Ajahn Chah's approach to Buddhism, practice and progress on the eightfold path to awakening.

 

'Food for the Heart', a compilation of talks from Ajahn Chah.

I've been reading the book or rather listening to Ajahn Chah's "Food for the Heart", which is a compilation of various dhamma talks given over a period of time. They seem to be aimed at novice monks, and those recently joining the Forest Monastery where Ajahn Chah practiced and taught. They also seem to be given during the later years of his life where he reflects on his learning, practice and other aspects of his practical philosophy on Buddhism.

There's a couple of unusual or unique points that I've come across in his talks and writings. 

The first is in the way he uses the term "mind", which can mean awareness, bare awareness, or the container (sense door) for thoughts. He makes use of "mind" in a rather unique way as compared with other early Buddhist (and Theravada) schools. He uses it as a way to separate out phenomena and where the phenomena appear (in the mind as a sort of passive observer).

His approach to practice is very practical, and does not use direct translations of the suttas, or even the commentaries much, such as the Visudhimagga. He does reference the rules of the Vinaya quite a bit, and seems strict in maintaining those rules for monks however, often sanctioning any laxity in following the rules and regulations down to a tee.

In making use of the eightfold path, he approaches it in terms of the 3 main categories- Conduct (Sila), Meditation (Samadhi), and Wisdom (Panna), and does not talk much about the separate parts of the eightfold path, except indirectly.

He first advises to follow the preceipts, rules of the Vinaya, and become strict in restraint and looking at one's intention with regards to the rules of conduct (right speech, right action, right livlihood). 

Once conduct is taken up, he focuses on building some stability and calmness of "mind", which he terms "samadhi" and uses the mind directly in this practice. He advises in several sections to first build concentration and focus by using the breath, and particularly on the nose area. He advises to do this at first in seclusion and later in other activities that are less secluded. He advises that seclusion is necessary for novices at least in the beginning until there's some familiarity with samadhi and calmness of mind (via samatha meditation on the breath). This calmness is always then employed for use via insight meditation (vipassana), and particularly with investigation into the three marks of existence- impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self or non-ownership. Samadhi is not undertaken for calm and jhanas in themselves. He has his own idea of what the jhanas are, and generally says there are no signposts in regards to knowing which of the four jhanas one is in at the time. Practice is more important than analysis in this regard.

Later he replaces this breath awareness, focused meditation with a simple observing or watching the mind. He advises to watch the mind directly, as if it were a fixed point or 'seat' and then watch for guests that enter the house of the mind. He advises to wave them away and become familiar with the fixed point of natural, clear awareness. This is done until some stability, clarity and calmness ensue. I've also found this practice to be similar to some practices taught in other Buddhist schools, such as Mahamudra, Zen etc.

After calmness, clarity and focus ensues from the above simple practice of watching the mind, then attention is used to investigate phenomena as they arise or are experienced and these are 'dropped into buckets' being impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self.

This approach is rather unique to the Thai Forest monk tradition or lineage, and not really detailed in such a way in the suttas. However, it is likely closer to the way the Buddha originally taught than other contemporary approaches which make over-use of absorption meditation, jhanas, serial points of consciousness, or 'mindfulness' practices which are really objects of concentration done in a serial manner (e.g. Mahasi noting, Goenka vipassana etc.)

Overall, there's a lot of helpful and useful material in "Food for the Heart" and a rather unique approach to try out within the framework of early Buddhism, that doesn't require extensive scholarly study.

DP.