Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Forest Path Podcast, a podcast sharing the teachings of awakened meditation masters of the modern era.
[00:00:08] This episode is a talk given by the Forest Meditation Master Ajahn Ganha Sukhokkamo and it's titled Practicing the Dhamma by Being Happy.
[00:00:18] It was published as part of jaidee Jai Sabhai Delivery 42.
[00:00:24] You can find links to the original text in the description below.
[00:00:29] May you all benefit from hearing this gift of Dhamma by a meditation master of the Thai forest tradition.
[00:00:43] Practicing the Dhamma by being Happy by Ajahn Gah Practicing the Dhamma means to improve yourself in the heart.
[00:00:54] It means to improve your manner, practice, speech and behaviour.
[00:00:58] The Lord Buddha taught us to be renunciants who don't follow their desires and emotions.
[00:01:05] Following your wishes and emotions is nothing but trouble.
[00:01:08] It is creating problems.
[00:01:11] You have to adjust your heart and mind to enter the Dhamma.
[00:01:15] In sum, the problems you have in this world arise in your own heart.
[00:01:20] Practising means developing the Indriya.
[00:01:24] When you practice and don't follow your wants and emotions, you feel frustrated, indignant and pressurised.
[00:01:31] You have to know and understand that practicing Dhamma is about having Sati and stopping yourself and slowing yourself down.
[00:01:39] It is about resisting, enduring and understanding.
[00:01:43] Everyone must have samadhi and be strong and firm in the heart.
[00:01:48] It is not about following your wants, needs, instincts and habits.
[00:01:53] The human race is clever. We have the ability to do and practice only the good things.
[00:01:59] The Lord Buddha wants you to know Dukkha, the cause for the arising of Dukkha and the path to the ending of Dukkha.
[00:02:07] You have to adjust yourself and enter the Dhamma.
[00:02:11] Your life has not been successful yet, but because you have been following your wishes, you haven't given any importance to what is good and right.
[00:02:20] If you follow your wishes, your heart will become increasingly hot and bothered.
[00:02:25] I want the things that I like. I don't want the things I don't like.
[00:02:31] After being born, you have to accept the property of old age, sickness, death and separation.
[00:02:38] We don't like these things and don't need them and yet we get them.
[00:02:43] Because of this, it is necessary to direct the heart towards entering the Dhamma.
[00:02:48] You have to start liking old age, sickness, death and separation and have to concede that these are such a Dhamma.
[00:02:56] They are the truth.
[00:02:59] Everyone will surely get these things.
[00:03:01] You don't want to be an old, sick or dead person, but these things will naturally arise for everyone.
[00:03:09] The Lord Buddha doesn't Want you to be interested in liking and disliking.
[00:03:13] Try to make your mind and heart peaceful.
[00:03:17] Your problems are a matter of liking and disliking that make your heart unpeaceful.
[00:03:22] The Lord Buddha taught and instructed us about renunciation.
[00:03:27] Which kind of renunciation?
[00:03:30] Renouncing. Having an I having a self.
[00:03:34] If there is an I a self, there will also be Dukkha.
[00:03:39] You have dukkha because you have an I a self.
[00:03:43] None of you has an I a self. You are not a woman, a man, an old person or a young person. You are not a monk or a layperson.
[00:03:53] Everything merely arises, stays and ceases according to causes and conditions.
[00:04:00] Avija, your delusion makes your mind proliferate.
[00:04:05] It drives you to do evil and create bad Kamma.
[00:04:08] There is no end to it.
[00:04:10] Your heart only knows how to take.
[00:04:13] It wants happiness.
[00:04:15] It is a taker that has wandered through many existences and lives already.
[00:04:21] Even being born comes down to this. You start taking while you're in your mother's womb.
[00:04:27] After coming out, you go on to take from your parents.
[00:04:31] As you grow up, learn and study, you continue to take.
[00:04:36] You take from your neighbors and society.
[00:04:38] You take happiness from other people.
[00:04:41] The Lord Buddha taught, may you be people who renounce and are givers who are diligent and not lazy.
[00:04:49] May you stop and restrain yourself like this.
[00:04:53] From now on, I will change the manner of my life.
[00:04:56] I will be extremely diligent and renounced to the utmost.
[00:05:00] I will let go of the ego, the I, the self.
[00:05:05] I won't be careless, self indulgent, freestyle person who lives in his own world.
[00:05:11] I won't be self important and make myself the center of the world. This is not right.
