No415 - The Teachings of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

 No.415 - The Teachings of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

Excerpted from Letting Go, evening talk on April 02, 2009

There’s a fine passage in the Canon where a man is really, really sick, and his wife is afraid he’s going to die. So she goes and says to him, “Look, don’t worry about me; don’t worry about the children. I’ve got enough skills that I can take care of myself and of them. I’ll keep practicing the Dhamma.” 

And her refrain, over and over again, is that it’s bad to be worried at the point of death. Because after all, the mind will start latching on to its worries and then gets reborn in one of those halfway houses, those states where you’re obsessed about something and can’t let it go. 

In other words, you get fixated on it. You keep thinking about it.

You’ve got to realize at that point you’ve got to let go of all those responsibilities. You can’t hang on anymore. After all, if you hang on, you become a ghost and then haunt the people you’re concerned about. 

That, of course, freaks them out. You’re not doing anybody any good.

You’ve got to realize that a lot of these thoughts, even though they may be responsible and they may be compelling, have their time and place. When it’s no longer the time and place, you’ve got to learn to let go. This is why we meditate and practice letting go on a daily basis, i.e., to stop thinking about those things. You have to die to the world.

There’s that story I’ve told before about a woman who came to see Ajaan Fuang. She was going to spend two weeks at the monastery, but the second day she was there she went to him and said, “I’ve got to go home.” “Why?” he asked. “Well, I’m concerned about my husband and my children. I don’t know what they’re going to do, who’s going to fix food for them, how they’re going to manage.” He said, “Look, tell yourself that you’ve died. They’ll manage.”

So when you meditate, you’re practicing how to die. You’ve died to the world as you sit here. All your other responsibilities, you just put them aside. 

Because, after all, who knows, that earthquake they warn about may come before you get home. Before the end of the meditation session, the building could fall down on us, collapse, kill us all. Your body may not be able to last for the next hour. You never know. Death doesn’t come with a sign beforehand that warns you, “x number of days”, “x number of hours.” So you’ve always got to be ready to let go, even without a moment’s notice.

So this is an important skill, learning how to stop thinking about things. If you’re going to think about something, think about something skillful: this state of mind focused in the present moment, just being aware in the present moment of what’s happening in the body, what’s happening in the mind. 

Just make sure that the mind doesn’t go down any unskillful thought pathways. At the very least, make sure it stays with its sense of being centered, alert in the present moment. It doesn’t have to be responsible for anything else right now. 

Learn to develop that as your default mode. That right there is a really important skill.

~ Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

Excerpted from Letting Go, evening talk on April 02, 2009

https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/evening/2009/090402-letting-go.html

PDF: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Transcripts/090402_Letting_Go.pdf

MP3: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2009/090402%20Letting%20Go.mp3