Practising in the Monastery

~ By Ajahn Jayasāro ~

When lay meditators go to stay in a monastery for an extended period of retreat they often feel that their practice gets worse than better. They can, for example, find themselves being very critical of those around them. They can become obsessed over matters which at home, they say, they would find quite easy to let go of. In the monastery, all of their faults seem magnified. Some people lose faith in the training; others lose faith in themselves.

If one gets caught in this kind of doubt, the first refuge is patience. Buddhist training is not – in the familiar analogy – a hundred metre sprint. It is not even a marathon. It is more like a great many ultra-marathons one after another. But that is only a problem if you think you’ve got something better to do with your life. The advice I give is to see doubt as doubt, and carry on.

Today I told one student, ‘Without expectation or comparison, just deal as best you can with whatever arises, moment by moment.’ The monastery is a place designed to drastically reduce distraction. When you have nowhere to hide from yourself, defilements appear like stains on white cloth. That is a good thing. It is only when you clearly see defilements that you can find the way to free yourself from them.

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"Food for the Heart", a series of Dhamma teachings handwritten weekly is posted on the Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives page with Ajahn's kind permission.

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For other teachings by Ven. Ajahn Jayasāro, please visit the Panyaprateep Foundation website.