The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1
Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings
Achaan Chah asks us to begin our practice simply and directly with the understanding that the Buddha’s truths of suffering and liberation can be seen and experienced right here, within our own bodies, hearts, and minds. The eightfold path* , he tells us, is not to be found in books or scriptures but can be discovered in the workings of our own sense perceptions, our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. To study these in an immediate and wakeful way and cultivate mindfulness is the path of insight prescribed by the Buddha. It has been kept alive and followed by those monks, nuns, and laypeople inspired to devote themselves to practice in the centuries since.
Achaan Chah speaks as a contemporary living representative of this ancient teaching. His wisdom and mastery have not come through study or tradition but are born of his years of practice, his diligent effort to employ meditation to calm the heart and awaken the mind. His own practice was inspired and guided by the wisdom of several great forest masters a generation before him. And he invites us to follow their example and his.
Look at what makes up the world – the six senses, the processes of body and mind. These processes will become clear through examination and an ongoing training of attention. As you observe note how fleeting and impermanent are each of the sense objects which appear. You will see the conditioned tendency to grasp or to resist these changing objects. Here, teaches Achaan Chah, is the place to learn a new way, the path of balance, the Middle Path.
Achaan Chah urges us to work with our practice, not as an ideal, but in our everyday life situations. It is here tha we develop strength to overcome our difficulties and a constancy and greatness of heart. It is here, he says , in each moment that we can step out of our struggle with life and find the inner meaning of right understanding and with it the peace of the Buddha.
* Eightfold Path: The Buddhist path of purification and liberation – right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings
Achaan Chah asks us to begin our practice simply and directly with the understanding that the Buddha’s truths of suffering and liberation can be seen and experienced right here, within our own bodies, hearts, and minds. The eightfold path* , he tells us, is not to be found in books or scriptures but can be discovered in the workings of our own sense perceptions, our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. To study these in an immediate and wakeful way and cultivate mindfulness is the path of insight prescribed by the Buddha. It has been kept alive and followed by those monks, nuns, and laypeople inspired to devote themselves to practice in the centuries since.
Achaan Chah speaks as a contemporary living representative of this ancient teaching. His wisdom and mastery have not come through study or tradition but are born of his years of practice, his diligent effort to employ meditation to calm the heart and awaken the mind. His own practice was inspired and guided by the wisdom of several great forest masters a generation before him. And he invites us to follow their example and his.
Look at what makes up the world – the six senses, the processes of body and mind. These processes will become clear through examination and an ongoing training of attention. As you observe note how fleeting and impermanent are each of the sense objects which appear. You will see the conditioned tendency to grasp or to resist these changing objects. Here, teaches Achaan Chah, is the place to learn a new way, the path of balance, the Middle Path.
Achaan Chah urges us to work with our practice, not as an ideal, but in our everyday life situations. It is here tha we develop strength to overcome our difficulties and a constancy and greatness of heart. It is here, he says , in each moment that we can step out of our struggle with life and find the inner meaning of right understanding and with it the peace of the Buddha.
* Eightfold Path: The Buddhist path of purification and liberation – right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
