"Our true home," Ajahn Chah A statement sent a secular woman of a certain age at death's door.
Today, I have nothing material to offer, just the Truth, the Buddha's teachings. Listen well, you need to understand that even the Buddha with all his accumulated merits could not avoid physical death. When he reached a certain age, he abandoned his body and let go of this burden. Now you too must learn to be satisfied with the many years you've relied on your body. You should feel that's enough.
You can compare this body of household items that you have had for a long time - your cups, saucers, plates, etc.. At first they were clean and bright but now after using them for so long, they start to wear out. Some are already broken, others have disappeared and those remaining are deteriorating, they no longer have the original form and it is their nature to be like that. Your body works the same way - it was continually being changed since the day of your birth through childhood and youth until he reached old age. You must accept that. The Buddha said that conditions (sankharas), whether the internal conditions, physical or external, have no identity, their nature is changing. Contemplate this truth until you understand clearly.
This mass of flesh on the decline, it saccadhamma the truth. The truth of this body is saccadhamma, and it is the unchanging teaching of the Buddha. It taught us to take into account this body, to contemplate and accept his nature. We must be able to be at peace with the body, whatever state it can be. The Buddha learned to ensure that only the body that is trapped and should not we let the mind be imprisoned along with the body. Now that your body begins to falter and deteriorate with age, do not resist this, but do not let your mind deteriorate more with your body, keep the mind separate from the body. Bring energy to the mind by realizing the truth of things as they are. The Buddha taught that such is the nature of the body, it can not be otherwise when he is born, it grows old, gets sick and dies. It is a great truth that you encounter in time. Look at the body with wisdom and realize this truth.
Even if your home is flooded or burns it thoroughly, regardless of the danger that threatens it, it only touches the house. If there is a flood, do not let the flood invade your mind. If there is fire, do not let the fire burn your heart, whether the house is just outside you that is flooded or burned. Allow the mind to let go of its attachments. The time has come.
You have lived long. Your eyes have seen so many shapes and colors, your ears have heard so many sounds, you have had many experiences. And that's all they were: simply experiences. You eat delicious food and tastes good tastes were simply excellent, nothing more. Unpleasant tastes were simply unpleasant tastes, that's all. If the eyes are a beautiful shape, it's just a beautiful form. A form is just ugly ugly form. The ear hears a sound enchanting and melodious and it is nothing more than that. A grating sound is dissonant and just like that.
The Buddha said that no being in this world can not continue for long in the same state, be they rich people or poor, young or old, human or animal, knows everything change and alienation. It is a fact of life which we can not fix it. But the Buddha also said that what we can do is to contemplate the body and mind so you can see that neither of them identified with "me" or is "mine". They have a provisional reality. It's like this house. It is yours by the name but you can win anywhere. It's the same thing for your wealth, your possessions and your family - they are yours only in name, they do not really belong, they belong to nature. Now this truth does not only you, everyone is in the same situation, even the Buddha and his disciples awake. They differ from us on that point is their acceptance of things as they are, they saw that there was no other way.
Thus the Buddha taught us to scrutinize and examine the body from the soles of feet to the top of the head and vice-versa, turning toward the feet. Look at your body. What kind of things do you see? Is there anything intrinsically clean? Can you find one essence sustainable? Whole body degenerates progressively and according to the teachings of the Buddha, he does not belong to us. It is the nature of the body to be like that because all conditioned phenomena are subject to change. How would you otherwise? In fact, there is nothing wrong with the way to the body. This is not the body that causes you pain your thinking is wrong. If you see this is just so wrong, there will necessarily be confusing.
It's like a river. It naturally follows the slope, it will never go against the slope, it is his nature. If someone was standing beside the river and watched the water flow quickly hoping so unreasonable that it was the slope, it surely suffer. What he can do his false way of thinking left her no respite in his mind. It would be unfortunate because of a false opinion, thinking against the current. If he had the right view, he would see that the water follows its inevitable course. This man will be agitated and confused until he realizes and accepts that fact.
