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When sitting in meditation, say, That's not my business! with every thought that comes by.

Ajahn Chah

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Ajahn Chah
Age: 73 †
Born: 1918
Born: June 17
Died: 1992
Died: January 16
Bhikkhu
Ajahn Chah Subhaddo
Sitting
Spiritual
Business
Thai
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Mindfulness
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Buddhist
Every
Buddhism
Meditation

More quotes by Ajahn Chah

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At some point your heart will tell itself what to do.
Ajahn Chah
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If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.
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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But when I know that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.
Ajahn Chah
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The one who recognizes the uncertainty of phenomena is the Dharma within you.
Ajahn Chah
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If we see suffering then we don't have suffering.
Ajahn Chah
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To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, 'Don't cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.'
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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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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The heart is the only book worth reading.
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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Know and watch your heart. It's pure but emotions come to colour it. So let your mind be like a tightly woven net to catch emotions and feelings that come, and investigate them before you react.
Ajahn Chah
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Just go into the room, sit in the centre of the room, open the doors and windows, and see who comes to visit. You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable. Your only job is to stay in your seat. You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come.
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 mind of one who practises doesn't run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don't enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer.
Ajahn Chah
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Do not be in a hurry or try to push your practice. If you become peaceful, then accept it, if you don’t become peaceful, then accept that also. This is the nature of the mind. We must find our own practice and persevere.
Ajahn Chah
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Things are simply the way they are. They don't give us suffering. Like a thorn: Does a sharp thorn give us suffering? No. It's simply a thorn. It doesn't give suffering to anybody. If we step on it, we suffer immediately. Why do we suffer? Because we stepped on it. So the suffering comes from us.
Ajahn Chah
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To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind.
Ajahn Chah
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The heart is just the heart thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. Let things be just as they are.
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