[00:05:17] You have to contemplate yourself like this.
[00:05:21] Am I renouncing something and bringing happiness to my parents and family, to the community, society and country?
[00:05:28] You have to renounce. If you don't renounce anything, you won't be happy.
[00:05:34] The more people appear, the more bothered you will get. If you don't renounce, your family will be awful and everyone will be horrible.
[00:05:43] It's because you are selfish. Because you don't renounce anything. You there is only getting and wanting.
[00:05:49] You don't know how to make the heart peaceful.
[00:05:53] If you stop and motivate yourself, your heart will become more peaceful and cool down.
[00:05:59] Changing oneself is difficult because in order to put the Dhamma into practice, you have to go against the current in every aspect.
[00:06:08] You can't go with the flow and follow your wants.
[00:06:11] No victory can be as good and precious as conquering your heart and emotions.
[00:06:17] May you understand this.
[00:06:19] Keeping the precepts also is an act of renunciation.
[00:06:23] It is not about getting something you renounce.
[00:06:26] Practicing samadhi also is an act of renunciation.
[00:06:30] samadhi can be translated as not having, greed, hatred and delusion.
[00:06:35] It is letting go, putting down, not wanting, not having, not being, returning to nature and finding truth.
[00:06:45] There is no having and no being.
[00:06:48] It is something pure and flawless.
[00:06:50] There is happiness or suffering because you turn yourself into an agent who wants things to be like this or like that.
[00:06:59] The Lord Buddha wants you to understand this about samadhi. It is about letting go of the hindrances, namely greed, hatred and delusion which which are in your heart.
[00:07:10] Your heart is not peaceful, it is hot tempered.
[00:07:14] The mind is thinking a lot because it is full of wanting and burning with worries and needs, with anger and hatred, with ill will and envy.
[00:07:23] You are burning alive before you have died.
[00:07:27] The Lord Buddha taught and instructed to look for happiness, the ending of suffering and peace. In the present moment, your issues are nothing but wants and needs burning you.
[00:07:39] He wants you to develop sati sampajanna and heal your heart.
[00:07:44] You don't have to think much.
[00:07:47] You don't have to know much.
[00:07:49] Just know yourself in the present moment.
[00:07:52] Think good thoughts and don't think bad thoughts. You don't even have to think the good thoughts too often. Because good and bad things are impermanent.
[00:08:03] Everything has to disappear.
[00:08:05] Good things have to go. Bad things have to go.
[00:08:08] Every molecule, every breath, every moment. Everything arises, remains and ceases.
[00:08:15] There is nothing long lasting.
[00:08:18] You have to make the heart cool down and be peaceful.
[00:08:21] You don't have to chase external objects or follow the way of the world.
[00:08:26] If you follow external objects, you keep asking why? Why, why, why? Why do things have to be like this?
[00:08:35] Because these things are natural. They are the natural law.
[00:08:39] You have to take them as they are.
[00:08:42] You don't have to accept or reject them or judge them as right or wrong.
[00:08:46] Regard external things as things that bring the Dhamma to you. They are negligible, but they exist nevertheless.
[00:08:55] If you think like this, your heart will stop and cool down.
[00:08:59] You return to improving yourself and don't think about and get involved with external things anymore.
[00:09:06] May you seize the time and the opportunity to practice, to develop your faculties.
[00:09:12] May the indriya and parami in your heart become stronger.
[00:09:16] You have to abstain and endure and use the monastery schedule.
[00:09:21] If that does not please you, you have to resolve this in your heart.
[00:09:26] Problematic things Are such because the heart has a problem.
[00:09:30] You have to make your heart peaceful by all means.
[00:09:33] The wisdom will gradually arise in your heart that this Dhamma is something that goes against the current.
[00:09:39] If you follow your desires and emotions, your life will be disappointing and the world will be full of selfishness.
[00:09:47] Discriminating against certain groups by caste or class, by birth or family, keeping good things and happiness for yourself while passing the Dukkha on to others. This is wrong. It is really not fair.
[00:10:01] Thinking about getting more, being more successful or getting more than others is exploiting others.
[00:10:08] This lacks Dhamma. This lacks justice.
[00:10:12] Some jobs are not rightful either.
[00:10:15] Selling alcohol, selling weapons, opening a casino, trading people, selling drugs and addictive substances.
[00:10:24] Why are people doing it?
[00:10:26] Because of selfishness?
