Transcript of Evening Talk with Venerable Ajahn Passano Venue: Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives (BIA)/ Suan Mokkh Bangkok December 16, 2013: 18:30-20:00 “New Year, New Life, Life Can Be Improved” by Venerable Ajahn Passano In terms of meditation, it is always important to recollect what we’re actually doing, and the opportunity to allow the mind to dwell in awareness and clarity. This is giving ourselves that opportunity. So often we approach meditation as something we have to do, have to achieve, have to accomplish, have to make happen, and that usually leads to more complications than necessary. Approach it as a gift to yourself, giving yourself the opportunity to settle, to be aware, to be alert, to be present with something that fosters a sense of clarity. Be present with the attention to the breath as it comes in, as it goes out, paying attention to the body, in the sense of relaxing into an upright posture that is nicely balanced, sort of just right. It’s one of the phrases that many of the great Dhamma teachers here in Thailand emphasize, the sense of just right, in Thai: “paw dee”. Establishing attention in a kind of a just right way, not forcing, not pushing, not too slack, not too wooly. Being present with the experience of the breath, with the body, and when one does that the mind will naturally settle, the heart will become more clear. Give oneself the opportunity to experience that. We tend to fill the mind with experiences of confusion, agitation and stress. Give yourself a break, just settle into attention; settle into awareness. This evening I’ve been requested to speak on Dhamma yet also keep to this month’s theme: New Year, New Life, Life can be improved. This is a little saying that of course is a translation that Ajahn Budhadhasa himself used. I think it’s a good theme to explore in the sense that the New Year is coming, people start making New Year’s resolutions, thinking of what they’re going to do for the New Year that’s different from the old year. Usually the New Year’s resolution lasts about 6 hours. That’s usually not a particularly fruitful exercise. My new year’s resolutions use to be like that anyway. But I think reflecting from the place of the Buddha’s teachings, it’s an arbitrary assignment that there is a “New Year”. The reality is that we can bring new life into whatever we’re doing at any point in time, and that establishing of awareness is a new life. This evening is a new evening, and tomorrow is a new day. And we can bring a sense of determination to make skillful use of that. It is helpful to make that conscious. There’s a very well known discourse of the Buddha, where the Buddha is pointing out that the past is gone, the future is really unknown, but with each presently arisen phenomena, bring awareness to it, bring a sense of taking responsibility for it. That’s where change can happen, in a sense that life can be improved. We can be making choices that allow us to really improve our perspectives, our conduct, our quality of heart. This afternoon I was talking to the group that was here about the word that is usually used by the Buddha when we think about meditation. The word in the scriptural language is bhāvanā, and it’s actually the same word that the Thais have taken, and kind of Sanskritized it and made it into “patana”, which means to develop, to improve, to make better in some way. And so our efforts at the cultivation and development of the path that the Buddha has laid down gives us an opportunity for establishing a very new and fresh approach to our existence. So particularly the development of mindfulness is an important foundation, because mindfulness is the basis by which we can bring a sense of clarity to our experience, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, whether it’s wanted or unwanted, whether it’s something we like or dislike. We can be mindful of it, we can be aware very clearly of what that experience is. As we become aware of that, we can be more clear with the choices that we make, and any improvement, development, cultivation that we do has to rely on a clarity of the way that we choose our actions in body, speech and mind. Because so often we actually don’t choose, we just do it unconsciously, mindlessly, out of habit. We do things just following the world around us, and there’s so often a distinct lack of clarity in the choices that we make. We cultivate a mindfulness that gives us a foundation to make skillful choices. Because the reality is whether we make a skillful choice or not in our actions, body, speech or mind, we receive the fruits of those actions. We say something that is timely, that is kind, we receive the fruits of that. We say something that is kind of negative, critical, confrontational, we receive the fruits of that. So make sure that we are as clear as possible, because there is a big difference between the results of something that is negative and unskillful, and something that is wholesome and skillful. Certainly you know what we actually want is to be happy, to experience well-being, to be somewhat peaceful, and it is dependent on these choices that we make. Bring a conscious awareness to our actions of body, speech, and mind, so that we can facilitate the experience of well-being. When one puts it as stark as that, you think: “Well that should be pretty easy.” Of course you know the reality of our interactions and social complications, and our own habits and tendencies keep dragging us along in ways that we keep coming back to: “Why am I suffering again?” So it’s just this sense of really being able to remind ourselves of this fact that we can improve, we can cultivate, we can develop. I think of Ajahn Chah, my teacher, who gave very simple examples to illustrate how we cultivate and practice. We want to be mindful, we want to be peaceful, we want to have wisdom and discernment, but it takes time. Ajahn Chah was saying it does take time, like a child who first goes to school. One first starts to learn how to write, and when the child first start to learn how to write, the letters aren't very neat, they are not very straight, they’re not very even, and it doesn't look very beautiful. But as the child continues to practice writing, continues to be diligent in learning the writing, it starts to flow, and it’s legible, and it’s beautiful--and it’s all through that practice and training. Like myself as a monk, particularly in Ajahn Chah’s tradition, one of the basic things that we do is we sew our own robes. And when you first start to sew robes, it can be pretty messy. You don’t get the most beautiful robe the first time you sew, and it takes time even just to sit down to learn how to use a sewing machine. Sometimes you actually have to get the coordination going without any cloth or thread in the machine. You just want to learn how to get that stupid machine to keep going! But then you know after a while, you practice with it, you train with it, and you get to actually sew pretty basic things. Then you develop those skills, and you keep building on those skills, and after time you’re able to complete a whole robe. It’s just through that practice and training. I think that’s one of the characteristics of the Buddhist teaching, that emphasis on practice and training. It’s not about thinking through some philosophical analysis of the universe; it’s not about just having some kind of faith and devotion in some ideal. It’s about taking on a training, and continuing to practice and work with that training. And the training is about training our body, speech, and mind. So that learning how to pay attention to the results of our actions, and then being willing to take on a training that helps those fundamentals of our existence, our actions of body, speech, and mind to bear fruit in well- being, in happiness, and in clarity. It’s something that we can do; it’s something that’s possible. For me one of the very beautiful discourses of the Buddha, just a simple statement where he says: “This training can be accomplished by you. If it weren’t possible for you to reap the fruits of this training, I wouldn’t teach it.” These are the things that the Buddha is teaching. He’s giving us the tools to cultivate, develop, practice, and allow us to experience the fruits, and dwell in those fruits. But it is important to reflect on how do we train with this, how do we work with it. The Noble Eightfold path of the Buddha, which is in the teachings, is the path the Buddha laid out for the cessation of suffering. Traditionally it’s broken down into three kind of areas, or groupings. They are called the three trainings, or in Pali: tri sikkha. The training in virtue is around precepts and conduct.