About This Teaching
On his first visit to Ajahn Brahmavaṁso's monastery, Ajahn Dtun reminds the monastic community to take the Buddha as their model: he was born, enlightened and passed away in the forest, gave up wealth, power and family, and endured hardship to purify his mind. Sīla, the Dhamma-Vinaya, is the beginning of peace, but greed, anger and delusion remain, so monks should not be heedless.
Mindfulness should be kept from waking until sleep, not only during sitting and walking. Monks' defilements tend to arise around the four requisites, so robes, almsfood, dwelling and medicine should be reflected on as mere elements. Liking and disliking arise in the mind, not in sights or sounds, and must be seen as impermanent and not-self. Dealing with each mood day by day is like cutting the branches of a bodhi tree one at a time; to kill the tree one must dig out the root, which means contemplating one's own body.
He describes contemplating the body at coarse, middle and refined levels until the mind lets go of identification with it. Subtler delusion then remains in feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness, which must also be seen as impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self until only the pure mind is left. He closes by urging unflagging effort, quoting Luang Por Chah: diligent or lazy, keep making the effort.