Relinquishment (paṭinissagga)
Relinquishment (paṭinissagga)
8. Reading from the draft biography: Ajahn Chah’s dying father asks him to remain in robes for life. [Sickness] [Recollection/Death] [Parents] [Monastic life] [Ajahn Chah] [Determination] // [Learning] [Culture/Thailand] [Unattractiveness] [Forest versus city monks] [Sutta] [Sense of urgency]
Quote: “I dedicate my body and mind, my whole life, to the practice of the Lord Buddha’s teachings in their entirety. I will realize the truth in this lifetime … I will let go of everything and follow the teachings. No matter how much suffering and difficulty I have to endure I will persevere, otherwise there will be no end to my doubts. I will make this life as even and continuous as a single day and night. I will abandon attachments to mind and body and follow the Buddha’s teachings until I know their truth for myself.” — Ajahn Chah [Buddha] [Dhamma] [Practicing in accordance with Dhamma] [Knowledge and vision] [Truth] [Relinquishment] [Suffering]
Reflection: Stillness Flowing by Ajahn Jayasaro, p. 40 [Energy] [Doubt] [Continuity of mindfulness]
7. Quote: “When I saw Luang Por Chah when he had his stroke, I felt an almost unbearable sense of grief and loss. Then I remembered, ‘This is the way it is.’” — Ajahn Sumedho [Sickness] [Grief] [Equanimity] [Ajahn Chah] [Ajahn Sumedho] // [Faith] [Aversion] [Relinquishment]
10. “Would you share some of your personal journey, including the time before you became a monk, and why you became a monk, and how the holy life can help people grow and change?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Pasanno] [Monastic life/Motivation] [Monastic life] // [Culture/West] [Travel] [Culture/Thailand]
Story: Ajahn Pasanno begins meditation with a month-long Mahasi Sayadaw retreat. [Meditation retreats] [Mahasi Sayadaw] [Devotion to wakefulness] [Fierce/direct teaching]
Story: Ajahn Pasanno’s first visit to Wat Pah Pong. [Ordination] [Ajahn Chah] [Wat Pah Pong]
Quote: “If you want to stay here, you have to stay at least five years.” — Ajahn Chah [Sequence of training]
Reflection: “Five years is five years. I’ll go back and give myself to Ajahn Chah.” — Ajahn Pasanno [Relinquishment] [Mentoring]
Quote: “There’s no such thing as the ideal monastic or the ideal practitioner.” [Idealism] [Lay life] [Faith] [Disrobing] [Suffering] [Energy] [Patience] [Long-term practice]
10. Reading from the draft biography: Ajahn Chah accepts his dying father’s request to stay as a monk for life. [Parents] [Monastic life/Motivation] [Sickness] [Death] [Ajahn Chah] [Determination] // [Mindfulness of body] [Sense of urgency] [Saṃsāra]
Reference: Stillness Flowing by Ajahn Jayasaro, p. 40
Quote: “I dedicate my body and mind, my whole life, to the practice of the Lord Buddha’s teachings in their entirety. I will realize the truth in this lifetime … I will let go of everything and follow the teachings. No matter how much suffering and difficulty I have to endure I will persevere, otherwise there will be no end to my doubts. I will make this life as even and continuous as a single day and night. I will abandon attachments to mind and body and follow the Buddha’s teachings until I know their truth for myself.” — Ajahn Chah [Ardency] [Patience] [Doubt] [Continuity of mindfulness] [Relinquishment] [Knowledge and vision]
Reference: Stillness Flowing by Ajahn Jayasaro, p. 42
The singular quality of Ajahn Chah’s resolution. Reflection by Ajahn Pasanno.
3. Comment: You spoke about suffusing the body with extreme well-being. But I’ve been in states like that and my body seems to disappear. [Jhāna] [Happiness] [Rapture] [Mindfulness of body] [Gradual Teaching] [Meditation/Unusual experiences]
Response by Ajahn Pasanno.
