Review your day against your training, as a fence rather than a verdict
At the end of the day, look at your conduct in the light of your training, notice where you slipped, and set it right without a verdict on yourself.
Pourquoi ça marche
Ajahn Chah calls the Vinaya “a fence to guard us from making mistakes,” and says that studying it is not enough, because its value has to be seen through practice. A short review at the end of the day brings the training into contact with what actually happened, which is where the fence is checked and repaired. The review is useful because it makes visible the link between a moment of carelessness and the next moment, not because it produces a score.
Comment faire
- Choose a fixed time, such as before sleep, and sit for a minute with the day in mind.
- Go through the day briefly, looking at speech, action and attention, and note one moment where you were not careful.
- Ask what led to it: what you wanted, what you avoided, what you were tired of.
- Decide, in one sentence, how you will handle that situation next time, and say it to yourself as a training rule rather than a promise.
- Let the review go and go to sleep. Do not reopen the day at night.
Données probantes
The image of the Vinaya as a fence, and the insistence that it must be understood through practice, come from Ajahn Chah’s talk Understanding Vinaya. The daily review itself is a practice the talk implies rather than prescribes in detail. There is no research on this method. (anecdotal)
A nightly review can become rumination for some people, especially if they are already hard on themselves. If the review turns into self-criticism or keeps you awake, stop it and talk to a teacher or a clinician who understands meditation.
Sources
- Ajahn Chah. Understanding Vinaya (Dhamma talk). In The Teachings of Ajahn Chah. Wat Nong Pah Pong.
- Access to Insight. Thai Forest Traditions: Selected Teachers (last revised 30 November 2013).
Erreur fréquente
Making the review a trial in which you are found guilty. Ajahn Chah’s image is of a fence, which you repair, not a court. The review should end with a training rule for the next moment, not a verdict on the self.
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Plus de pratiques pour The Thai Forest Tradition: A Lineage of Forest Monks and How It Is Practised
- Reflect on robes, food, lodging and medicine before using them
Before you use something you need, pause and remember what it is for — keeping off cold and heat, sustaining the body, and nothing more.
- Walk back and forth on a cleared path, as the forest monks do
Walk slowly on a short path in both directions, determined to walk, and let the walking be the whole of your attention for a while.
- Practise one lay simplicity habit inspired by the dhutaṅga, for a set period, with guidance
Only with guidance from a monastery or teacher, choose one simple habit of the kind the dhutaṅga practices suggest — simpler food or clothing, fewer possessions — and keep it for a short, defined period.
- Stay a few days as a guest and follow the monastery’s day
Arrive as a guest, keep the monastery’s hours and quiet, help with the daily work, and sit and walk with the community.
- Listen to or read a Dhamma talk without trying to keep it
Open the heart to a talk and let what is ready to remain stay, without straining to memorise it or to plan what you will say about it.
Concepts associés
- Theravāda Buddhism: The Way of the Elders and How It Is Practised
The oldest surviving Buddhist school, decomposed into the practices its followers actually keep
- Ānāpānasati: The Sixteen Steps of Mindfulness of Breathing
Breath meditation as the discourse lays it out: a path from calming the body to letting go
- La méditation en marchant, en pratique
Chaque pas un souffle, chaque souffle un pas — intégrer la pleine conscience dans le mouvement
- The Jhānas: The Four Stages of Meditative Absorption
The absorptions the Buddha called right concentration, practised as the texts and their modern teachers describe them