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Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.

Ajahn Chah

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Ajahn Chah
Age: 73 †
Born: 1918
Born: June 17
Died: 1992
Died: January 16
Bhikkhu
Ajahn Chah Subhaddo
Walks
Become
Anything
Meditator
Nothing
Grasp
Trying
Resist
Make
Enlightened
Buddhist
Walk

More quotes by Ajahn Chah

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You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.
Ajahn Chah
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Whenever we feel that we are definitely right, so much so that we refuse to open up to anything or anybody else, right there we are wrong. It becomes wrong view. When suffering arises, where does it arise from? The cause is wrong view, the fruit of that being suffering. If it was right view it wouldn't cause suffering.
Ajahn Chah
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The heart of the path is quite easy. There's no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love and hate and let things be. That's all that I do in my own practice.
Ajahn Chah
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The ultimate truth is like the flavour of an apple which you can't see with the eye or hear with the ear. The only way to experience it is to put the teachings into practice. Once you taste it, you are no longer in any doubt about its flavour and you do not have to ask anyone else. The problem is solved.
Ajahn Chah
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If it isn't good, let it die. If it doesn't die, make it good.
Ajahn Chah
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The Dhamma has to be found by looking into your own heart and seeing that which is true and that which is not, that which is balanced and that which is not balanced.
Ajahn Chah
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Don’t be attached to visions or lights in meditation, don’t rise or fall with them. What’s so great about brightness? My flashlight has it. It can’t help us rid ourselves of our suffering.
Ajahn Chah
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Remember you dont meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you want anything, you wont find it.
Ajahn Chah
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The mind is intrinsically tranquil. Out of this tranquility, anxiety and confusion are born. If one sees and knows this confusion, then the mind is tranquil once more.
Ajahn Chah
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If you let go completely you will have complete peace.
Ajahn Chah
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Look at your own mind. The one who carries things thinks he's got things, but the one who looks on sees only the heaviness. Throw away things, lose them, and find lightness.
Ajahn Chah
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Know and watch your heart. It's pure but emotions come to colour it.
Ajahn Chah
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Do not be a bodhisattva, do not be an arahant, do not be anything at all. If you are a bodhisattva, you will suffer, if you are an arahant, you will suffer, if you are anything at all, you will suffer.
Ajahn Chah
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Practicing meditation is just like breathing. While working we breathe, while sleeping we breathe, while sitting down we breathe... Why do we have time to breathe? Because we see the importance of the breath, we can always find time to breathe. In the same way, if we see the importance of meditation practice we will find the time to practice.
Ajahn Chah
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The Dharma Path is to keep walking forward. But the true Dharma has no going forward, no going backward, and no standing still.
Ajahn Chah
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A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn't.
Ajahn Chah
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Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.
Ajahn Chah
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We don't meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering.
Ajahn Chah
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Letting go a little brings a little peace. Letting go a lot brings a lot of peace. Letting go completely brings complete peace.
Ajahn Chah
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If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.
Ajahn Chah