Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
2 stories for you today!
January has “passed away”, how has the first month been? January was also a month that marked the passing of Ajahn Chah, a famous Thai Forest Monk. We share a story of his teaching and a simple picture on spring cleaning!
1.Our real home: Ajahn Chah’s encouragement for a dying disciple
2. Spring cleaning our social media
Our Real Home: Encouragements for a dying disciple
What’s going on here
Ajahn Chah, a renowned Thai forest monk, gives encouragement to a lay disciple that was passing away. He beautifully encourages the person to be fearless as life ebbs away. It is worth a listen and read especially for those of us who are with someone facing death.
Why we like it
Ajahn Chah uses the nature of things to skillfully cast out fear for his disciple. He makes you ponder deeper about where our true home is. We can spend this year chasing the external material stuff or this year developing ourselves. We are often paralysed when loved ones are diagnosed with a terminal illness or facing their end. Hence, this provides a balm to the questions we might have about dying.
“The river that must flow down the gradient is like your body. Having been young your body has become old and now it’s meandering towards its death. Don’t go wishing it was otherwise, it’s not something you have the power to remedy. “
Wise Steps
Where is our real home? Are we developing it daily or are we putting energy into things that eventually fall apart? By reflecting deeper, may you find the energy to develop your mind for the rest of the year!
@peopleiveloved draws a simple image of housecleaning our lives.
Why we like it
A short simple image to remind us to let go of things that no longer uplift our mind. The acquaintances or influencers whom we follow and feel jealous about.
“Housecleaning. I used to want to know… now I am not so sure.”
Wise Steps
Check your social media feed! Are there people you follow that makes you feel inadequate and demotivated? It might be time to unfollow!
TLDR: Chanting keeps the mind afloat on the choppy waves of suffering. Connecting you to others across time and space, the ritual of chanting creates a refuge from pain. The healing device of chanting is anything but boring!
Yeap, you read it right. Chanting is crazy helpful. Especially when the mind goes crazy. To a non-believer, chanting can be an unfathomable activity – boring, even superstitious. To a practitioner, chanting cleanses the mind.
Let us understand what chanting is and how it heals.
Chanting Tickles Your Right-Brain
Relying on synchronised tunes and steady rhythms, chanting vocalises the Buddhaâs teachings, recollections and praises for the Triple Gem.
Chanting is the âfeelingâ and âhealingâ part of a logical and pragmatic religion-philosophy. Done with full intent and focus, chanting soothes the heart like a balm. Cooling and stilling afflictions. Warming and uplifting the mind.
Short of comparing chanting to singing your favourite soundtrackmindfully in full earnest, the voicing of âlyricsâ falls within a short range of inflecting tones without musical accompaniment. Chanting with the right understanding of familiar verses leads to joy and peace. Sometimes, tears. On auspicious occasions, goosebumps.
The volitional act of voicing out the Buddhaâs teachings, never mind the tune, pledges oneâs faith that the Dhamma leads beings out of suffering. This verbal allegiance is not for show but to remind ourselves of the Truth time and again.
Because we forget. In this way, chanting instils a sense of belonging – to the Triple Gem, to a wholesome way of life, to a practice of training towards the human fullest potential, to kindness. To hope.
Knowing how to chant, one plugs into a common Buddhist ritual that binds all differences – nationality, language, race, class, culture, those suffering and those enlightened. Cutting across space and time, in your home, at any temple, in a forest, on mountain tops or at the Buddist holy sites in India â wherever, whenever, chanting connects you to a community of practitioners since Lord Gotama Buddha’s time.
The key to a spiritually satisfying chanting session is then learning how to chant and what to chant, in which language.
Simple in tones and expressions, without instrumental accompaniment, Theravadin chanting is mainly in the PÄli language, an ancient vernacular during Lord Buddhaâs time. Disciples of the Thai Forest Tradition alternate between PÄli and translations in their first languages, such as Thai, English, German, and Chinese etc.
From experience, searching up the translated meaning of PÄli verses before chanting helps to quell the critical mind.
After offering incense or candlelight or flowers and paying respects to the Triple Gem by bowing, you put your palms together in añjali, kneeling or sitting with your knees folded away from the altar. If you have learnt the words by heart, close your eyes. If not, set out a chanting book with translation nearby. Gather awareness on your breathing. Ready the mind for spiritual connection.
Then, the chanting begins.
Regardless of chanting in private or in public, alone or in a group, a keen sense of ego arouses when projecting the voice initially.
To avoid suffering, you can set aside that notion of âme/mine/myselfâ for clear awareness to arise. As the Dhamma rings in your ears and through your body, the vocal cords sync with a sincere heart.
The mind arrives at each articulated word to soak in its meaning.
Peace ensues. Chanting creates a refuge for the moment amidst chaos.
What chants can I turn to?
There is a chant for any time and occasion to counter greed, hatred and delusion, which reside in our hearts since the beginning of time.
Some recollections are snippets of the Buddhaâs exhortations; others are full discourses considered as protective chants. Some typical chants a lay practitioner has in his/her spiritual toolkit help uplift the mind into wholesome vibes.
For monastics, cardinal sermons are chanted to maintain the oral tradition of preserving the Buddhaâs discourses. Particular recollections pertain to arousing dispassion towards worldly attachments and urgency for practising the Holy life. A set of chants reserved for funerals; another set for blessings.
On every Full Moon and New Moon of the lunar calendar (Uposatha Lunar Observance Days), monks gather together to chant the VinayaPatimokkha, which is the Code of Discipline Lord Gotama Buddha set down for monastics to uphold and honour. Similarly, to upkeep their virtues, the laity would undertake the Five Precepts or Eight Precepts by chanting them on Lunar Observance Days.
Chanting plays important roles in our practice: it teaches us what is skillful and remind us to counter the stubborn poisons within our hearts.
Dr. Buddha, can you prescribe some chanting for my troubled heart?
For practitioners encountering intense emotions such as anger, sorrow, fear, anxiety or grief, listening to chanting is a helpful relief from recurring and distressing thoughts. The act of chanting brings an even greater autonomy over processing negative feelings. An effective spiritual ParacetamolTM that soothes sharp, crippling pains from my personal experience. You will always find an emergency playlist of my favourite chants in my phone on standby for breakdowns.
If you wake up grumpy, listless or sian, what better way to pick yourself up than a cup of warm water and a morning chanting?
For the past year, I made it a point to begin my day with morning chanting, regardless of how much time I have or how long the chanting is. On good days, morning chanting uplifts my mind for a quiet sit. On bad days, chanting seems to be the only wholesome thing I can cling on to for my life. Chanting has since become my anchor in the tumultuous waves of negative emotions.
Without chanting, I am pretty sure I would not have made it through difficult times to be here and write. Crazy helpful, Iâd say.
I have listed a couple of resources to support your journey with chanting in the Theravadin Thai Forest Tradition below. Hope you will find a chant that resonates.