..续本文上一页ecting it onto others, onto situations or teachers outside yourself. Just wake up! You create your own world. Do you want to practice or not

　　Just as we monks must strive with our precepts and ascetic practices, developing the discipline that leads to freedom, so you lay people must do likewise. As you practice in your homes, you should endeavour to refine the basic precepts. Strive to put body and speech in order. Make real effort, practice continuously. As for concentrating the mind, do not give up because you have tried it once or twice and are not at peace. Why should it not take a long time

　　 How long have you let your mind wander as it wished without

　　doing anything to control it

　　 How long have you allowed it to lead you around by the nose

　　 Is it any. wonder that a month or two is not enough to still it

　　Of course, the mind is hard to train. When a horse is really stubborn, do not feed it for a while-it will come around. When it starts to follow the right.

　　course, feed it a little. The beauty of our way of life is that the mind can be trained. With our own right effort, we can come to wisdom.

　　To live the lay life and practice Dharma, one must be in the world but remain above it. Virtue, beginning with the five basic precepts, is all important, parent to all good things. It is the basis for removing wrong from the mind, removing the cause of distress and agitation. Make virtue really firm. Then practice your formal meditation when the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes the meditation will be good, sometimes not. Do not worry about it, just continue. If doubts arise, just realize that they, like everything else in the mind, are impermanent.

　　As you continue, concentration will arise. Use it to develop wisdom. See like and dislike arising from sense contact and do not attach to them. Do not be anxious for results or quick progress. An infant first crawls, then learns to walk, then to run. Just be firm in your virtue and keep practicing.

　　PART 6

　　Questions for the Teacher

　　One of the most delightful ways to receive instruction from Achaan Chah is to sit at his cottage and listen as he answers questions for the monks of the monastery and the constant stream of lay visitors. It is here that one can see the universality of this way of practice, for although on some days he might discuss only the rice crop with a local farmer, most of the questions one hears are the same from Asians and Westerners alike. They ask about doubts and fears, the ways to calm the heart, the possibilities and struggles in living a virtuous and meditative life.

　　One or two hundred or more European and American students have found their way to the rural forest of Thailand to practice at Wat Ba Pong and its branch monasteries over the years. They include seekers and travelers, physicians and Peace Corps volunteers, old and young. Some have come to ordain for good and make the monk”s path their way of life. Others stay for shorter periods of training and then return to the West to integrate and apply the way of mindfulness to their household life.

　　Some of the questions which follow were asked during the 1970 rains retreat by monks, both Western and Thai. Others came from a more recent session during a visit by Western lay students and Dharma teachers to WatBa Pong. If you listen carefully to the answers to these questions, you will find each points to a way of practice and freedom you can use in your own life. Each contains the seeds of the Dharma of liberation, and each points you back to the source of true insight and understanding-your own heart and mind.

　　Questions and Answers

　　One part of these questions, answers, and discussions with Achaan Chah was recorded during the visit of a group of Western disciples and Dharma teachers to Wat …

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