Similes
Similes
2. “Can you speak a little about samatha/vipassana and explain the difference between serenity and equanimity?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation] [Equanimity] // [Commentaries] [Ajahn Chah] [Relinquishment] [Liberation] [Concentration] [Divine Abidings] [Factors of Awakening] [Discernment]
Quote: “Samatha-vipassanā is like a green mango and a ripe mango. Same mango.” — Ajahn Chah [Similes]
1. Question about how Ajahn Chah taught to deal with people externally. Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Community] [Ajahn Chah] // [Ajahn Mun] [Virtue] [Doubt] [Monastic life] [Views]
Story: A ghost tries to align the visitors sleeping in his hall. [Culture/Thailand] [Shelter] [Ghost] [Communal harmony]
Quote: “You have to have an anchor in your own practice.” [Similes]
4. “Can the practice be used in a punitative or punishing way?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Guilt/shame/inadequacy] // [Culture/West] [Habits] [Clear comprehension] [Craving not to become]
Quote: “Having a human mind...it’s amazing how perverse it can be sometimes.” [Human] [Unwholesome Roots]
Story: Ajahn Pasanno can’t translate guilt into Thai. [Ajahn Pasanno] [Translation] [Culture/Thailand] [Suffering]
Quote: “All you need to do is create a cage of mindfulness around [unskillful habits].” — Ajahn Chah [Ajahn Chah] [Sense restraint] [Mindfulness] [Unskillful qualities] [Similes]
Follow-up: “What about letting the tiger go instead of keeping it in a cage?” [Similes]
Follow-up: “What about the case when one feels one is the tiger trapped in a metaphorical cage. How to escape?” [Similes] [Liberation] [Perception] [Self-identity view] [Spiritual friendship]
4. “Do you have any advice about how to hold a particularly strong “fighting spirit” teaching, like Ajahn Dtun?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Fierce/direct teaching] [Teaching Dhamma] [Ajahn Dtun] // [Culture/Thailand] [Ardency] [Right Effort] [Restlessness and worry] [Heedfulness] [Discernment] [Goodwill]
Sutta: AN 1.49: The mind is radiant.
Quote: “If you invite visitors into your home [the mind] and they just make a mess, then you want to close the door on them before they come in. You can’t be too polite.” — Ajahn Chah [Ajahn Chah] [Similes] [Unwholesome Roots]
6. “How does one cultivate self-supervision?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Chah] [Desire] [Self-reliance] [Postures] [Continuity of mindfulness] // [Mindfulness of body] [Ajahn Pasanno] [Mindfulness of breathing]
Quote: “The body is like a mirror for the different moods and state of the mind as we’re experiencing things.” [Similes] [Mindfulness of mind]
Follow-up: “I try to practice body awareness when my mind is being supervised...” [Long-term practice] [Similes] [Ajahn Sucitto]
Sutta: MN 10 Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta [Right Mindfulness]
4. Comment: The story you told where a monk was punched, I really didn’t see the point of that. [Ajahn Jia] [Admonishment/feedback] [Fierce/direct teaching]
Response by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Cunda: Enlightened people still have personalities. [Cleanliness] [Liberation] [Personality] [Ajahn Tate] [Spiritual friendship] [Vinaya]
Quote: “Gold wrapped in a dirty rag.” — Ajahn Mahā Boowa describing Ajahn Jia. [Ajahn Mahā Boowa] [Similes]
Recollection: Ajahn Chah was always the center of attention. [Ajahn Chah] [Personal presence]
Story: Some monks go to spend Vassa with Ajahn Jia, but he leaves to take care of his teacher. Told by Ajahn Cunda. [Rains retreat] [Ajahn Khao]
1. “What is your experience of directed thought and evaluation?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Directed thought and evaluation]
Quote: “Directed thought [vitakka] is like lifting up the object in the mind. Evaluation is then looking at it from different angles.” — Ajahn Chah [Ajahn Chah] [Similes]
5. Examples of signs and secondary characteristics of sense objects? Answered by Ajahn Karuṇadhammo and Ajahn Pasanno. [Sense bases] [Proliferation] [Perception] // [Ven. Analayo] [Sensual desire] [Conditionality] [Food] [Appropriate attention]
Sutta: Thig 14.1: Subhā.
Comment about the feedback loop of perceptions looking for reinforcing perceptions. [Views] [Clinging]
Quote: “The underlying tendency to aversion is like a search engine.” — Ajahn Sucitto. Quoted by Beth Steff. [Ajahn Sucitto] [Aversion] [Similes]
9. “Is renting a good metaphor for not-self?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Similes] [Not-self] // [Ajahn Chah]
Quote: “We only rent this house. We don’t own it.” [Similes]
Reference: “Our Real Home” in Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, p. 145
16. “If you know of an abusive situation and both the abuser and victim are stuck in it, how do you hold this? How to encourage them to follow this path?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Abuse/violence] [Compassion] [Buddhist identity] // [Cessation of Suffering]
Quote: “You plant seeds of possibility. You can’t make the seeds grow, but you can plant the seeds.” [Similes]
14. “That sukha (happiness) is still experienced through the sense object of the mind?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Happiness] [Rapture] [Sense bases] [Jhāna] // [Mindfulness of body]
Quote: “The way the Buddha describes the jhāna factors, all the images are grounded in the body.” (MN 39.15) [Similes]
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]