..续本文上一页 it”s peaceful or not is not important. What is important is to practice without stopping. If you all practice without giving up, I am absolutely sure that you will all get something out of your practice, whatever it is, I”m sure I it will be more than you expected. And the insight on all kinds of levels that will occur will be something that has exclusively arisen in your own minds – these are namadhamma, non-material phenomena.

　　These things can”t be shared publicly. These things can”t be taken out and shown to others. For instance, when your mind enters peace, you won”t be able to describe it to your friends, you can”t let them witness how the peacefulness was. These are namadhamma, they can”t be proven to others, as you could with what you have built up in the material world, for example the sala or the temple here. You can always say the sala was built in a certain year and everybody can confirm it. But when you are out there in the jungle, and peacefulness arises in you, you won”t be able to let others certify the character of your peacefulness. Although the practice works purely on the level of mental phenomena, it still is something that directly manifests itself in the hearts of each and everyone of us.

　　Therefore, let all of us who are already well-motivated to continually keep on practicing in line with the teachings of the Buddha, and the teachings of the krooba-ajahn.. Especially Luang Por Chah, our guide in the practice, wanted all of us who are part of a steadily increasing number of disciples, to come to the essence of the Buddha”s teachings and to be firmly established in it. Bit by bit, every day, our practice will make our hearts more and more stable until finally we are able to fully trust ourselves.

　　May I offer these reflections to all of you up to this point today, rand we can continue now with questions and answers.

　　Tan Yatiko: Luang Por: what is the biggest obstacle in practice for western monks in your experience

　　Luang Por: Too much thinking. Usually westerners like thinking. If you are able to stop thinking, panya (wisdom) will develop. This is my opinion.

　　Tan Ajahn Jayasaro: For somebody who usually thinks too much, which methods are more preferable, the ones that go against the habits of thinking, like watching the breath or focusing on a mantra or the ones that make use of the thinking mind in some way

　　Luang Por: It depends on the time and place and on which method suits one, but if you want to use the thinking mind, try to keep the thoughts within the body or within the realm of Dhamma, then it won”t do any harm. But don”t let your mind wander out of this field, for example thinking about what this or that person is like or worry about others criticizing you. Thinking about other people is not correct, it is beyond the realm of practice, and it makes our mind go out following it”s thoughts without end. Try to keep the thinking within your own body or on the side of Dhamma, then there is no problem, even though you keep on thinking.

　　But if you are able to take up watching the breath, either take some very deep breaths or hold the breath a little from time to time [in order to stop the thinking mind]. I don”t know whether you”ve heard of Luang Por Chah”s method in relation to doing walking meditation: when the thinking becomes too much, go up to the end of the walking path, stop and take in a full lung of breath, and then try a fresh start.

　　At the times when you start thinking about certain things that you blame yourself for -and some of you mostly think about things like that -then you need to think about some good actions you have done in the past, for example the fact that you became ordained as monks. This is uplifting to the mind. But even so, sometim…

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