Ajahn Passano Offers Advice to Those of Us Who Frequently Fall Out of Trees

The nice thing about living closer to Bangkok is that there are a lot more things to do. Life in rural Thailand has its upside, but you certainly lose out when it comes to choice of activities. Last Wednesday I was able to travel into the city for a Dhamma talk by Ajahn Passano. This outing felt like a real adventure; not only was I going to hear a respected Buddhist teacher, but it also meant visiting Bangkok after dark – since my son was born I rarely get out of the house after seven in the evening.

Although I’ve been interested in Buddhism for most of my life I don’t belong to any particular group; I sort of prefer it that way. I see Buddhism more as a practical philosophy that provides a set of tools that I can use in my life- I don’t view it as my religion as such. I try to avoid any type of zealotry, and I’ve no interest in converting other people to my world view; it is just something that I find beneficial. I have friends who are Christians and others who are atheist; my general attitude is whatever works for you is good. I enjoy learning about Buddhism in much the same way as other people like to learn about their hobbies. The great thing about living in Thailand is that there are so many great Buddhist teachers here, and now that I’m living closer to the capital I can actually get to see a lot more of them.

Ajahn Passano Offers Advice to Those Who Frequently Fall Out of Trees

Ajahn Passano is one of the western monks who trained under Ajahn Chah, so I was certainly interested in what he had to say. He is currently the Abbot of Wat Abhayagiri in California. He is visiting Thailand for a couple of weeks and the Dhamma talk at Baan Aree is just one of his scheduled activities. I found out about this Dhamma talk from the Little Bang Website; a great resource for any interested in English language Buddhist events occurring in Bangkok.

The main topic for Ajahn Passano’s talk was dependent origination. This is a difficult concept for some of us to grasp, and it is easy to tie ourselves up in knots trying to work it all out (birth causes becoming which causes clinging…). I’m not very good with this type of deep thought, but Ajahn Passano offered a simple explanation. Basically everything we experience has a cause, and each cause will be preceded by another cause in a chain. If we want to avoid something negative (such as craving) we just have to remove one of the proceeding causes in the link. This sounds complicated, but Ajahn Passano simplified things with a story that was once provided by Ajahn Chah to illustrate the point. He talked about how when somebody falls out of a tree they might be hit by many branches on the way down – we don’t need to be able to name all the branches to experience the pain at the bottom or to avoid falling out of trees.

Meditation Does Not Make You Happy

One of the things that I found most interesting in the talk by Ajahn Passano was his claim that meditation doesn’t make us happy. Instead he talked about how having a good mental state before you begin a meditation session is the most important thing. This is something that makes a lot of sense to me, and it has been my experience also. In the past I’ve used the booze as a means to find happiness, and know that this is only a short-term solution at best. I don’t use meditation as a way to escape my problems but as a means to deal with them. In order for meditation to be beneficial I have to work at the other areas of my life too. If I’m an asshole 90% of the time then I’m unlikely to get much benefit from that 10% of time that I’m meditating. When I put the effort into all areas of my life though, this is when meditation tends to be most successful- the two feed off each other.

The talk by Ajahn Passano was something that I enjoyed, and I hope to attend more such events in the future. The Little Bang website has another report on the talk and you can find that here.

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