I find Ajahn Tongrat’s monastery, Ajahn Jaayasaro tells us more about the life of Ajahn Chah, and th Dhammapada with commentary by Ajahn Munindo.
To many places beings withdraw
to escape from fear:
to mountains, forests, parklands
and gardens; sacred places as well.
But none of these places offer true refuge,
none of them can free us from fear.
v. 188–189
It is hard to feel afraid without thinking something is going wrong. We readily react by judging ourselves and others, in an attempt to escape the pain of fear. It doesn’t work – neither does running off into the wilds. Even sacred places are deemed to fail us if we are motivated by a wish to escape. Turning to our refuge in Dhamma however can trigger an interest in understanding fear and learning from fear. Can we experience the fear sensation without ‘becoming’ afraid? Fear is still fear but it is perceived from an expanded, less
cramped and less threatened awareness. We can even begin to see that fear too is ‘just so’. A nonjudgemental, whole body-mind acknowledgement of the condition of fear, here and now, can transform our pain into freedom. Willingness tomeet ourselves where we find ourselves is the way.
In episode 18 of the Ayahn Ghah biography we learned a bit about Ajahn Tongrat. I decided to try to find his monastery and will be posting the results soon.. But now Ajahn Chah is spending the Rains Retreat with Ajahn Kinnari