River flowing along the slope is comparable to our body. Having been young your body has become old and now he goes to his death. Do not expect otherwise, you do not have the power to change that. The Buddha said to see the reality of things and then let go of our attachment to these things. Take the feeling of letting go as your refuge. Continue to meditate even if you feel exhausted. Let your mind go with your breathing. Take a few deep breaths and then establish the attention of the mind on the breath using the mantra "Buddho. Make this practice. Plus you feel exhausted, your concentration must be more subtle and focused in order to cope with painful feelings that arise. When you start to feel tired, take all your thoughts to a break, let the mind to gather and then turn to the breath. Just keep reciting inner "Buddho, Bud-dho". Leave aside all that is outside. Do not cling to the thoughts of your children and your parents do not get attached to anything else. Let it go. Let the mind unite in a single point and let this mind remain unified with breathing. Let the breath be the only object of knowledge. Focus so that the mind becomes increasingly subtle, until feelings are insignificant and there is great inner clarity and vigilance. Thus, when painful feelings emerge, they will gradually cease of themselves. Eventually you will consider your breath as if it was a relative came to visit you. When a parent leaves us, we follow and we watch them go. We watch from until it is out of sight and then we go home. We consider breathing the same way. If breathing is rough, we know it is rude, if it is fine, we know she is fine. As it becomes increasingly fine, we continue to follow along as we awaken the mind. At the end, breathing disappears altogether and what remains then is the feeling of vigilance. This is called meeting the Buddha. We have this clear awareness and vigilance is called "Buddho", who knows, the awakened one, who is radiant. That meet the Buddha, staying with him in knowledge and clarity. Because only the historical Buddha in the flesh came into the Parinibbana; the true Buddha, the Buddha is clear and radiant awareness, we can experience and achieve today and when we do this The heart / mind is unified.
So let go, drop everything, everything but knowledge. Do not be fooled if visions or sounds arise in your mind during meditation. Put it all. Do you cling to anything. Just stay with this non-dual awareness. Do not worry about the past nor the future, just stay quiet and you'll reach the point where there is nothing to go forward, nothing to go back, nothing stops the where there is nothing to grasp, nothing to attach anything. Why? Because there is no self, no "me" nothing "to me." Everything has disappeared. The Buddha taught us to render us all in the sense not to take anything with us, and know when you know, let go.
Conduct Truth, the path to freedom, out of the cycle of birth and death, is a work that each of us has to do alone. So continue to let go and understand the lessons. Really put effort in your contemplation. Do not make trouble for your family. Right now, they are as they are, in the future, they will like you. Nobody in the world can escape this fate. The Buddha told us to drop everything that has no real lasting substance. If you drop everything, you will see the truth, if you do not, you will not see it. So which is the same for everyone. So do not worry and do not you hang in there.
If you find yourself thinking, that's fine, as long as you think wisely. Do not think unreasonably. If you think of your children, think of them with wisdom, not unreasonably. Whatever the thing to which your mind is turning, think and learn about this thing with wisdom, being aware of its nature. If you know something with wisdom, then you can let go of this thing and there is no suffering. The mind is bright, happy, peaceful and as it turns its back on the distractions, it is undivided.
Right now, the thing that can help you and support you is to follow your breathing.
is your job, not that of someone else. Let others do their own work. You have your duty and your responsibility and you do not have to take on your shoulders, your family. Do not take anything else, let go of everything. This letting go will make your mind calm. Your only responsibility now is to focus your mind and lead to peace. Leave the rest to others. The shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, let others do it. Leave everything behind you and make your own work, fill your own responsibility. What appears in your mind, whether from fear or pain, fear of death, anxiety about others or anything else, this thing called "Do not bother me . It's not my business. " Continue to tell you that when you see these phenomena (dhamma =) occur.
What relates the word dhamma?. Everything is dhamma. There is nothing that is not a dhamma. And about the word "world"? The world is the same state of mind that you stir at this time. "What will this person? And that will do this? When I die, who will look after them? How will they succeed?" All of this is that "world". Even the mere appearance of a thought of fear of death or pain, is the world. Throw the world overboard! The world is as it is. If you allow it to arise in the mind and dominate the conscience, then darkens the mind and can not see himself. So whatever the thing that appears in the mind, you say only "This does not concern me. It does not last, it is unsatisfactory and it has no identity."
If you think you would live long, it will make you suffer. But wanting to die immediately or very quickly is also suffering, is not it? The conditions are not ours, they follow their own natural laws. You can not change anything in the way of being of the body. You can embellish a little, you can make it attractive and clean for a time such as young girls who paint their lips and let nails grow, but when old age arrives, everyone is in the same boat. So goes the body, you can change it. What you can improve and beautify is the mind by cons.
Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that this kind of house is not our real home, it belongs to us only by name. It is a house in the world and follows the ways the world. Our real home is inner peace. A house external material may well be beautiful but it is not very peaceful. There is this concern and then this, this and this anxiety then that. Thus we say that it is not our real home, it is external to us, sooner or later we will be waived. This is not a place where we can live permanently because it does not really belong to us, it is part of the world. It's the same with our body we identify with him is "me" and that "mine" but in fact it is not at all like that, it also remains that is part of the world. Your body followed its natural course from birth until he became old and sick and you can prevent it from functioning well, that's life. Wanting it to be different would be equally foolish to want a duck like a chicken. When you see this is impossible, seeing that it is in the order of things that a duck is a duck and a chicken a chicken, that bodies must grow old and die, you will find the strength and energy. Even if you wish very much that your body continues to live very long, it will not follow your desire.
