, as I see it, it isn't necessary to read many books. Take all the books and lock them away. Just read your own mind. You have all been burying yourselves in books from the time you entered school. I think that now you have this opportunity and have the time, take the books, put them in a cupboard and lock the door. Just read your mind.

Whenever something arises within the mind, whether you like it or not, whether it seems right or wrong, just cut it off with, ''this is not a sure thing.'' Whatever arises just cut it down, ''not sure, not sure.'' With just this single axe you can cut it all down. It's all ''not sure.''

For the duration of this next month that you will be staying in this forest monastery, you should make a lot of headway. You will see the truth. This ''not sure'' is really an important one. This one develops wisdom. The more you look the more you will see ''not sure''-ness. After you've cut something off with ''not sure'' it may come circling round and pop up again. Yes, it's truly ''not sure.'' Whatever pops up just stick this one label on it all... ''not sure.'' You stick the sign on... ''not sure''... and in a while, when its turn comes, it crops up again... ''Ah, not sure.'' Dig here! Not sure. You will see this same old one who's been fooling you month in, month out, year in, year out, from the day you were born. There's only this one who's been fooling you all along. See this and realize the way things are.

When your practice reaches this point you won't cling to sensations, because they are all uncertain. Have you ever noticed? Maybe you see a clock and think, ''Oh, this is nice.'' Buy it and see... in not many days you're bored with it already. ''This pen is really beautiful,'' so you take the trouble to buy one. In not many months you tire of it again. This is how it is. Where is there any certainty?

If we see all these things as uncertain then their value fades away. All things become insignificant. Why should we hold on to things that have no value? We keep them only as we might keep an old rag to wipe our feet with. We see all sensations as equal in value because they all have the same nature.

When we understand sensations we understand the world. The world is sensations and sensations are the world. If we aren't fooled by sensations we aren't fooled by the world. If we aren't fooled by the world we aren't fooled by sensations.

The mind which sees this will have a firm foundation of wisdom. Such a mind will not have many problems. Any problems it does have it can solve. When there are no more problems there are no more doubts. Peace arises in their stead. This is called ''practice.'' If we really practice it must be like this.

Footnotes

...¹

Given at Wat Keuan to a group of university students who had taken temporary ordination, during the hot season of 1978

... Potiyahn²

One of the many branch monasteries of Ajahn Chah's main monastery, Wat Pah Pong.

... transcendence³

Concept (sammuti) refers to supposed or provisional reality, while transcendence (vimutti) refers to the liberation from attachment to or delusion within it.

...'s⁴

Māra: the Buddhist personification of evil, the Tempter, that force which opposes any attempts to develop goodness and virtue.

... another⁵

The play on words here between the Thai ''phadtibut'' (practice) and ''wibut'' (disaster) is lost in the English.

...attakilamathānuyogo⁶

These are the two extremes pointed out as wrong paths by the Buddha in his First Discourse. They are normally rendered as ''indulgence in sense pleasures'' and ''self-mortification.''

...pa-kow⁷

Pa-kow: an eight-precept postulant, who often lives with bhikkhus and, in addition to his own meditation practice, also helps them with certain services which bhikkhus are forbidden by the Vinaya from doing.