01/02/2016
https://m.facebook.com/AjahnSuchartAbhijato/photos/a.387156951449067.1073741828.383183105179785/539525132878914/?type=3
“Put all your efforts into developing peace of mind”
“…To be able to meditate, the Buddha said we must first relinquish the kind of happiness that we are used to, i.e. the happiness through the body. We have to stop going outside, seeing things, hearing things, going to the movies, going out to parties, or anything of that sort.
We have to stop, and stay at home if we can. Stay alone in your room and meditate. You have to keep on meditating again and again, until you achieve the result. So, it is not easy, because normally the mind wants to go outside to go see things, to hear things, to go eat and drink, and to have fun. But this kind of happiness can be tiring, and it can be hard to achieve because it takes a lot of resources to obtain.
You need a strong body, and you need money in order to see what you want to see, hear what you want hear, eat or drink what you want to eat or drink. Money doesn’t come easily; you have to work. So, this is the kind of happiness that you are going after, which can be quite stressful sometimes when you have to work to get money. And when you get the money, you will spend it very quickly. In just a few days, you will spend the money that took the whole month to earn, and then you have to go back and work again. And then next time when you get money, you again spend it in just a few days, so this is what you keep on doing again and again.
When there is an interruption to this process, like if you cannot acquire money, then you may be in trouble. Or if you have the money, but your body cannot do what you want to do, like when your body gets sick or gets old, then you can no longer enjoy this kind of happiness. But if you can develop mindfulness, maintaining your focus with your attention on one object, then you can sit in meditation and have peace of mind. When you have peace of mind, you have happiness.
So, this is what the Buddha chose to do instead of living in the palace and having happiness through the body. He wanted to have happiness directly through the mind, by living alone and controlling the mind, developing mindfulness to stop the mind from thinking, so it could become peaceful, calm, and happy.
This is something you might not have heard about before, or you might have heard about it before, but you might not have tried it yet. But if one day, for some reasons, you get tired of your way of life, now you know that there is an alternative way of finding happiness, a kind of happiness that you don’t have to pursue.
All you have to do is to stop your mind from pursuing. When you pursue something, your mind becomes restless, agitated, and unhappy. The mind can only be happy when it stops pursuing, stops going after this or that. Just become still. So, maybe this is something you want to try one day. Stop your mind from going after things, going after all sorts of activities that you think can make you happy, but can only give you temporary happiness.
Once you have experienced something, it is gone. If you want it again, you have to do it again. And if you have to do it again and again, it becomes boring, and you get sick of it. So, you look for something different to do. So, this is what the Buddha said — life is boring. Life is not satisfactory if it is the kind of life in which you have to use the body to have happiness.
So, he tried to find the other kind of happiness. He became a monk, and he put all his efforts into developing peace of mind by staying alone. Because if you stay with other people, you will have interactions with them, and when you have interactions, your mind has to think, and it cannot become still or peaceful.
So, this is basically the goal of Buddhism: to develop a different kind of happiness, the kind of happiness in which you don’t have to rely on your body or any financial resources. You can be broke and still be happy. You can be alone and still be happy.
If you can make your mind peaceful and calm, you don’t need to have a partner to live with. You can live alone and be happy. So, this is basically what I wanted to tell you…”
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
