Find Lightness

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Look at your own mind. The one who carries things thinks he's got things, but the one who looks on only sees the heaviness. Throw away things, lose them and find lightness.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Place Inside and Outside

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If you're allergic to one place, you'll be allergic to every place. But it's not the place outside you that's causing you trouble. It's the place inside you.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Big Car, Little Car

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"As long as I have still not attained Supreme Enlightenment, I will not rise from this place, even if my blood dries up."

Reading this in the books, you may think of trying it yourself. You'll do it like the Buddha. But you haven't considered that your car is only a small one. The Buddha's car was a really big one. He could do it all at once. With only your tiny, little car, how can you possibly take it all at once? It's a different story altogether.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Feverish World

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The world is in a very feverish state. The mind changes from like to dislike with the feverishness of the world. If we can learn to make mind still, it will be the greatest help to the world.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Defilements

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The Buddha taught us that whatever makes the mind distressed in our practice hits home. Defilements are distressed. It's not that the mind is distressed! We don't know what our mind and defilements are. Whatever we aren't satisfied with, we just don't want anything to do with it. Our way of life is not difficult. What's difficult is not being satisfied, not agreeing with it. Our defilements are the difficulty.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Dhamma flows by itself

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Also when you expound the Dhamma you must not force yourself. It should happen on it's own and should flow spontaneously from the present moment and circumstances. People have different levels of receptive ability, and when you're there at that same level, it just happens, the Dhamma flows. The Buddha had the ability to know people's temperaments and receptive abilities. He used this very same method of spontaneous teaching. It's not that he possessed any special superhuman power to teach, but rather that he was sensitive to the spiritual needs of the people who came to him, and so he taught them accordingly.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Surrender, Emptiness, Laying Down the Burden

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Regardles of time and place, the whole practice of Dhamma comes to completion at the place where there is nothing. It's the place of surrender, of emptiness, of laying down the burden. This is the finish.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Mutual Companions

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It's all Dhamma if we have mindfulness. When we see the animals that run away from danger, we see that they are just like us. They flee from suffering and run toward happiness. They also have fear. They fear for their lives just as we do. When we see according to truth, we see that all animals and human being are no different. We are all mutual companions of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Don't just sitting with the eyes closed

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Don't think that only sitting with the eyes closed is practice. If you do think this way, then quickly change your thinking. Steady practice is being mindful in every posture, whether sitting, walking, standing or lying down. When coming out of sitting, don't think that you are coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures. If you reflect in this way, you will have peace. Wherever you are, you will have this attitude of practice with you constantly. You will have a steady awareness within yourself.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Death is near

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Death is as close as our breath.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

To be born and to die

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The "One Who Knows" clearly knows that all conditioned phenomena are unsubstantial. So this "One Who Knows" does not become happy or sad, for it does not follow changing conditions. To become glad, is to be born; to become dejected is to die. Having died, we are born again. This birth and death from one moment to the next is the endless spinning wheel of samsara.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Watch out, because death is coming to get you, too

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If you trained properly, you wouldn't feel frightened when you fall sick, nor upset when someone dies. When you go into the hospital for treatment, determine in your mind that if you get better, that's fine, and that if you die, that's fine, too. I guarantee you that if the doctors told me I had cancer and was going to die in a few months, I'd remind the doctors, "Watch out, because death is coming to get you, too. It's just a question of who goes first and who goes later." Doctors are not going to cure death or prevent death. Only the Buddha such a doctor, so why not go ahead and use the Buddha's medicine?

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Life is confusing.

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When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

If he didn't practice

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I've already laid down the schedule and rules of the monastery. Don't transgress the existing standards. Anyone who does is not one who has come with real intention to practice. What can such a person ever hope to see? Even if he slept near me everyday, he wouldn't see me. Even if he slept near the Buddha, he wouldn't see the Buddha, if he didn't practice.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

To see death with every breath

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The Buddha told his disciple Ananda to see impermanence, to see death with every breath. We must know death; we must die in order to live. 

What does it mean?

To die is to come to the end of all our doubts, all our questions, and just be here with the present reality. You can never die tomorrow; you must die now. 

Can you do it? 

If you can do it, you will know the peace of no more questions.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Oh! They don't practice.

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I've heard people say, "Oh this year was a bad year for me." "How come?" "I was sick all year. I couldn't practice at all."
Oh! If they don't practice when death is near, when will they ever practice? If they're feeling well, do you think they practice? No. They only get lost in happiness. If they're suffering they still don't practice. They get lost in that, too. I don't know when people think they're going to practice.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Make it Dhamma

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Whatever you do, make it Dhamma.
If you don't feel good, look inside.
If you know it's wrong and still do it, that's defilement.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Understand the Dhamma

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First you understand the Dhamma with your thoughts.
If you begin to understand it, you will practice it.
And if you practice it, you will begin to see it.
And when you see it, you are the Dhamma and you have the joy of the Buddha.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

Time is our present breath

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Time is our present breath.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")

If our body really belonged to us

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If our body really belonged to us, it would obey our commands. If we say'"Don't get old," or "I forbid you to get sick," does it obey us? No! It's take no notice. We only rent this "house", not own it. If we think it does belong to us, we will suffer when we have to leave it. But in reality, there is no such thing as a permanent self, nothing unchanging or solid that we can hold on to.

(Ajahn Chah, "No Ajahn Chah")