About This Teaching
This reading sets out how Ajahn Chah worked with all five hindrances, not only sensual desire. For sensual desire he stressed sense restraint and eating, sleeping and talking little, with reflection on the body's unattractive parts as the antidote to lust. For ill will he taught loving-kindness and not comparing oneself with others, saying the meditator disturbs conditions rather than the reverse, and pointing to vibhava taṇhā, the craving not to have or be.
For sloth and torpor he gave practical advice: eat less, move to the light, walk backwards, imagine sitting at the edge of a cliff, and practise whether diligent or lazy. Restlessness is met by simply knowing movement and stillness; he compared the mind to a monkey, which is restless by nature, and warned against the vacant "tree stump samadhi".
On doubt, he said doubts end through one's own practice, not another's words, and that one need not know a fruit's name to taste its sweetness.