In the Dead of Night...¹

It's just like a farmer who hasn't yet finished his fields. Every year he plants rice but this year he still hasn't gotten it finished, so his mind is stuck on that, he can't rest content. His work is still unfinished. Even when he's with friends he can't relax, he's all the time nagged by his unfinished business. Or like a mother who leaves her baby upstairs in the house while she goes to feed the animals below: she's always got her baby in mind, lest it should fall from the house. Even though she may do other things, her baby is never far from her thoughts.

It's just the same for us and our practice - we never forget it. Even though we may do other things our practice is never far from our thoughts, it's constantly with us, day and night. It has to be like this if you are really going to make progress.

In the beginning you must rely on a teacher to instruct and advise you. When you understand, then practice. When the teacher has instructed you follow the instructions. If you understand the practice it's no longer necessary for the teacher to teach you, just do the work yourselves. Whenever heedlessness or unwholesome qualities arise know for yourself, teach yourself. Do the practice yourself. The mind is the one who knows, the witness. The mind knows for itself if you are still very deluded or only a little deluded. Wherever you are still faulty try to practice right at that point, apply yourself to it.

Practice is like that. It's almost like being crazy, or you could even say you are crazy. When you really practice you are crazy, you ''flip.'' You have distorted perception and then you adjust your perception. If you don't adjust it, it's going to be just as troublesome and just as wretched as before.

So there's a lot of suffering in the practice, but if you don't know your own suffering you won't understand the Noble Truth of suffering. To understand suffering, to kill it off, you first have to encounter it. If you want to shoot a bird but don't go out and find it, how will you ever shoot it? Suffering, suffering... the Buddha taught about suffering: the suffering of birth, the suffering of old age... if you don't want to experience suffering you won't see suffering. If you don't see suffering you won't understand suffering. If you don't understand suffering you won't be able to get rid of suffering.

Now people don't want to see suffering, they don't want to experience it. If they suffer here they run over there. You see? They're simply dragging their suffering around with them, they never kill it. They don't contemplate or investigate it. If they feel suffering here they run over there; if it arises there they run back here. They try to run away from suffering physically. As long as you are still ignorant, wherever you go you'll find suffering. Even if you boarded an airplane to get away from it, it would board the plane with you. If you dived under the water it would dive in with you, because suffering lies within us. But we don't know that. If it lies within us where can we run to escape it?

People have suffering in one place so they go somewhere else. When suffering arises there they run off again. They think they're running away from suffering but they're not, suffering goes with them. They carry suffering around without knowing it. If we don't know the cause of suffering then we can't know the cessation of suffering, there's no way we can escape it.

You must look into this intently until you're beyond doubt. You must dare to practice. Don't shirk it, either in a group or alone. If others are lazy it doesn't matter. Whoever does a lot of walking meditation, a lot of practice... I guarantee results. If you really practice consistently, whether others come or go or whatever, one rains retreat is enough. Do it like I've been telling you here. Listen to the teacher's words, don't quibble, don't be stubborn. Whatever he tells you to do go right ahead and do it. You needn't be timid of the practice, knowledge will surely arise from it.

Practice is also patipadā. What is patipadā? Practice evenly, consistently. Don't practice like Old Reverend Peh. One Rains Retreat he determined to stop talking. He stopped talking all right but then he started writing notes... ''Tomorrow please toast me some rice.'' He wanted to eat toasted rice! He stopped talking but ended up writing so many notes that he was even more scattered than before. One minute he'd write one thing, the next another, what a farce!

Footnotes

...¹

Given on a lunar observance night (uposatha), at Wat Pah Pong, in the late 1960s

...glot²

Glot - the Thai forest-dwelling monks' large umbrella from which, suspended from a tree, they hang a mosquito net in which to stay while in the forest.

... time³

The body on the first night had been that of a child.

...viūhi⁴

The last line of the traditional Pāli lines listing the qualities of the Dhamma.

... ordination⁵

Mahānikai and Dhammayuttika are the two sects of the Theravāda Sangha in Thailand.

... handle⁶

A Thai expression meaning, ''Don't overdo it.''

...dhutanga⁷

Thirteen practices allowed by the Buddha over and above the general disciplinary code, for those who wish to practice more ascetically.

... sankhārā....''⁸

Part of a Pāli verse, traditionally recited at funeral ceremonies. The meaning of the full verse if, ''Alas, transient are all compounded things / Having arisen, they cease / Being born, they die / The cessation of all compounding is true happiness.''