Includes tags: Nibbāna, Deathless, Unestablished consciousness, Unconditioned, Recollection/Peace
3. Teachings to Marjorie by Ajahn Chah, English only. Read by Kittisaro. [Ajahn Chah] // [Similes] [Moods of the mind] [Heedfulness] [Continuity of mindfulness ] [Cessation of Suffering] [Dispassion ] [Nibbāna ] [Unconditioned]
Reference: “Living with the Cobra,” Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, p. 233.
Maintain mindfulness throughout the day and night. [Continuity of mindfulness ]
“There’s just suffering arising and passing away.” [Suffering ] [Impermanence ]
“You’ll want to make an end of things.” [Dispassion ] [Cessation ]
“This is the nature of enlightenment. It’s the extinguishing of fire, the cooling of that which was hot. This is peace. This is the end of saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death.” [Liberation] [Nibbāna ] [Cessation ] [Saṃsāra]
“If the tears don’t come, we don’t really accept truth.” [Suffering ] [Truth]
Note: “Living with the Cobra” omits this quote and other more personal aspects of Ajahn Chah’s teaching to Marjorie.
2. Favorite verses of Ajahn Chah: “Buddhaṃ me jīvitaṃ yāva-nibbānaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.” Recounted by Ajahn Amaro. [Mantra] [Ajahn Chah] [Three Refuges] [Nibbāna] [Chanting] // [Unwholesome Roots] [Ajahn Sundarā]
Quote: “Nibbāna is complete normality.” — Ajahn Chah. [Nibbāna] [Naturalness]
25. Quote: “What is the Buddha?” — Ajahn Chah. Quoted by Jack Kornfield. [Ajahn Chah] [Buddha ] // [Three Refuges] [Knowledge and vision] [Unconditioned] [Recollection/Dhamma] [Liberation]
6. “Can you speak about working with fear and loss of ego identity, fear, and death?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Fear] [Self-identity view] [Death] // [Goodwill] [Aggregates] [Impermanence] [Delusion] [Faith] [Eightfold Path] [Perfections] [Recollection]
Reference: Description of dukkha. [Suffering]
Quote: “We respond to teachings on liberation and Nibbāna with a curious sense of fear and trepidation.” — Ajahn Mahā Boowa speaking about Ajahn Mun. [Ajahn Mahā Boowa] [Ajahn Mun] [Liberation] [Nibbāna] [Family] [Clinging]
6. Reading from the draft biography: Ajahn Chah in the early years: spare, stern, and vigorous. Read by Ajahn Pasanno. [Personality] [Personal presence] [Ardency] [Ascetic practices] [Ajahn Chah] // [Similes]
Reference: Stillness Flowing by Ajahn Jayasaro, p. 137
Quote: “Nibbāna lies on the shores of death.” — Ajahn Chah. [Nibbāna] [Death]
2. “The citta is sometimes defined as pure awareness, and it being in the fourth khanda, but it sounds like here [Ajahn Wanchai] is talking about the activity of awareness?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Heart/mind] [Ajahn Wanchai] [Knowing itself] [Volitional formations] // [Rebirth]
Quote: “There is that which is beyond birth and death. And then you start asking, ‘Well, what is it and how is it? How should it be?’ It’s just the same as in the Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2.7)...As soon as you get into conceiving, you’ve already started the process of dukkha.” [Unconditioned ] [Proliferation] [Conceit] [Suffering]
Follow-up: “So is it better to hear what he said and let it go when I notice awareness that’s good, but I don’t have to make anything out of it?”
Quote: “The investigation is not a conceiving. The best investigation is when the mind is exceedingly still and not conceiving, not creating concepts.” [Discernment] [Concentration]
Follow-up: “So is it a realizing, not a conceiving?” [Knowledge and vision]
4. “When Ajahn Liem says, ‘Practice is just for practice,’ what arises for me is that any time I put a meaning on practice, there has to be an ego state that arises around that meaning....It’s like letting go even o fthe idea of practicing in order to become enlightened.” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Liem] [Practicing in accordance with Dhamma] [Self-identity view] [Becoming] [Thai Forest Tradition] [Liberation] [Relinquishment]
Quote: “Practicing for Nibbāna is just another kind of desire.” — Ajahn Chah. [Ajahn Chah] [Nibbāna] [Desire]
4. “Could you talk more about the two levels of understanding the true nature of karma: mundane and transcendent?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Kamma] [Conventions] [Unconditioned] // [Right View ] [Four Noble Truths] [Impermanence] [Conditionality]
Quote: “Outside of cause, beyond effect; outside of suffering, beyond happiness.” — Ajahn Chah. [Ajahn Chah] [Unconditioned]
4. “At the beginning of this retreat, Tan Ajahn Anan advised us, “Don’t forget Nibbāna.” How do we orient ourselves towards Nibbāna?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Nibbāna ] [Ajahn Anan] [Monastic life] // [Dispassion] [Cessation of Suffering] [Etymology] [Stream entry]
Sutta: AN 10.60: Girimānanda Sutta [Cessation] [Nibbāna ]
Sutta: SN 56.11: “Whatever is of the nature to arise, that is of the nature to cease.” [Conditionality]
Quote: “[The goal] is incredibly worthy, and it is not beyound our capability and means to experience.” [Nibbāna ] [Direct experience]
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] [Release] [Self-identity view]
6. “Please, a short talk on Nibbāna.” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Nibbāna ] // [Cessation of Suffering] [Cessation] [Unwholesome Roots] [Relinquishment] [Jhāna]
Quote: “Nibbāna is not a thing.” [Nibbāna ]
Sutta: Ud 3.10: Yena yena hi maññati, tato taṁ hoti aññathā. – “For however one conceives it, it is always other than that.”
Reference: The Island by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro
1. “What is the translation of sabbaṃ dukkhaṃ? The way you translate it seems psychological. In Sanskrit, dukkhaṃ means out of the cosmic flow of Dhamma. But perhaps dukkhaṃ is best left untranslated. If untranslated, does dukkhaṃ mean the same thing in Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Suffering] [Pāli] [Equanimity] [Dhamma] [Translation] [Advaita Vedanta] // [Thai] [Human] [Aggregates] [Clinging ] [Knowing itself] [Relinquishment]
Ancient etymology of dukkha: du = bad, unwanted, unpleasant, uncomfotable, not easy; kha = where the axle fits into the wheel. [Language] [History/Indian Buddhism]
Sutta: SN 22.22: Dhammacakkappavattanasutta (Chanting Book translation)
Teaching: The four forms of clinging. [Clinging ] [Sensual desire] [Impermanence] [Naturalness] [Happiness] [Neutral feeling] [Attachment to precepts and practices] [Views] [Doctrine-of-self clinging] [Not-self]
Quote: “Nibbāna is the reality of non-grasping.” — Ajahn Chah. [Nibbāna] [Cessation of Suffering]