The Four Noble Truths and Stopping to Know

A senior monk of the meditation tradition came to pay his respects to Luang Pu on the first day of the Rains Retreat in 1956. After giving him instruction and a number of teachings on profound matters, Luang Pu summarized the four noble truths as follows:

“The mind sent outside is the origination of suffering.

The result of the mind sent outside is suffering.

The mind seeing the mind is the path.

The result of the mind seeing the mind is the cessation of suffering.”

In March, 1964, a large number of scholarly and meditating monks—the first group of “Dhamma Missionaries”— came to pay their respects to Luang Pu and to ask for teachings and advice that they could use in their work of spreading the Dhamma. Luang Pu taught them Dhamma on the ultimate level, both for them to teach others and for them to put into practice themselves so as to reach that level of truth. In conclusion, he gave them a piece of wisdom for them to take and contemplate:

“No matter how much you think, you won’t know. Only when you stop thinking will you know.

But still, you have to depend on thinking so as to know.”

These reflections by Phra Ajaan Dune Atulo are from the book, Gifts He Left Behind, pp. 3, 9.