With even a little intuitive wisdom we will be able to see clearly the ways of the world. We will come to understand that everything in the world is our teacher.
Interpretation
Everything around us serves as a lesson if we are open to understanding it.
Ajahn Chah highlights the importance of intuitive wisdom, suggesting that a deeper understanding of life can be achieved when we recognize the lessons present in our daily experiences. By perceiving the world as our teacher, we cultivate a mindset of learning and growth, allowing us to navigate life's complexities with greater clarity and insight.
In practice
During a workshop about personal growth, this quote can encourage participants to view their experiences as opportunities for learning.
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.
Being young and trying to catch a glimpse of the depths, of the true self, of the soul, or whatever human beings have called it over the centuries, we often find ourselves surrounded by bossy, hectoring voices trying to short-circuit our personal experience by super-imposing their own disappointments. Much of this bossiness masquerades as an education.
We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.
If a statement is untrue, it is not the more respectable because it has been said in Latin.
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
It's a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don't sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.
If there is one lesson that I have learned during my life as an analyst, it is the lesson that what my patients tell me is likely to be true - that many times when I believed that I was right and my patients were wrong, it turned out, though often only after a prolonged search, that my rightness was superficial whereas their rightness was profound.
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