Quote: “It isn’t so much the experience of extreme well-being that is the goal. It’s the ability to gain clarity and stability so that one can see through the experience as something that is uncertain or impermanent, has a changing nature. The mind often wants to disregard that. The tendency to identify self with experience on a refined mental level is tempered by the body experience.” [Clear comprehension] [Concentration] [Knowledge and vision] [Impermanence] [Delusion] [Self-identity view] [Relinquishment]
Follow-up: “Are you saying you can become attached to these states?” [Clinging]
8. “I appreciate your emphasis on clarity, stability, and spaciousness. How does concentration relate to these?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Clear comprehension] [One pointedness] [Spaciousness] [Concentration] // [Pāli] [Thai] [Etymology] [Tranquility] [Happiness] [Rapture] [Conditionality]
Suttas: AN 10.3: Virtuous Behaivor; AN 6.10 Mahānāma [Virtue]
Quote: “The way my mind worked before was, ‘Boy, when I get my concentration together, I’m going to be happy...’” [Ajahn Pasanno]
Quote: “The happy mind is easily concentrated.” [Hindrances] [Relinquishment] [Knowledge and vision]
11. “She talks about making a story out of denying your defilements. Does the story of having fun denying your defilements come from that space of dwelling in that state of continuous mindfulness, or does continuous mindfulness come about from going through the suffering of forcing yourself not to enjoy anything?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Upasikā Kee Nanayon] [Unwholesome Roots] [Continuity of mindfulness] [Conditionality] // [Discernment]
Quote: “Relinquishment isn’t so much a giving up something that we have but enjoying the non-moving to get or trying to make.” [Relinquishment] [Cessation of Suffering] [Not-made-of-that]
Simile: Learning to drive or walk. — Ajahn Kaccāna. [Similes]
2. “Were there any other ways in which he tormented you specifically?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Chah] [Ajahn Pasanno] [Fierce/direct teaching]
Story: Ajahn Chah won’t let Ajahn Pasanno go to a branch monastery to escape the misery of the hot season. [Culture/Natural environment] [Work] [Thai Ajahn Chah monasteries] [Restlessness and worry] [Aversion]
Story: Ajahn Chah calls Ajahn Pasanno lazy. [Pūjā]
Quote: “Do you give up?” — Ajahn Chah to Ajahn Pasanno. [Vinaya] [Relinquishment]
14. “Ajahn Pasanno, in your Dhamma talk “Letting Go of the Wheel,” you described a driver who saw an oncoming car cross into his lane and let go of the wheel. Is this a metaphor?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Relinquishment] [Similes] [Death]
Quote: “When there’s death in your face, you don’t start negotiating. You have to be willing to let go.” [Relinquishment]
Follow-up: “So do you let your merit carry you?” [Merit]
8. Quote: “There’s only two things you have to do in practice: know and let go.” — Ajahn Chah. Quoted by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Chah] [Mindfulness] [Knowing itself] [Relinquishment] [Thai Forest Tradition]
1. Comment: I notice a connection between a person who is preparing for transition and going though agonal breathing. It’s one breath per minute or two, and it’s relaxed. [Death] [Mindfulness of breathing]
Response by Ajahn Pasanno. [Release] [Clinging] [Relinquishment]
Quote: “You have to keep letting go until there is no remainder.” — Ajahn Chah. Quoted by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Chah] [Relinquishment] [Liberation]
3. “Is mindfulness of the body fabricating a wholesome mental image of the body as opposed to an unwholesome image? But how can we know the body in any way other than vedanā?” Answered by Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Mindfulness of body] [Visualization] [Feeling] // [S. N. Goenka] [Mindfulness of breathing] [Postures] [Clear comprehension] [Right Mindfulness] [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation] [Delusion] [Characteristics of existence]
Quote: “The availability of insight is through stepping back from the assumptions that we make, whether it’s around the body or feeling or mind or the sense of self.” [Relinquishment]
5. “Is jhāna only in meditation?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Meditation] [Jhāna] // [Right Concentration]
Quote: “Only farangs [Westerners] go into meditation rock climbing! Does he contemplate the Four Noble Trurths?” — Ajahn Chah [Ajahn Chah] [Culture/West] [Recreation/leisure/sport] [Four Noble Truths] [Directed thought and evaluation] [Relinquishment]
24. “In the jhāna similies (MN 39.15), ‘He makes...’ seems very active. In dropping away things, is it a conscious dropping or an allowing?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Right Concentration] [Relinquishment] [Jhāna] // [Volitional formations] [Conditionality] [Right Effort]
Quote: “Ajahn Chah emphasizes the doing within a sphere of detachment and letting go.” [Ajahn Chah] [Relinquishment]
9. “I like the translations ‘conscience’ aand ‘concern’ for hiri and otappa. Having done unskillful actions in the past that create suffering, and being aware of the tendency to personalize, how can it be over and done?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Treasures] [Conscience and prudence] [Unskillful qualities] [Suffering] [Kamma] [Self-identity view] // [Four Noble Truths] [Divine Abidings]
Quote: “As a human being, I have the opportunity to learn from the past and move on to skillful action in the future. I don’t have to be like a dog that barfs stuff up and goes back and eats it again.” — Ajahn Pasanno [Human] [Learning] [Skillful qualities] [Similes]
Quote: “The not-self refrain, ‘This is not me, this is not mine, this is not what or who I am,’ is not an abdication of responsibility but an understanding, ‘This is the way I can put things down and move on, move past the things that are still creating suffering.’” — Ajahn Pasanno [Not-self] [Relinquishment]
Suttas: SN 42.8 The Conch Blower; AN 3.100: A Lump of Salt.
14. “Could you comment on the tendency to use one aspect of the teaching to bypass another?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Spiritual bypass] // [Four Noble Truths] [Recollection/Dhamma] [Relinquishment]
Quote: “With some things, letting go means you’re willing to commit to hard work, and other times you’re willing to put down what is burdensome.” [Relinquishment] [Ardency]
6. Quote: “We have to get out of the habit of being theives.” — Ajahn Buddhadāsa. Quoted by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Buddhadāsa] [Relinquishment] [Stealing] [Recollection] // [Aggregates] [Clinging] [Naturalness]
Quote: “The peace of Nibbāna is note something that you gain, that you get, that you claim ownership over; it’s by relinquishing and releasing these bases of identity.” [Nibbāna] [Recollection/Peace] [Relinquishment] [Release] [Self-identity view]