5 Ajahn Chah Quotes That Can Help You Find Inner Peace
In our heart of hearts, we all wish for more inner peace, don’t we?
It may seem impossible to find in these chaotic times. But I’ve learned inner peace is accessible if I adopt a few simple principles and apply them steadfastly in life.
These inner peace principles are beautifully captured in the following quotes from Ajahn Chah (1918–1992), a Buddhist monk of the Thai Forest Tradition.
You don’t have to run off to a monastery in the forest, however, to create inner peace. You simply need to realize that everything arises within your own heart-mind and mindfully work with your own perception wherever you are.
Let’s explore Ajahn Chah’s advice together.
1. Peace Is Within
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”
― Ajahn Chah
Finding real inner peace depends on integrating this crucial principle: everything depends on how you perceive. Thus, as Ajahn Chah says, peace, happiness, and contentment can only be found within.
Society tells us to look for happiness outside of ourselves: in relationships, material possessions, and successful circumstances. But whatever joy we find in the external is temporary at best.
Your partner cheats and your love turns sour. You’re laid off from your ideal job and flung into the throngs of unemployed. Despite the green juices, gym visits, and strict diet, you’re diagnosed with a chronic illness.
It’s only normal to get bummed out when things go wrong. But do you get stuck in that down place and keep resisting what is? Or do you have the mental stamina to pull yourself up and keep going?
In one sense, you have a mental switch inside that can choose between peace or chaos, happiness or sadness, contentment or dissatisfaction.
It’s not necessarily easy to flip that inner mental switch—I know! Years of conditioning has shaped how you think, feel, and react. But gradually, you can change your less than ideal psychological patterns. You can learn to choose peace.
All spiritual traditions speak of quieting the mind for periods of time in order to find peace and align with your higher self. The Thai Forest Tradition emphasizes mindfulness meditation.
But almost every principle that applies in meditation, applies in life as well. So please don’t run off at the mention of meditation. Let’s see how it relates to life.
2. Things to Get Rid of for Greater Peace
“Remember you don’t meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go.”—Ajahn Chah.
These days people learn mindfulness to reduce stress, decrease pain, and improve productivity—just a few of its potential benefits. There’s nothing wrong with that, but mindfulness could bring you so much more.
But for that to happen, you have to let go of the attitude of wanting anything in meditation.
What can you get rid of in meditation?
Attachment: A desire to hold on to things as they are rather than allowing them to naturally change.
Aversion: The desire to push things away that you find unpleasant.
Overthinking: An alignment with the thinking aspect of mind to the exclusion of the awareness aspect of mind.
Incorrect Views: Wrong ideas about the nature of the reality and the nature of the self.
Why do we want to get rid of these things? They cause all forms of suffering and never bring a sustainable feeling of inner peace.
Mindfulness meditation is simply the place we practice accepting each moment as it comes and allowing it to move on, gradually getting rid of attachment and aversion, overthinking and wrong views.
Then we extend mindfulness to life. That is the path to peace.
3. Just Let It All Be
“Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this — just let it all be.” ― Ajahn Chah
When you first learn mindfulness meditation, you’ll likely learn to use an object of focus like the breath, a physical object like a flower, or the sounds that hit your ear.
That’s an excellent way to begin mindfulness meditation. Because, at first, our mind is all over the place. It needs an anchor to help it settle down.
Techniques like this allow you to learn to be with what is, the main point of meditation.
Whatever arises in the mind, you simple observe it:
Restlessness
Sleepiness
Memories
Emotions
Thoughts
Sensations
Urges
You just watch the play of the mind.
You’ll get distracted a million times over. But each time, you just bring your mind back to the present moment. As you do, the mind settles.
Your first task in meditation then is to become more aligned with the watcher. But eventually, the watcher dissolves and you’re simply awareness.
This same principle applies in life as well. Whatever occurs, be the observer. Don’t get swept up in your emotional reactions, judgments, or urges to act in harmful ways.
That only leads to suffering, not peace.
4. Let Go
“Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don’t accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you a will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace. ”― Ajahn Chah
Life is an ebb and flow of gain and loss. Do you know anyone who hasn’t lost something? Becoming overly attached to gain only makes the fall harder when loss occurs.
It’s the same with praise. Don’t get too fluffed up when praised. Someone waits just around the corner, eager to criticize you.
A mind that lets go doesn’t take anything too seriously. It has a confidence that’s born not from ego, compliments, or approval. Its confidence arises from knowing how the world works on a fundamental level.
True peace is yours when you don’t take things personally and allow life to ebb and flow around you.
5. You Own Nothing
“With mindfulness you can see the real owner of things. Do you think this is your world, your body? It is the world’s world, the body’s body. If you tell it, Don’t get old, does the body listen? Does your stomach ask permission to get sick? We only rent this house; why not find out who really owns it?”—Ajahn Chah
It’s popular these days to pour excess attention upon your body. People obsess over the right diet, the right workout equipment, and the right self-care routine.
On the other end of the spectrum, you find people who ignore their body and work themselves to the bone. But they still think they are their body.
We’re all over-identified with this body (that includes the mind) when it’s just a rental with a termination date.
The path to peace begins when you stop identifying with your body as the real you and begin to explore, as Ajahn Chah, who really owns it.
This means delving into the great mystery.
You may never find a concrete or final answer. But I’m certain the search is worth it. And while the search at times may turn your upside down and inside out, you will indeed find greater peace as you move along.
Closing Thoughts
Ajahn Chah was a beloved monk in the Thai Forest Tradition who also established monasteries in the West. He was the very first teacher of the well-known American writer and Vipassana teacher, Jack Kornfield.
Ajahn Chah emphasizes that peace can only be found within and in the above quotes outlines a series of basic attitudes that will help you find it. These attitudes center around letting go of attachment and aversion and simply being present to what is.
[Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels ]
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