"Tuccho Pothila'' - Venerable Empty-Scripture¹

The cause of suffering is to cling to things. So we should get rid of the cause, cut off its root and not allow it to cause suffering again. People have only one problem - the problem of clinging. Just because of this one thing people will kill each other. All problems, be they individual, family or social, arise from this one root. Nobody wins... they kill each other but in the end no-one gets anything. I don't know why people keep on killing each other so pointlessly.

Power, possessions, status, praise, happiness and suffering... these are the worldly dhammas. These worldly dhammas engulf worldly beings. Worldly beings are led around by the worldly dhammas: gain and loss, acclaim and slander, status and loss of status, happiness and suffering. These dhammas are trouble makers, if you don't reflect on their true nature you will suffer. People even commit murder for the sake of wealth, status or power. Why? Because they take them too seriously. They get appointed to some position and it goes to their heads, like the man who became headman of the village. After his appointment he became ''power-drunk.'' If any of his old friends came to see he'd say, ''Don't come around so often. Things aren't the same anymore.''

The Buddha taught to understand the nature of possessions, status, praise and happiness. Take these things as they come but let them be. Don't let them go to your head. If you don't really understand these things you become fooled by your power, your children and relatives... by everything! If you understand them clearly you know they're all impermanent conditions. If you cling to them they become defiled.

All of these things arise afterwards. When people are first born there are simply nāma and rūpa, that's all. We add on the business of ''Mr. Jones,'' ''Miss Smith'' or whatever later on. This is done according to convention. Still later there are the appendages of ''Colonel,'' ''General'' and so on. If we don't really understand these things we think they are real and carry them around with us. We carry possessions, status, name and rank around. If you have power you can call all the tunes... ''Take this one and execute him. Take that one and throw him in jail''... Rank gives power. This word ''rank'' here is where clinging takes hold. As soon as people get rank they start giving orders; right or wrong, they just act on their moods. So they go on making the same old mistakes, deviating further and further from the true path.

One who understands the Dhamma won't behave like this. Good and evil have been in the world since who knows when... if possessions and status come your way then let them simply be the possessions and status, don't let them become your identity. Just use them to fulfill your obligations and leave it at that. You remain unchanged. If we have meditated on these things, no matter what comes our way we will not be fooled by it. We will be untroubled, unaffected, constant. Everything is pretty much the same, after all.

Footnotes

...¹

An informal talk given at Ajahn Chah's kuti, to a group of lay people, one evening in 1978

...samana²

One who lives devoted to religious practices. The term is used also to refer to one who has developed a certain amount of virtue from such practices. Ajahn Chah usually translates the term as ''one who is peaceful.''

...ñānadassana³

Literally: knowledge and insight (into the Four Noble Truths).

... Mind⁴

One of the four foundations of mindfulness: body, feeling, mind, and dhammas.

...kāmachanda⁵

Kāmachanda: Sensual desire, one of the five hindrances, the other four being ill will, doubt, restlessness and worry, and doubt.

...khandhas⁶

The five khandhas, or ''heaps'': form, feeling, perception, conception, and consciousness.

...sīla-dhamma⁷

Sīla-dhamma: The practice of virtue.

... Wisdom⁸

Sīla, samādhi, paññā.