About This Teaching
Ajahn Dtun asks his listeners to set aside time each day, at least ten minutes, for meditation. Just as physical exercise makes the body strong enough to lift heavy things, training the mind with mindfulness on a meditation object makes it strong enough to remain unshaken by greed, aversion, liking and disliking, and to see that emotions are separate from the mind. Mindfulness and wisdom then filter out unwholesome thoughts at every moment while keeping wholesome ones.
Without this, defilements take control and lead to wrong speech and action and to suffering now and later. He encourages avoiding evil, doing good, keeping the five precepts, the eight on occasion, and meditating daily. The past cannot be corrected and should serve only as a lesson; the future is uncertain; what matters is mindfulness in the present. If a bad thought will not go, return to the breath or "Buddho" for a few minutes.
He asks everyone to reflect that all who are born must die, not to create fear but to stay heedful. Death need not be feared, since we have been born and died countless times. If the body were self, we could command it not to sicken or age; seeing it as elements that arise, change and break apart, the mind lets go, and as greed, anger and suffering lessen, true happiness is found.