Waves on the Shore

One must practice and develop mindfulness as much as one can in order to gain a greater and more penetrating awareness. Whether the heart is soiled or blemished in some way, it doesn’t matter, one should contemplate the impermanence and uncertainty of whatever comes up. By maintaining this contemplation at each instant that something arises, after some time one will see the impermanent nature inherent in all sense objects and mental states. Because one sees them as such, gradually they will lose their importance and one’s clinging and attachment to that which is a blemish on the heart will continue to diminish. Whenever suffering arises one will be able to work through it and readjust oneself, but one shouldn’t give up on this work or set it aside. One must keep up a continuity of effort and try to make one’s awareness fast enough to keep in touch with the changing mental conditions. It could be said that so far one’s development of the Path still lacks sufficient energy to overcome the mental defilements. Whenever suffering arises the heart becomes clouded over, but one must keep developing that knowledge and understanding of the clouded heart; that is what one reflects on.

One must really take hold of it and repeatedly contemplate that this suffering and discontentment is just not a sure thing. It is something that is ultimately impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self. Focusing on these three characteristics, whenever these conditions of suffering arise again one will know them straight away, having experienced them before. Gradually, little by little, one’s practice should gain momentum and as time passes, whatever sense objects and mental states arise will lose their value in this way. One’s heart will know them for what they are and accordingly put them down. The path has matured internally when, having reached the point where one is able to know things and put them down with ease, one will have the ability to swiftly bear down upon the defilements. From then on there will just be the arising and passing away in this place, the same as waves striking the seashore. When a wave comes in and finally reaches the shoreline, it just disintegrates and vanishes; a new wave comes and it happens again – the wave going no further than the limit of the shoreline. In the same way, nothing will be able to go beyond the limits established by one’s own awareness.

That’s the place where one will meet and come to understand impermanence, un-satisfactoriness and not-self. It is there that things will vanish – the three characteristics of impermanence, un-satisfactoriness and not-self are the same as the seashore, and all sense objects and mental states that are experiences go in the same way as the waves. Happiness is uncertain, it’s arisen many times before. Suffering is uncertain, it’s arisen many times before; that’s the way they are. In one’s heart one will know that they are like that, they are ‘just that much’. The heart will experience these conditions in this way and they will gradually keep losing their value and importance. This is talking about the characteristics of the heart, the way it is; it is the same for everybody, even the Buddha and all his disciples were like this.

(The Teachings of Ajahn Chah)