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.
People who confuse what they wish were true with what is really true create distorted pictures of reality that make it impossible for them to make the best choices.
The future will show whether my foresight is as accurate now as it has proved heretofore.
No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.
The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else.
No one would be happier than Luther to be commended by the testimony of the time that he had been neither slack nor deceitful in maintaining the course of truth, but had shown quite enough and even too much vehemence.
The subconscious mind has no sense of humor and people often joke themselves into unhappy experiences.
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