When sitting in meditation, say, "That's not my business!" with every thought that comes by.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of detachment from one's thoughts during meditation.
Ajahn Chah's quote serves as a reminder that during meditation, it is essential to observe thoughts without attachment. By acknowledging that they are not one's business, practitioners can cultivate a serene state of mind, allowing distractions to pass without causing disturbance or engagement.
In practice
A teacher might use this quote during a mindfulness workshop to illustrate the importance of observing thoughts.
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.
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.
Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.
Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it
The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.
Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.
Symbolic violence is violence wielded with tacit complicity between its victims and its agents, insofar as both remain unconscious of submitting to or wielding it.
Insanity is in the eyes of the beholder. So I will continue to live my personal folly.
My grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland.
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