Letting Go Is More Important | 8 Mar 2024

Ajahn Anan shares that facing problems in life, whether in Dharma/Dhamma practice, work, or monastic living, is normal. He emphasizes that learning to let go is key to easing suffering. Holding onto things, like carrying a heavy load, breaks you down. Letting go lightens the heart.

He tells a story from the Buddha's time about monks who argued over minor issues. Despite the Buddha's efforts to mediate, their stubbornness led him to retreat. The conflict was eventually resolved when the Buddha and laypeople helped the monks find harmony and unity.

Ajahn Anan reminds us that suffering from aging, sickness, and death is natural. Accepting these realities helps us let go. Clinging to personal views and opinions causes disputes. Developing mindfulness and wisdom allows us to rise above conflicts and find peace. True practice involves letting go of attachments to achieve inner peace and wisdom.

Transcript

It is normal that problems will arise in practicing Dhamma,

In managing business,

Duties and work,

Or within the sangha of monks practicing in the one monastery.

And some problems will be more than the strength we can handle.

When we carry a lot and keep carrying it,

Then our back will break.

All things can be taken as important.

But Venerable Ajahn Chah taught that the most important thing to do is to let go.

Or that which is more important than anything else is to let go.

It is the most important.

There are some things that we see as being important,

And then we attach and cling to it.

This is the cause for us to have suffering.

It's like we are carrying a heavy thing in our heart.

We aren't able to relinquish and put it down.

And more so about natural things of aging,

Sickness,

Death and suffering.

If we look for the cause of it,

Of why we are like this,

Why are we sick like this,

Why do others not get this at all,

Why does someone whom we know die young,

Why don't they have a long life?

If we only use our thinking to find the reasoning behind it,

Then we won't understand it,

And we will experience suffering.

But if we can accept the truth,

Then we can let go of it,

Knowing that it follows causes and conditions.

In this way,

We can be more freer in our hearts.

Because we see that some problems are too heavy for us.

And our Barami spiritual perfections are still small,

So we can't solve this problem on hand.

But we can overcome the problem within our hearts by letting go.

So here there is a story of monks who lived together.

And what happened?

There were arguments,

Disputes and quarreling arising.

And they couldn't resolve and stop it.

These were the monks of Kosambi city who got into arguments.

There were many monks in this one monastery.

And there was one senior monk who was intelligent,

Knowledgeable,

An expert in the Vinaya,

The monk's disciplinary rules.

And there was another monk who was an expert at giving Dharma teachings.

Both monks had many of their own disciples,

In similar numbers.

Those who liked Vinaya stayed with that Vinaya teacher,

And those who liked Dharma teachings stayed with the Dharma teacher.

And both teachers had goodness and virtue.

Lay people had faith in them equally.

And there was one occasion that the Vinaya teacher,

Who was knowledgeable in the rules,

Had entered the bathroom.

When he came out,

He met the Dharma teacher.

And he asked,

Was it you that had entered the bathroom before me?

The Dharma teacher said,

Yes,

Is there something?

The Vinaya teacher said,

You left half a bucket of the wash water.

You committed an offence in the Vinaya.

You incurred a dukkhata,

An offence of wrongdoing.

Are you aware of this?

The Dharma teacher said,

I didn't know that.

If that's the case,

Then I'd like to confess the offence.

The Dharma teacher had accepted his mistake and was willing to confess the offence.

Confessing it to another monk is the method to be absolved of the offence according to the Vinaya.

The Vinaya monk said,

You had no intention,

So never mind.

You do not need to confess the offence.

And he walked away.

The incident should have ended there.

But here,

The Vinaya monk told his disciples that the Dharma teacher was only good at teaching others,

But committed an offence and didn't even know that.

The meaning of this meant that the Vinaya monk was better.

The disciples of the Vinaya teacher went to go tell the disciples of the Dharma teacher,

Taunting them.

They had clung on to their teacher and were getting into arguments with the other group.

Your teacher is only good at teaching others,

But he committed an offence and didn't even know.

This got back to the Dharma teacher and he got angry.