The Buddha said:
Anicca vata sankhara
Uppadavayadhammino
Upajjhitva nirujjhanti
Tesam vupasamo Sukho
The word "sankhara" refers to the body and the mind. Sankharas are impermanent, and they are not stable, having appeared, they disappear, having arisen, they are going and yet everyone wants them to be permanent. It's madness. Watch the breath. Since entering the body, it appears, is his nature is as it should be. The inspiration and expiration must alternate, there must be change. Sankharas exist through change, you can not stop them. Just think about this: can you expire without inspiration? Is it be nice? Or can you only learn from? We want things to be permanent but they can not be, it is impossible. Once breathing is entered, it must be apparent. When she left, she must come again and it's natural, does not it? When we are born, we age, we become sick and then we die and it is quite natural and normal. This is because sankharas did their job, because the inspirations and expirations have alternated in this way that the human race is still here today.
soon as we are born, we sign our death warrant. Our birth and our death are one and the same thing. It's like a tree when there is a root there must be some dead branches. When there are dead branches, there must be a root. You can not have one without the other. It's a bit ridiculous to see someone's death how many people are overwhelmed with grief, loss, tears and sad, and how to birth are joyful and happy. It is an illusion. Nobody has ever seen it clearly. I think if you really want to cry, it would be better to do with the birth of someone. For in fact, the birth is death and death is birth, the root is the dead branch, the branch is dead root. If you want to cry, weep at the root, cry at birth. Look carefully: if there was no birth there would be no death. Can you understand that?
Do not think too much. Just think "That's the way things are" is your job, your duty. Just at this moment, nobody can help you, there is nothing that your family and your property can do for you. Anything that can help you right now is a presence of mind correct.
So do not hesitate. Let it go. Throw it all away.
Even if you do not let go taken, things begin to go anyway. Can you see this, how all the different parts of yourself trying to go? Take your hair when you were young, they were thick and black, now they are falling! They go away. Your eyes saw well and were healthy and now they are weak and your vision is unclear. When bodies are tired, they go away, the body is not their home. When you were a kid, your teeth were healthy and strong, now they masturbate, perhaps you have dentures? Your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue - while trying to leave, because the body is not their home. You can make a sankhara a permanent home, you can stay a little while and then you have to go. It's like a tenant who watches over his little house with eyesight. Her teeth are not as good as that, nor his ears and his body too healthy, everything goes.
So you need to worry because this body is not your real home, it's just a temporary refuge. Being born, you should contemplate its nature. Everything that exists is destined to disappear. Look at your body. Is there anything that still exists in its original form? Does your skin is similar to what it was? And your hair? They are no longer the same, is not it? Where is this all went away? It is nature, that's life. When the time came, the conditions are ongoing. We can not rely on the world - it's an endless cycle of trouble, troubles, pleasures and pains. There is no peace.
When we have no real home, we are like a wanderer on the road in this direction it for a moment and then another, pausing for a moment and then leave again. Whatever we do, we feel ill at ease until we returned to our true home, as someone who left his village to travel. Only when he comes back home he can relax and be comfortable.
You can find true peace anywhere. Neither poor nor rich have peace. Neither adults nor children, nor those who have no education or those who have no peace. There is no peace anywhere. Such is the nature of the world.
Those who have little and those who have much, all suffer. Children, adults, seniors, everyone suffers. There is the pain of being rich, that of being poor - all this is nothing but suffering.
When you contemplate things This way, you'll see aniccam, impermanence and dukkham, dissatisfaction. Why are things impermanent and unsatisfactory? This is because they are anatta, they have no identity.
Your body is lying here, sick, sore and your mind is aware of the disease and body pain, both are called dhamma. Which has no form, thoughts, feelings and perceptions are called namadhamma. That which is plagued by aches and pains is called rupadhamma. What is material is dhamma and the immaterial is dhamma. So we live with the dhamma in the Dhamma, we 're dhammas. In reality, nothing has its own identity, nowhere, there are only dhamma that arise continuously and disappear, as is their nature. Every moment we experience the birth and death. That is how things are.
When we think of the Buddha, just as he talked about, how we feel it is worthy of greeting of deep respect and esteem. Whenever we see the truth of something, we see his teachings, even if in fact we have never practiced the Truth. If we have a knowledge of the teachings, we have studied and practiced but we have not seen their truth, then we are still homeless.
