Even One Word Is Enough¹

Whatever you will teach , it won't be outside of s?la, sam?dhi, and paññ?, or, to use another standard classification, generosity, morality, and meditation.

Folks here are already pretty complicated. You have to look at the people you are teaching and understand them. Here, they are complicated. So you have to give them something they can relate to. Just to say, ''Let go, let go!'' won't be right. Put that aside for the time being. It's like talking to older people in Thailand. If you try to speak bluntly, they will resent it. If I do that, it's OK - if they hear it from me, it pleases them - but otherwise they would get angry.

You can be able to speak well but still not be skillful. Right, Sumedho? It's like that, isn't it?

Ajahn Sumedho: It is. They (some of the other monks) speak the truth, but they don't do it skillfully, and the lay people don't want to listen. They don't have the skillful means.

Ajahn Chah: Right. They don't have a ''technique.'' They don't have the technique in speaking. Like construction - I can build things, but I don't have a technique for construction, to make things beautiful and long-lasting. I can speak, anyone can speak, but it's necessary to have the skillful means to know what is appropriate. Then saying even one word can be of benefit. Otherwise, you can cause trouble with your words.

For example, people here have learned a lot of things. Don't go extolling your way: ''My way is right! Your way is wrong!'' Don't do that. And don't merely try to be profound, either. You can lead people to madness by that. Just say, ''Don't discard other ways you may have learned. But for the time being, please put them aside and focus on what we are practising right now.'' Such as mindfulness of breathing. That's something you can all teach. Teach to focus on the breath going in and out. Just keep teaching in the same way, and let people get an understanding of this. When you become skilled at teaching one thing, your ability to teach will develop of its own, and you will be able to teach other things. Coming to know one thing well, people can then know many things. It happens of its own. But if you try to teach them many things, they don't get a real understanding of any one thing. If you point out one thing clearly, then they can know many things clearly.

Like those Christians who came today. They just said one thing. They said one thing that was full of meaning. ''One day we will meet again in the place of ultimate truth.'' Just this one statement was enough. Those were the words of a wise person. No matter what kind of Dhamma we learn, if we don't realize the ultimate truth (paramatthadhamma) in our hearts, we won't reach satisfaction.

Footnotes

...¹

To the Western Sangha newly arrived in England, 1979

...''salty²

Not the same connotation as in English. Here it means 'hard' or 'direct'.

... Buddhas³

The ''solitary enlightened ones''

...⁴

Or: the communists will still let us eat rice, won't they?