Advice for New Buddhist Monks - Page 2

Continued from Page 1 Advice for Buddhist Monks from Ajahn Taungrut

Also for a Buddhist monk I would say, don't forget simple things. I think most new Buddhist monks know about contemplating food when one is eating, they know one should try to be mindful here and there when one is walking and doing things. These things are very important. And although contemplating food may seem to give no results, steadily, steadily over time, they do give results. One gets results from it.

Another thing for new monks, one of the things very hard to control is ragatanha, sex. Now, probably the most effective way of controlling this is contemplation of the body. If one finds that ragatanha is arising, getting strong, contemplate the body, I mean traditionally, the thirty-two parts. See the asubha side of it. See the thing as a mess. See it as though it is all broken up. Think of corpses, that sort of thing. Although you won't see in yourself any special result, you'll find that the raga-tanha has dropped. There's a very good test for this. You watch your dreams. When one has a lot of raga-tanha, the tendency is for dreams of women and all the rest of it. When you do this contemplation, the women don't come near you in dreams. You may see them, but they don't come near you. Quite interesting, the effect it has. It's almost as though it's pushing them away in some way. I don't quite know how. I think this can work physically with women as well, if women are coming too close and becoming rather a nuisance, just contemplate the body. Think of them as a lot of bones and flesh and mess and blood and shit and so on, and all the rest of it. And you'll find that they're repulsed. This is a protection that Buddhist monks should have. Because women are very unstable and unpredictable, many of them, some of them, not all of them, only some of them. One needs some protection. That's an important one.

Q: Yes, I've had problems with that, problem with girlfriends and things, just kind of keep coming back up into my head. Is there any way of dealing with this?

Monk Ajahn Panna: Well, if the girlfriend's come into one's head, okay, cut her head off. See the blood coming out. Pull the meat off. Look at the bones. The thing is, you'll find a repulsion from doing that, you'll think "Oh, I mustn't do that with her." Why not? It's not harming her. It's just in the mind. What it's doing is damaging the image one has of her, that's all. It won't harm her at all. So, that's probably the best way to deal with that one. One has to make the determination to do it. If one just lets it come up and one doesn't make a determination, it won't have an effect. The thoughts will just go on.

Q (37:40): How does one know that one's efforts are having an effect in reducing the kilesas?

Monk Ajahn Panna: One finds that one's own estimation of one's own self importance, I don't mean in theory, but one's feeling of it, becomes greater, in the sense, by self importance, I don't mean in the bad sense, I mean one's own worth in oneself, quite regardless of whatever anyone else thinks, one's own worth in oneself, one doesn't feel that one's just like an old foot-rag. Inside, one feels that one has got something that's valuable, and one finds also that there's firmness inside. There's a firmness that is capable of fighting the kilesas, of going against them. All these things, they do show externally, but the external thing is not what matters. That's just a by-product. It's the internal thing that matters.

Q: I have had feelings of self-importance at times, but it is more in the sense of conceit, I think.

Monk Ajahn Panna: Yes, I don't mean self-importance where one is thinking about how important one is, it's just the feeling, one almost wonders, well, why do I feel like this? Is it a genuine thing or not? But at the same time it is there. And even though one questions it, it doesn't go. So you know it is genuine. If one has the usual meaning of self-importance in the world, if one questions that and investigates it, it bursts like a bubble.

Q: You mean that one has the sense that one is going the right way?

Monk Ajahn Panna: Yes, although one may not be able to see what way one is going, or one may not know what specific things one has done to go that way, which specific things have helped, yet at the same time, one knows that one has developed, and one can hardly put one's finger on it. Very hard to say what it is. The development has taken place and one knows it. One knows one has changed. I used to be like that, and one is no longer like that.