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.
Interpretation
Meditation involves both insight and calmness, which are interconnected elements in the process.
In this quote, Ajahn Chah illustrates the dual nature of meditation, comparing it to a log of wood that cannot be separated into distinct ends—insight and calmness. Both aspects are integral to a complete practice; when one engages in true meditation, both insight and concentration develop together, highlighting the unity of the meditative experience and the mind's role in achieving balance within.
In practice
In a public talk about mindfulness, one might reference this quote to explain the holistic nature of meditation.
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.
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.
In actuality, no one ever sank so deep that he could not sink deeper, and there may be one or many who sank deeper. So it is always possible to be happy and grateful that things are not worse!
When you have emptied all content - thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes - when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space, that virgin space within you. Unburdened by anything, that contentless consciousness, that's what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss.
The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you. Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all.
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in the river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea.
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.