He had been just teaching the Dharma but did not teach himself,

So he could still get angry.

He thought it was not intentional,

So it was not a Vinaya offence.

So he answered back to the Vinaya teacher that,

Before I was going to confess the offence and you said never mind,

But now you are saying I have fallen into an offence,

Then you have committed an offence as well because you were lying.

So the two teachers started to argue,

And their disciples held and attached to their teachers and argued as well.

The scope of these arguments spread out widely until it was a big issue.

The Buddha became aware of this quarrel and came there to dissuade them.

But both sides had gone too far already.

They were set in their positions and wouldn't listen to the Buddha.

The Buddha was fed up of the quarrelling.

He saw that both sides had attachment and clinging.

So he quickly left to go to Riliyaka Forest,

Or Bariliyaka by himself.

There was only one elephant who had the same name,

Bariliyaka,

Who spent the rain's retreat serving the Buddha.

They only mentioned the elephant,

Not the monkey,

But there probably was a monkey in that forest.

And when the Buddha had gone to stay in seclusion,

The laymen and laywomen with Dhamma didn't take sides with either group.

They went against those monks and wouldn't offer them food.

They blamed them,

Saying that they were the cause that the Buddha had run away,

So now they didn't have a chance to go see the Buddha.

Their hearts weren't at ease,

But were bothered because of these quarrels.

Those monks became self-aware and went to the laypeople to ask forgiveness.

But all the laymen and laywomen said for them to go to ask forgiveness from the Buddha there where he was staying.

So after the end of the rain's retreat,

Those monks went to pay their respects to the Buddha and ask for forgiveness.

They had Venerable Ananda as the mediator.

The Buddha gave a discourse on the blame of viwada,

Disputes and quarrels.

It has very bad consequences.

But with harmony,

Then,

There are good results.

So they should come back together in harmony and unity.

So this was the big dispute of the Sangha in the life of the Buddha's time.

But it didn't get to the point where they separated into different sects,

Like in the later eras.

The Buddha was the center point that could bring up reconciliation and bring back harmony.

So we can see that thoughts and views are taken as important.

Once you attach to them,

Thinking,

I am better than them,

They can't beat me,

Then there can be problems arising.

So Venerable Ajahn Chah taught about this because the Vipassana meditation teachers had many disciples,

And Ajahn Chah also had a lot of disciples,

Both Thai and Western.

So his teachings are to have sati,

Mindfulness arise,

Have wisdom arise,

Which will have us to let go.

For example,

There was one stick that Ajahn Chah was holding,

And he asked,

Is it a short or long stick?

If you want a longer stick than this,

Then this stick is short.

If you want a shorter stick than this,

Then this stick is long.

But the nature of the stick is not short or long.

It is normal,

Natural,

Like this.

So our duty must be to do it to the best we can,

As for the results that follow,

We must let go of it.

If we can't let go,

Then all the suffering will trouble us.

So no matter how much suffering we experience,

Whether flooding,

Fire,

Or separation from loved ones,

Or losing precious things,

They are natural occurrences that we must experience in this world.

But Ajahn Chah will teach us what goes right to our heart is that don't let it flood your heart.

If the fire burns a house,

Let it burn it,

But don't let it burn your heart.

Whatever it is,

Let us be left with our heart.

Our heart has value.

Even though it is hard and difficult,

We must try to be able to let go.

He also taught about this world.

This world is just right already.

But greed,

Insatiable desire,

Not knowing enough in this world,

Makes chaos arise.

Can we see this in the world?

There are many countries,

Nationalities,

And languages.

And when it goes beyond the ordinary level,

There is chaos and insatiable desire.

Then there is no harmony and unity,

And there is killing,

Pain,

And hurt,

And people continually dying from it.

Why is this?

It is just because of ignorance,

Craving,

And clinging.

So one who is intelligent and has come to the Dhamma must try to let go.

If we can let go,

Then suffering doesn't follow us.

It's like we see a snake,

A cobra,

Which has poison.

But if it's over there,

Then there is no problem.

The poison stays within the snake.

But if we go grab the snake,

Then its poison will come to us.

