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Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.

Ajahn Chah

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Ajahn Chah
Age: 73 †
Born: 1918
Born: June 17
Died: 1992
Died: January 16
Bhikkhu
Ajahn Chah Subhaddo
Meditation
Wood
Single
Investigation
Sides
Lift
Ends
Lifts
Come
Concentration
Whole
Insight
Mind
Woods
Like
Calm

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If you want a chicken to be a duck, and a duck to be a chicken, you will suffer.
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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.
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Read yourself, not books. Truth isn't outside, that's only memory, not wisdom. Memory without wisdom is like an empty thermos bottle - if you don't fill it, it's useless.
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Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.
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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.
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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.
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When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing.
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Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.
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We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything.
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You should think about your own death 3 times per day at the very least.
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But when I know that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.
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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.'
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We don't meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering.
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The heart is the only book worth reading.
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When sitting in meditation, say, That's not my business! with every thought that comes by.
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