Just Watching the Mind

A question-and-answer session. The first question, after a greeting to Paul, is why Ajahn Sumedho stresses watching the mind when other teachers emphasise concentration. Ajahn Sumedho describes finding concentration practice left his anxious thinking intact, and turning instead to the four noble truths from a small book he carried as a novice, before he met Ajahn Chah. He explains Buddho (the Thai form of Buddha) as the knower, and how Ajahn Chah’s use of it let him watch suffering without identifying with it.

He then compares moods to weather, says past and future only appear as present memory and imagination, and discusses the pandemic and climate worries of 2020. He cites the Greek philosopher Pyrrho, reads the “gate to the deathless” as awareness here and now, and ends on right effort as relaxed trust in awareness.