Fit to Be Tamed
November 14, 2023

We chant day after day: “The Buddha is the unexcelled teacher of those fit to be tamed,” which means, basically, that he couldn’t teach everybody, only those who are ready to accept his teachings.

And what does it mean to be “fit to be tamed”? It means you’re willing to realize that your happiness has to depend on your actions and that what you’re doing right now is not leading to the best happiness possible. So there’s something wrong—something you have to change in your behavior.

We read cases in the Canon of people who were not interested in changing their behavior, and the Buddha had very little to say to them. It’s the people who were willing to look at their own behavior and say, “Okay, I’m doing something wrong here. What is it?” Those were the ones he would teach.

The Buddha focuses you on the issue of pain and sufferings because that’s when we begin to realize, “Okay something is wrong.” The question is “What?” Our world views are very well guarded. Unless we really have to, we very rarely will admit that there’s something wrong with the way we look at the world. But when we see that it’s causing suffering, we say, “Well, maybe I can change the way I look at the world, and changing the way I look at the world will change my behavior”—in terms of what you think about, what you talk to yourself about, what you talk to others about, and what you do. When you’re willing to change your behavior, that’s when you’re “fit to be tamed.” Otherwise, you’re like a wild horse that can’t be tamed.

In the old days, they used to shoot them—if you were a horse trainer, and you got a horse that couldn’t be tamed. You wouldn’t let that horse out into the world, because it would spoil your reputation. In the same way, the Buddha said he wouldn’t teach people who would refuse to respond to either harsh treatment or to gentle treatment—or a mixture of the two.

But this is a question that we have to ask ourselves: “Am I fit to be tamed?” What am I doing? What are my attitudes that may be hard to tame, hard to train? Those are the things that are getting in the way. Those are the things that are preventing you from actually hearing what the Buddha has to say.

So it’s important that we work on our attitude. This is why Ajaan Suwat, every time we would begin meditating in the evening, would say to develop an attitude of faith—develop an attitude of conviction, an inspiration of what you’re doing—that this really is a good path. There may be some difficult lessons you have to learn on the path, but they’re all for a good purpose. When you bring the right attitude to the practice, then it opens the way.