So we must be careful.

Don't touch it.

We have to let go.

May we know that all things in the world are conventions.

We know clearly into conventions,

Then we can be liberated from them.

Or at least we can have an understanding of this.

Because anything can become suffering,

If we pick it up.

It's like we have one heavy thing.

Ajahn Chah said,

This spittoon is heavy.

We pick it up,

And it feels heavy.

But if we put it down,

It's not heavy.

Even though it is heavy,

But it's not heavy within our heart.

The heaviness is with that spittoon.

If we pick it up and attach to it,

Then we will feel heavy instantly.

Therefore,

We need to practice so that our minds are beyond causes and above results,

Beyond happiness and above suffering,

Beyond birth and above death.

We have to get it to here,

No matter how hard and however difficult it is.

If we go take the vinaya,

And we take and argue from our reasoning of it,

Then there is no end to it.

We will have arguments and quarrels.

Each person has their own reasoning,

And it becomes a thing that we get attached to.

But if it's gone outside of causes and above results,

Then it's let go of.

We can be above happiness and above suffering.

So it's important that our practice that we are doing culminates to this point.

Otherwise,

Our arguments won't end.

For example,

There was one monk who saw a book and liked it,

So he picked it up and didn't tell anyone.

One other monk accused him of an offence of prajjika,

Which is the gravest offence.

You took a book and stole it.

You stole that book.

The monk who took the book said,

I didn't steal it.

I took it to read.

I will return it.

I didn't steal it at all.

I didn't have any intention to steal.

The other monk accused him that,

You must be prajjika because you didn't tell anyone.

They argued and couldn't resolve it.

Venerable Ajahn Chah said it's pacatang.

The one who took it must know himself what intention he had.

We can't go accuse him of an offence straight away.

But if both attach to that they are right and the other is wrong,

They take the veneer to judge this,

Then it can lead to troubles.

So we need to throw out causes and throw out results.

Because dhamma is something high.

The Buddha had ended suffering.

He could destroy the mental defilements.

He was beyond causes and above results already.

He wasn't within causes and results.

He was beyond happiness and above suffering.

He had ended all the defilements.

So being in society,

Sometimes we have our reasonings.

But don't argue so seriously.

It's a cause for chaos and troubles to arise in the mind.

So we must put down our reasonings first.

Here this will bring up peace and happiness.

Even in the Sangha,

There are various different sects.

Going overseas,

There are many countries that are Mahayana.

And Thailand is Theravada.

And Theravada is further separated out.

So it's normal that people attach to the foundations of the practice they follow.

But in the end,

It's for having sila to bring up samadhi,

To bring up bhajna,

Wisdom,

So that we can let go.

And here then,

It can end and be resolved.

This is something important.

So may you contemplate this.

For some things,

We want to go resolve it ourself.

But it's too heavy for us.

Like the vinaya has been laid down already.

For us to go back to fix and resolve something in the practices of the Bhikkhu Sangha or the Bhikkhuni Sangha,

We just won't be able to do it.

Each person sees themselves as being right following the vinaya,

And that they are practicing correctly following the Dhamma.

So just keep on practicing,

Until ultimately there will be no more arguments.

Like some Dhamma practitioners are skilled in doing samadhi,

So they develop samadhi.

Some contemplate to bring up wisdom,

But their samadhi is small.

But they can have wisdom arise.

The group who contemplate to have wisdom,

They say that the samadhi group has no wisdom,

They only have stillness.

The monks who can be tranquil,

They say that that person can't make their minds quiet,

They are scattered.

But they practice onwards and see that,

For sila,

Samadhi,

Vanya to gather,

It needs to be supported by samadhi and developed to wisdom.

And those who contemplate also need samadhi and one-pointedness of mind,

For them to understand and see the Dhamma.

So they don't argue anymore when sila,

Samadhi,

Vanya gather together as one.

So one who sees Dhamma,

Gets to the Dhamma,

Attains to Dhamma,

Doesn't argue or quarrel anymore,

Because it is the one and same natural state.

So be determined in the practice.

May you grow in Dhamma and grow in blessings.

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