[00:10:28] Some people think like when we renounce things, keep the precepts, live by the Dhamma, we will be exploited by others. It puts us at a disadvantage.
[00:10:39] These thoughts are not you, it's the Kalesis.
[00:10:43] There are Kaleases in your thought processes. This is not Dhamma.
[00:10:48] You have to get happiness from being givers, from being renunciates.
[00:10:54] It arises from being peaceful.
[00:10:56] Look at the example of the Lord Buddha.
[00:10:59] He was a giver, a renunciant and gained only happiness.
[00:11:04] It is wrong to think that you are not the Lord Buddha and can't practice like him.
[00:11:10] You have a lot of wrong views.
[00:11:12] Following your desires means to create problems.
[00:11:16] If you are a renunciant, a good person, your family will be happy. Your organization and your country will also be happy.
[00:11:24] All people have needs.
[00:11:26] The important factor is your selfishness.
[00:11:29] You are not renouncing, not reducing your conceit and letting go of your views.
[00:11:36] You are only concerned about your own interests and emotions.
[00:11:40] To turn yourself into a monk, your initial Dhamma practice will be about reducing ego and letting go of views and selfishness.
[00:11:49] It is about not getting one's happiness from material objects or physical well being or from gain fame and praise.
[00:11:57] You will get your happiness from doing good and from having Sila and Dhamma.
[00:12:02] You will become happy by making the heart peaceful through annunciation.
[00:12:07] Any issues around money and comfort will be stilled by your goodness. By not wanting or needing anything, they are making you study from kindergarten until you have received your PhD.
[00:12:20] This is in order to turn you into a good person who renounces and lets go of selfishness and laziness.
[00:12:27] Making you study from Nak Dham tree. Your basic monastic exam up to the ninth level of Buddhist theology is also in order to turn you into a good person who renounces and lets go of selfishness.
[00:12:42] Our world is a hotspot. Why?
[00:12:45] Because you are selfish, you are creating problems for yourself.
[00:12:49] If you do good, you will be peaceful and cool tempered.
[00:12:53] There won't be anyone exploiting you or you exploiting anyone.
[00:12:58] Being able to conquer your mind and heart means to win against all enemies out of loving kindness. The Lord Buddha taught like regard this occasion as important.
[00:13:11] While you have the chance to practice disciplining your Khaleesas and Asavas regardless of whether you are staying in the temple or at home, you have to train yourself wherever you are.
[00:13:23] Just like everyone ages, gets sick and dies wherever they are.
[00:13:28] Such a Dhamma truth does not spare anyone.
[00:13:31] Happiness is addictive for us. We all like it and attach to it. It is necessary to make your heart equanimous and advance in your Dhamma practice any Dhamma that is for getting addicted to happiness and comfort is not Dhamma the teaching of the Lord Buddha.
[00:13:49] You already know that being addicted is not desirable.
[00:13:53] When you start getting attached in the heart, it's necessary to move on and leave everything behind.
[00:13:59] Don't get entangled in regrets and nostalgia. You have to brace yourself and battle against these sentiments.
[00:14:06] You have to be happy in doing the practice. Considering I am walking the path of the Noble Sama Sambhuddha which is supreme, there is nothing higher than this.
[00:14:18] You have to be glad and proud of yourself while doing your practice saying that you're travelling well and correctly.
[00:14:25] This is called Sugato Practicing with happiness.
[00:14:30] For today, this is enough Explanation of the Dhamma the Teaching of the Noble Samma Sambuddha by the power of the Noble Sama Sambhuddha, the Dhamma and the Noble Sangha the May you be blessed. May you become strong and healthy in heart and mind.
[00:14:47] May you be happy in doing the practice for developing the Indriya and the Parami to reach Magga Phala and Nibbana.
[00:15:02] That concludes the Dhamma teaching. Practicing the Dhamma by being Happy by the Venerable Arjun Gah if you'd like to hear more talks by Ajahn Gah and other meditation masters of the Forest Tradition of Theravada Buddhism, subscribe to the Forest Path Podcast using your favourite podcast app.
[00:15:23] I also want to say thank you to everyone who has supported this podcast and the everyday Dhamma Network through making generous donations via the Ko Fi platform.
[00:15:32] This wouldn't be happening without you and the audience which in the past month has been 36,000 or more, which would not be happening without the generous support of kind donors.
[00:15:43] Thank you all for listening. May you all experience insight and peace.
