Ajahn Chah Quotes

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.

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.

To practice Dhamma means to observe and examine oneself.

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.

Sati is life. Whenever we don't have sati, when we are heedless, it's as if we are dead.

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.

The Dhamma has to sink deeply into the mind so that whatever we do, the mind has always goodness within it. All the ways of making merit are aiming at this. Goodness lies in the right view that is established in the mind. Then we don't have to celebrate it or let anybody know about it, simply let the mind have firm confidence in the goodness and keep going like this.

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.

Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don't believe others, just listen to your mind. You don't have to go anywhere else. Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.

You should know both the universal and the personal, the realm of forms and the freedom to not cling to them. The forms of the world have their place, but in another way, there is nothing there. To be free, we need to respect both of these truths.

One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness or death? The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass; It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it - incredibly.

Regarding this Dhamma, it is not something that we can simply talk about or take another's word for it. We need to develop meditation so that the understanding arises clearly within oneself. It is not the case that merely by listening to another's explanation our defilements will disappear. When we gain some understanding we need to chew on it again so that we see it for ourselves with certainty: paccattam.

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.

A good practice is to ask yourself very sincerely, 'Why was I born?' Ask yourself this question in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night…every day.

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.

Know and watch your heart. It's pure but emotions come to colour it.

We have limited time in our life, therefore we should try to teach ourselves, not to teach others. We should conquer ourselves, rather than conquer others. Whether coming or going, standing, sitting or lying down, our mind should be focused in this way. If we practise like this and develop mindfulness continuously, wisdom arises quickly and this is a fast way of practice.

Letting go a little brings a little peace. Letting go a lot brings a lot of peace. Letting go completely brings complete peace.

Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.

We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything.

A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn't.

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.'

When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. And when we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy.

All religions are like different cars all moving in the same direction. People who don't see it have no light in their hearts.

I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches and eat its fruits. To the birds, the fruit may be sweet or sour or whatever. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree's point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.

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.

To give up doing evil is more important than making merit.

If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.

At some point your heart will tell itself what to do.

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.

When we conquer ourselves, then everything will be conquered: oneself, others, and all the sense objects as well, coming in by way of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body -- it will all get conquered like this.

If we want to really see the Buddha, we should observe his virtuous qualities. Whatever he taught, we should practise it. Only bowing to him is not enough. We need to renounce, give up, stop, so that we may see the Buddha.

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.

If it isn't good, let it die. If it doesn't die, make it good.

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.

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.

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.

Some people are afraid of generosity. They feel they will be taken advantage of or oppressed. In cultivating generosity, we are only oppressing our greed and attachment. This allows our true nature to come out and become lighter and freer.

If we see suffering then we don't have suffering.

There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.

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.

Time is our present breath.

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.

If it shouldn't happen, it wouldn't happen.

The one who recognizes the uncertainty of phenomena is the Dharma within you.

The serene and peaceful mind is the true epitome of human achievement.

When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing.

If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there. Where suffering lies is right where non-suffering will arise, it ceases at the place where it arises. If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don't have to run away. You should settle the issue right there. One who runs away from suffering out of fear is the most foolish person of all. He will simply increases his stupidity endlessly.