Timeless dharma practice

The other day I was reading something written by Ajahn Chah in Thai and translated to English by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Ajahn Chah was talking about the need for constant mindfulness or constant alertness. At one point he gave an analogy of creating a fence. We can’t practice once in a while which will be like putting a fence around a field or a house but it doesn’t go all around. If we put it up just on this side, thieves will come on that side, the side that the fence hasn’t gone around.

Our opinions and moods are one thing but THE mind is something else. Usually, when a mood hits, one that we like, we go running after it. If it’s one we don’t like, we turn our backs on it. When this is the case, we don’t see our own mind. if someone comes along and insults us, we go running after the mood. We’ve left our mindfulness. When we do this we become a person who panders to his moods.

When the mind is quiet, the Buddha tells us not to be intoxicated by it. When it’s distracted, he tells us not to be intoxicated by it. The Buddha’s equanimity (Upekkha, sometimes translated as disenchantment) is about leaving things alone, putting them down. We don’t kill or beat or punish them, we don’t appease them. We just put them down. Everything. Again and again. Let them be. The ultimate emptiness or shunyata is empty of clinging but in modern times, it must pass through the gate of loving witnessing, grieving and sometimes raging!

Ajahn Mun once said that we have to make our practice the shape of a circle. A circle never comes to an end. Keep it going continually. Keep the practice going continually without stop. I listened to him and I thought, “When I’ve finished listening to this talk, what should I do?” The answer is to make our alertness akaliko: timeless.