About This Teaching
This Short recounts Ajahn Chah's first retreat devoted to meditation, when he was still unsure which method suited him. He tried making a rosary from 108 seeds gathered from a broken branch, but with no thread he spent three days dropping the seeds one by one into a tin, and soon returned to mindfulness of breathing.
Meditation still did not come easily. His main frustration was that he felt more peaceful when he was not meditating than when he was, and he kept observing what worked and what did not. Looking back, he saw that the harder he pushed, the more his determination had turned into attachment, a craving he had carried into the practice itself.