To give up doing evil is more important than making merit.
Interpretation
Choosing to stop doing bad deeds is more valuable than performing good deeds.
This quote by Ajahn Chah emphasizes the importance of ceasing harmful actions rather than simply focusing on accumulating positive contributions. It suggests that the moral and ethical responsibility to refrain from causing harm is fundamental to spiritual and personal growth, and that positive actions will follow when one prioritizes the intention to do no harm.
In practice
In a discussion on personal growth, one might quote this to highlight the importance of ethical behavior over just performing good acts.
Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free.
When sitting in meditation, say, "That's not my business!" with every thought that comes by.
If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.
To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind.
Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.
The heart is just the heart; thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. Let things be just as they are.
Yesterday you can't alter, but your reaction to yesterday you can. The past you cannot change, but your response to your past you can.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
How often do we sigh for opportunities for doing good, whilst we neglect the openings of Providence in little things, which would frequently lead to the accomplishment of most important usefulness. Good is done by degrees. However small in proportion the benefit which follows individual attempts to do good, a great deal may thus be accomplished by perseverance, even in the midst of discouragements and disappointments.
I must try to be alone for part of each year...and part of each day...in order to keep my core, my center...Women must be still as the axis of a wheel in the midst of her activities. She must be the pioneer of achieving this stillness, not only for her own salvation, but for the salvation of family life, of society, perhaps even of our civilization.
Perhaps everything terrifying is deep down a helpless thing that needs our help.
The message I hope to have sent is just the example of being yourself. I tell this to my students: It's not about copying me or my logic systems. It's about allowing yourself to be yourself.
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