Remembering Ajaan Lee

Today is the anniversary of Ajaan Lee’s passing. That was 63 years ago. Someone born on that day would be approaching retirement age. So it’s been a long time. But his teachings are still alive.

One of the reasons they’re still alive is because they’re so clear and very helpful. His instructions for dealing with the breath, his instructions on understanding how to practice mindfulness, how to practice and develop the *jhānas, *are as up-to-date now as they were when he first wrote them down. So we owe a lot to him that we have the practice laid out so clearly.

He also helped to see the relationship among these things. Sometimes you hear that mindfulness is one thing, concentration is something else, and then the activity of discernment and insight is something else again. But as he pointed out, when you really do mindfulness, you’re bringing the mind into concentration. Your mindfulness is not just being aware of things. He stuck with the original meaning of the term, which is to keep something in mind.

For instance, you keep the breath in mind. Then you’re alert to what the breath is doing and to what the mind is doing. As he pointed out, this is an important part of alertness, seeing that the breath and mind stay together. So you have to be aware of both to see what’s going on. Then you can realize what you have to do. That’s where the ardency comes in.

It’s the third quality of mindfulness practice: trying to do this well. If the mind is wandering off, you just bring it right back. While it’s here, you try to be as sensitive as possible to how the breathing feels. That means breathing in and out, aware of the whole body. It’s in this way that you get the mind into concentration. And you’re developing discernment at the same time.

As he said, the quality of ardency develops into discernment. When you’re working in terms of concentration, you’ve got directed thought and evaluation. The evaluation there is also the beginning of discernment, as you evaluate how things are going and deciding whether they need to be improved.

So in his picture of the practice, everything works together. Your mindfulness strengthens your concentration. Both mindfulness and concentration strengthen your discernment. And your discernment makes your concentration stronger, makes your mindfulness more consistent. So these qualities work together.

We owe a lot to him, in terms of how he’s clarified the practice. He gave instructions that are really, really helpful. So, of course, the best way to show our gratitude is to continue practicing. Because that’s why he did this for us, so that people of all kinds could benefit.

Ajaan Fuang once made the comment that Ajaan Lee had a very broad heart—compassion for all kinds of people. When they did the commemoration of 25 centuries of Buddhism, they had an ordination program. Some of the people who ordained during that celebration stayed on for the Rains Retreat. And as Ajaan Fuang said, they were the kind of people who would be left over after everybody else would take their pick. He had a real difficult time training them.

So he complained to Ajaan Lee one time about how difficult these people were. And Ajaan Lee said, “Well, if we can get their hands just a little bit moist, and then when they touch the sand and maybe pick up a few grains of sand, we will have accomplished something.”

So even if he could do just a little bit of good for somebody, he was willing to do it. Of course, if he could do more good, he was willing to do that as well.

There’s a great passage where one of his disciples complains to him, “Why don’t you just teach people to go to nibbāna? Why are you fooling around with all these other people?” Ajaan Lee replied, “I’d like to teach everybody to go to nibbāna, but if I tried that I’d be going crazy, because there’s some people just not ready.”

He went on to say that it’s like when you grow rice. You have the good rice grains, you give those to human beings. But you also have the bran, and you also have the straw. The straw you can give to pigs; the bran you can give to chickens. Whatever you have to share with anybody on whatever level they are—he was willing to do that.

So you can make yourself a chicken, you can make yourself a pig, or you can make yourself a human being in his eyes. The best way, of course, to show your gratitude for him, is to be a human being.

Practice seriously. Practice earnestly. That’s how we show our gratitude to people who have gone before us and passed this tradition on.