Your Moods Are Lies

Your moods and preoccupations are one thing; the mind is something else. They’re two different kinds of things. Usually when a mood hits, one that we like, we go running after it. If it’s one we don’t like, we turn our backs on it. When this is the case, we don’t see our own mind. We just keep running after our moods. The mood is the mood; the mind is the mind. You have to separate them out to see what the mind is like, what the mood is like.

As when we’re sitting here still: We feel at ease. But if someone comes along and insults us, we go running after the mood. We’ve left our spot. The mind that gets deluded by the mood goes running after the mood. We become a moody person, a person who panders to his moods.

You have to understand that all your moods are lies. There’s nothing true to them at all. They’re far from the Buddha’s teachings. All they can do is lie to us about everything of every sort. The Buddha taught us to meditate to see their truth — the truth of the world.

This reflection by Ajahn Chah is from the book, Still Flowing Water, (pdf) pp.77-78, translated into English by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.