Page 11 - EH76

TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 9

Ajahn Amaro at Assumption College, Bangkok. 17 June 2024

Ajahn Amaro at the Vatican, 18 Sept 2024

‘The heedless are as if dead already’ “I’m an unenlightened person creating a ‘this’ to be or a ‘that’ to
– as if dead, even if their bodies who’s got to do something now to identify with.
are still breathing, moving around, become enlightened in the future,”
talking, feeling, seeing, tasting, is to begin in the wrong place.’ It’s The simple gesture of non-
touching. This is because the mind starting from where you are not. identification, non-grasping
is attached to the born and the moment by moment, is how
dying. Therefore the Deathless, the Instead, we change the paradigm immortality is achieved. Not ‘me’
Unborn, the Undying, the Timeless, to: ‘Here is the awake mind going on forever, but ‘me’ being seen
is invisible, intangible, and doesn’t knowing the Dhamma, knowing as transparent, the ‘me’ being seen
seem like any thing. the way things are – knowing this as not-self. The awake, knowing
sound, this feeling, this mood, mind is always here; this is the
‘The heedless are as if dead already’ knowing hope and regret, dullness, refuge. It is up to us to take this
– as if dead, despite having the aloneness, conflict, discomfort. refuge, to abide here, to embody
appearances of life. It is a startling Knowing this.’ And in that gesture it; the challenge is to not be fooled
image that the Buddha uses here; of knowing, awakened awareness by the compelling qualities of the
just because the body is breathing, – the Unborn, the Undying – is sense world and our life story, but
that doesn’t mean anything. When realized, is manifest, is embodied. rather to break through the shell,
the mind breaks through the But as soon as the thinking mind to wake up. Then there is freedom,
shell of ignorance it is breaking jumps in and says, ‘Aha, I am independence, life and light.
through the customary perceptions the Unborn, I am the Deathless!
of: ‘Me being a person who has That’s what I am!’ That’s just the Based on Talk given in 2016. Source:
come from somewhere, who has conceiving mind creating an ‘I am’ www.amaravati.org EH
got to do something to become and short-circuiting the realization.
something else in the future.’ As The way of relinquishment, of
Luang Por Sumedho used to say non-owning, non-possession, non-
over and over again: ‘To think identification, is atammayatā – not