About This Teaching
Running away from suffering, Ajahn Chah says, only carries it with us; it must be settled right where it arises, since suffering is the first Noble Truth and the place where it ceases. Someone who keeps moving from place to place out of discontent is "racing with the devil all over the country."
He compares this to a thorn embedded in the foot. The pain comes and goes, and at first we shrug it off, but each time it returns the wish to remove it grows, until we resolve to pull it out. Practice needs this unwavering effort wherever the mind gets stuck.
Happiness and suffering both arise from clinging, so he urges looking at the present moment in one's own body and mind. The old practitioners saw only arising and ceasing, like an iron ball fresh from the furnace, hot wherever it is touched. Worldly conventions of like and dislike can still be used in speech, he says, while inwardly the mind remains empty.