So understand this: everyone, all creatures are about to leave. When beings have lived an appropriate time, they go their way. Whether rich, poor, young, elderly, all people need to experience change.
When you realize that the world is so, you will find it a boring place. When you see that there is no firm and solid that you can support you, you will feel tired and disillusioned. Be disillusioned does not mean, however feel aversion.
The mind is clear. He sees that there is nothing to be done to remedy this situation, it's just the way the world. Knowing this, you can let go of attachment, letting go with a mind that is neither happy nor sad, but that is at peace with sankharas because we see them changing nature wisely. Anicca vata sankhara - all sankharas are impermanent. We can say with simpler terms: impermanence is the Buddha. If we see an impermanent phenomenon really clear, we see that it is permanent in the sense that its characteristic is that change is invariable. It's the permanence that living beings have in common. There is a continuous transformation from childhood through youth to old age and the impermanence itself, such that changes is permanent and fixed. If you look at it this way, your heart will feel at ease. It's not just that you must cross it, it's all of us.
When you realize that the world works and you find it a boring place. When you look at it that way, you will see that they are tiresome and then disillusionment will occur. Your pleasure in the world of the senses will disappear. You'll find that if you many things, you leave a lot behind you, if you have little, you leave little. Wealth is just wealth, long life is just a long life, there is nothing special.
What is important is that we should do what the Buddha taught is to say, build our own house, built by the method I've explained. Build your house. Let it go. Let go until the mind reaches the peace that is free of what is going forward, free of what is going backward, free from what stops. The pleasure is not our home, the pain is not our home. Pleasure and pain both decline and disappear.
The Great Teacher what the Buddha saw that all sankharas are impermanent and so we learned to let go of our attachment to them. When we reach the end of our lives, we will in any case no choice, we can not take anything with us. So would it not make everything better before? It's just a heavy burden to drag around, why not get rid of it now? Why drag these things with you? Let go, relax and let your family take care of you.
Those who grow up in caring for the ill goodness and merit. Someone who is sick and gives the opportunity for others to take care of it should not make things difficult for these people. If there is any pain or problem or anything else, tell them and keep the mind in a healthy state. Someone who cares for his parents should fulfill its spirit of warmth and kindness and not be taken by aversion. It's the only time you can pay the debt you owe them. From birth through childhood until you're grown up, you were dependent on your parents. We are here today because our fathers and mothers helped us so many different ways. We owe an incredible debt of gratitude.
So today, all you children and parents, who are gathered here together, see how your parents become your children. Previously you were their children, now they become yours. Your parents are getting older and older until they become children again. Their memories go away, their eyes do not see very well and their ears hear, sometimes they are mistaken in their words. Do not be fooled. Those of you who take care of patients should know how to let go. Do not cling to things, let them go and let them take their own path. When a young child disobeys, sometimes the parents let him do just to keep the peace, to make merry. Now your parents are like that child. Their memories and perceptions are confused. Sometimes they confuse your name or you ask them to give you a cup and they bring you a plate. This is normal, do not be troubled by this.
Let the patient to remember the kindness of those who care for and patiently bear painful feelings. Make efforts mentally, do not let the mind to disperse and become agitated, do not make things difficult for those who care for you. Let those who treating patients fill their minds with virtue and kindness. Do not be put off by the unattractive side of work to clean the mucus and phlegm, urine and feces. Do your best. Everyone in the family can lend a hand.
These are the only parents you have. They gave you life, they were your teachers, your nurses and your doctors - they were all for you. The generosity of parents is to be high, you have learned something, for sharing their wealth with you, making you their heirs. Therefore, the Buddha taught the virtues of katannu and katavedi, ie to know our debt of gratitude and try to repay it. These two are complementary dhamma. If your parents are in need, if they feel unwell or in difficulty, so we do our best to help. It katannu katavedi is a virtue that sustains the world. This prevents families from breaking up, it makes them stable and harmonious.
Today, I brought you the Truth as a gift in time of illness. I have nothing material to offer, it seems there are already thousands of objects in the house. So I give you the truth, something that has lasting value, some thing you'll never exhaust. Having received from me, you can forward it to as many people as you want, it will never run out. It is the nature of Truth. I am happy to have you with this gift of truth and hope it will give you the strength to be with your pain.
"Our real home" is the translation of "Our Real Home"
published by the Sangha, Wat Pah Nanachat, Thailand.
Publishing COPYRIGHT © 1996 Dhammapala
Orson Welles in the studio. 
