Let Your Aim be Nibbana
by Ajahn Chah
A talk Ajahn Chah gave while visiting the U.S. in 1979
August 7, 2005
At this time please determine your minds to listen to the dhamma. Today is the traditional day of dhammasavana. It is the appropriate time for us, the host of Buddhists, to study the dhamma in order to increase our mindfulness and wisdom. Giving and receiving the teachings is something we have been doing for a long time. The activities we usually perform on this day, chanting homage to the Buddha, taking moral precepts, meditating and listening to teachings, should be understood as methods and principles for spiritual development. They are not anything more than this.
When it comes to taking precepts, for example, a monk will proclaim the precepts and the laypeople will vow to undertake them. Don”t misunderstand what is going on. The truth is that morality is not something that can be given. It can”t really be requested or received from someone. We can”t give it to someone else. In our vernacular, we hear people say ”The venerable monk gave the precepts" and "We received the precepts." We talk like this here in the countryside, and it has become our habitual way of understanding. If we think like that, that we come to receive precepts from the monks on the lunar observance days, and that if the monks won”t give precepts then we don”t have morality, that is only a tradition of delusion that we have inherited from our ancestors. Thinking in this way means that we give up our own responsibility, not having firm trust and conviction in ourselves. Then it gets passed down to the next generation, and they too come to ”receive” precepts from the monks. And the monks come to believe that they are the ones who ”give” the precepts to the laity. In fact, morality and precepts are not like that. They are not something to be ”given” or ”received”; but on ceremonial occasions of making merit and the like, we use this as a ritual form according to tradition and employ the terminology.
In truth, morality resides with the intentions of people. If you have the conscious determination to refrain from harmful activities and wrongdoing by way of body and speech, then morality is coming about within you. You should know it within yourself. It is OK to take the vows with another person. You can recollect the precepts by yourself. If you don”t know what they are, then you can request them from someone else. It is not something very complicated or distant. So really, whenever we wish to ”receive” morality and dhamma, we have them right then. It is just like the air that surrounds us everywhere. Whenever we breathe, we take it in. All manner of good and evil are like that. If we wish to do good, we can do it anywhere, at any time. We can do it alone, or together with others. Evil is the same. We can do it with a large or small group, in a hidden or open place. It is like that.
These are things that are already in existence. But as to morality, it is something that we should consider normal for all humans to practice. A person who has no morality is no different from an animal. If you decide to live like an animal, then of course there is no good or evil for you, because an animal doesn”t have any knowledge of such things. A cat catches mice, but we don”t say it is doing evil, because it has no concepts or knowledge of good or bad, right or wrong. These beings are outside the circle of human beings. It is the animal realm. The Buddha pointed out that this group is just living according to the animal kind of kamma. Those who understand right and wrong, good and evil, are humans. The Buddha taught his Dhamma for humans. If we people don”t have morality and knowledge of these things, then we are not much different from animals, so it is appro…
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