No Ajahn Chah: Reflections

　　Compiled & Edited by

　　Dhamma Garden

　　Transcribed to the Internet by

　　Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery

　　Once there was a layman who came to Ajahn Chah and asked him who Ajahn Chah was. Ajahn Chah, seeing that the spiritual development of the inpidual was not very advanced, pointed to himself and said, "This, this is Ajahn Chah."

　　On another occasion, someone else asked Ajahn Chah the same question. This time, however, seeing that the questioner”s capacity to understand the Dhamma was higher, Ajahn Chah answered by saying "Ajahn Chah

　　 There is NO Ajahn Chah."

　　The quotations in this collection have been taken from Bodhinayana, A Taste of Freedom, A Still Forest Pool, Samadhi Bhavana, Seeing the Way, Living Dhamma, Food for the Heart, and Venerable Father, A Life with Ajahn Chah. Some quotations come from a personal collection hitherto unpublished.

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　　Introduction

　　When people would say to Ajahn Chah that they found it impossible to practice in society, he would ask them, "If I poked you in the chest with a burning stick, would you say that indeed you were suffering, but since you live in society you can”t get away from it

　　" Ajahn Chah”s response makes a point not unlike the Buddha”s parable of the poisoned arrow. The Buddha tells of a man who had been shot by an arrow and would not let anyone pull it out until his questions about the arrow, the bow and the archer were all answered. The only problem was that the wounded man would probably die before he could get the replies to all his questions. What the wounded man had to realize was that he was in pain and dying, and he should do something about that right away.

　　Ajahn Chah emphasized this point over and over again in his teachings: you”re suffering; do something about it now! He wouldn”t spend much time talking about peace, wisdom, or Nibbanic states but rather the practice of constantly being aware of what was happening within the body and mind within the present moment, learning how to simply watch and let go. Meditation, he”d say, was not getting things, but getting rid of things. Even when asked about the peace one could attain through practice, he would instead rather speak of the confusion that one should first get rid of, for, as he put it, peace is the end of confusion.

　　This collection reflects not only on suffering and meditation practice but also gives us some insight into impermanence, virtue, non-self and so on. We hope that the reader with take this little book as a companion and "good friend" for moments of quiet reflection, and perhaps get a glimpse of the "no-Ajahn Chah" who used to say, "I”m always talking about things to develop and things to give up, but, really there”s “nothing” to develop and “nothing” to give up.

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　　Birth and Death

　　1

　　A good practice is to ask yourself very sincerely, "Why was I born

　　" Ask yourself this question in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night…every day.

　　2

　　Our birth and death are just one thing. You can”t have one without the other. It”s a little funny to see how at a death people are so tearful and sad, and at a birth how happy and delighted. It”s delusion. I think that if you really want to cry, then it would be better to do so when someone”s born. Cry at the root, for if there were no birth, there would be no death. Can you understand this

　　3

　　You”d think that people could appreciate what it would be like to live in a person”s belly. How uncomfortable that would be! Just look at how merely staying in a hut for only one day is already hard to take. You shut all the doors and windows and you”re suffocating already. How would it…

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