The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart
Sun, 30 March 2025
Q: In Ajahn’s book ‘Inspiring Dhamma,’ it mentioned that The Buddha taught us that we should try to always keep an open mind and not be narrow-minded. Can Ajahn advise why is this important?
Than Ajahn: There is an opportunity to learn when you open up your mind because there are many things that you don’t know yet. If you’re close-minded, then you won’t learn anything more. So this is what the Buddha meant by keeping an open-mind attitude. Just listen, you don’t have to believe or disbelieve. If you want to know whether it is good or not, then you have to prove it by practicing it. There are many things that you need to know in order to get yourself free from all forms of suffering. In order to stop you from keep coming back to be reborn again and again, you need to know the path that will lead you to be the unborn. So you have to have an open mind to listen to the teaching and then try to prove it yourself whether what you’ve heard is good or not good. If you don’t know, maybe you can ask somebody else to compare or to verify it.
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Q: When a person killed another person in his past live, does that person have to pay back all his kamma?
Phra Ajahn: Not necessarily. It depends on how much Dhamma practice you have. If you can reach nibbāna, then you don’t have to pay all your old debts. But if you haven’t reached nibbāna yet, then you still have to pay your debts depending on what kind of bad kamma you did. If you achieve the level of the noble disciples, then you don’t have to pay your bad kamma by being born in the lower realms of existence. But you can still be haunted by the people whom you did something wrong to. They could come and try to get even with you in your life time.
Q: For example, I see some people, before they parinibbāna, they still have to suffer with their body conditions.
Phra Ajahn: That’s right, but the mind is not affected by the conditions of the body. Like the Buddha, he still had to experience some bad kamma from his past life. He used to cause cows that wanted to drink water not being able to drink water so in his final day, when he started to get thirsty, he could not find any clean water to drink.
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Q: Is ‘the mind detaching from the body’ one of the signs of a sotāpanna? What does a sotāpanna have to overcome to pass the test?
Phra Ajahn: A sotāpanna has to give up the body, he is not being hurt by whatever happens to the body. The body can get old, get sick and die, and the mind will not be affected by it.
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Q: Sometimes can we just do 4-precepts instead of the 5-precept?
Phra Ajahn: Well, it’s like taking an examination, you can only do 4 questions, you cannot do all the questions so you cannot get a perfect score. You still have to pay for the one that you do not keep.
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Q: I still live together with my ex-boyfriend. So, to deal with grief of ending the relationship, I still must see him daily. What is the best approach to deal with grief after a relationship ends? Is it necessary to give time to grief?
Than Ajahn: The best thing is to forget it. If you can forget it then the grief will disappear. When you start to think about your past relationship then try to stop it by reciting a mantra, chanting or sitting in meditation. Once you meditate or when your mind becomes calm then you forget what you think. When you don’t think then the past will not come and haunt you. You bring the past back by thoughts. If you stop thinking, then your past won’t come back. The past has already gone but you keep bringing it back by thinking about it. So you have to stop thinking about it then it will not come and bother you.
“Dhamma in English, Nov 12, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
Collected and shared by Andrew Sum
