Hi drs8
I myself am familiar with the Thai Forest tradition and read Ajahn Mun’s biography, albeit several years ago. I share your feelings inasmuch that I feel that many of the Thai forest ajahns are fully enlightened (or at least highly attained Ariyas) and many of their teachings resonated with me in the past, but I don’t completely agree with (or understand) some their explanations of Dhamma. One of the issues for me was that many of the Dhutanga monks seemed larger than life as there are many anecdotes about their fantastic exploits through the harsh jungles, abhinna powers and ascetic lifestyles that an ordinary person will probably never experience personally, let alone live up to. I felt that things like jhanas, forest austerities, abhinna powers, etc. were over-emphasized while there were not enough clear explanations about Dhamma. It wasn’t until I came across the monks Ajahn Buddhadasa, Acariya Thoon Khippapanyo and finally PureDhamma that I felt that I had some real clarity. It was Acariya Thoon in particular that really struck a chord with me. In his books he would repeatedly emphasize the need for WISDOM and correct understanding as opposed to attaining deep states of meditative absorption and repeatedly asks where in the Tipitaka it says that “[such and such an individual attained such and such jhana and then became a stream enterer, or an anagami]” or what have you. It doesn’t. He would go on to say that in almost all of the suttas it describes individuals attaining Path Knowledge upon listening to a discourse or being given some kind of lesson, and not all Ariyas were great meditation masters. I think the confusion set in because Ajahn Mun and many of his disciples were very accomplished meditators and practiced the forest austerities to a high degree, so that made it seem like those things were essential to making progress when, in reality, they don’t necessarily have anything to do with UNDERSTANDING Dhamma.
That being said, I don’t think you should throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. If there are teachings from the Thai ajahns that still make sense to you then you shouldn’t throw them out completely just because you don’t agree with every single thing they say. On the other hand, if you feel that you’ve really outgrown them then I think it’s okay to move on.
Something to bear in mind when reading Dhamma books of Thai ajahns; most of these books aren’t actually written by the monks themselves, but are English translations of sermons that the monks originally spoke in Thai. It’s important to take what’s said with a grain of salt and take into consideration things like cultural context, the audience being spoken to, speaking meaning versus a literal English translation and so on. In the case of Luang Por Chah describing Anicca as “not sure” his meaning probably wasn’t that if someone hits you then pain isn’t a sure thing, but more likely that he meant “not sure” as something like “not reliable”, “not dependable”, or “not sustainable”, which is much closer to the real meaning of Anicca. He most likely wanted people to understand that it’s not a sure thing that things will stay the same forever. That’s the part that’s “not sure”.
For anyone who is interested, the explanation that drs8 provided of the Four Noble Truths is a quote from the book “Gifts He Left Behind”, a collection of short quotes, discussions and anecdotes of the monk Luang Pu Dune. This is what I think he meant by each statement:
- “The mind sent outside is the origination of suffering”
He is probably describing Tanha, i.e. the mind going “outside” and chasing after things, desiring or craving for them.
- “The result of the mind sent outside is the origination of suffering.”
Basically the same as the first statement. People suffer as they are agitated by their cravings for things in the world, run into obstacles in an attempt to acquire these things, create bad kamma if they do immoral things to get what they desire or are disappointed if they get what they want but it doesn’t meet their expectations or last as long as they’d like it to.
- “The mind seeing the mind is the path.”
He is probably referring to the mind dismantling cravings by contemplating and observing how such cravings arise due to cause and effect,(i.e. how a certain craving is the CAUSE for future suffering) thus unraveling the kilesas and slowly freeing oneself from dukkha.
- “The result of the mind seeing the mind is cessation of suffering.”
Same as the previous statement. As an individual’s understanding of the cause and effect relationship between craving and suffering grows, the idea of craving things will become more nonsensical or absurd. The mind will lose interest in it and as a result one will be free of the suffering that naturally follows such cravings.