42. Restraining Within
By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī
March 24, 1986
Living together in a large group, everyone must help restrain and be mindful for there to be peace. Wherever you go, if you let your mind send itself outward, even living alone you will go mad and find no peace. Therefore, we have come here to live, all of us wishing to attain peace. We must help each other to cultivate peace within our own minds. Sending the mind outward without being aware of it — seeing it as fun, seeing it as wisdom — we then send it out after all sorts of stories.
If you do not send it outward, there is a boundary. When we restrain and turn inward, we don't need to know about external things. The boundary lies right there within. For instance, when we think or ponder — we do not think or ponder in a way that sends things outward, but we think and ponder internally. We contemplate internally, seeing things as suffering, as impermanent, as aniccaṃ, dukkhaṃ, anattā in all things. This is internal; it is not sent outward. Yet even so, it still cannot truly be called "sending internally." The mind must become truly genuine, only then can it be called "not sending outward." If you see thoughts and contemplations shifting about, regarding them as conditioned phenomena, as suffering, as impermanent, as not-self, but this is done under the guise of being internal — it is still sending outward. It is truly sending outward.
When you truly do not send outward, the mind becomes firmly established on one thing. Whatever you contemplate — whether it be suffering, or aniccaṃ, dukkhaṃ, anattā, or the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena — you are firmly established on that one thing alone. That is truly internal. If you send outward, you see aniccaṃ, dukkhaṃ, anattā, but you compare and contrast them with external things. You send outward to other people, to other things — that is still external.
Therefore, now that we have come to live together in this community, let us all earnestly contemplate and not send the mind outward. Only then will there be seclusion and peace. If you send outward, there is no peace at all. Wherever you go, if you send outward, there is never any peace. You may wander frantically all over towns and villages — go ahead and wander, but nowhere will you find peace or happiness. Because the mind is not peaceful, because the mind does not contemplate internally, you do not attain peace. Seclusion lies right at our own mind. When the mind does not send outward, even when living alone — or living with others as if alone — going to the forest, you are alone, and then seclusion becomes even greater.
Therefore, every one of you, arouse your effort. Let us all not send outward and waste our time. We have come to practice — one day, one night passes away, passes away. Do not let time be wasted. Our age and rains-retreats keep increasing. As time goes on, we just keep sending outward endlessly, and so we never find peace. This becomes people's habitual nature. That is why those who practice for a long time without finding peace just keep sending outward, becoming talkers, chatterers, becoming wildly distracted. This does not befit a monk, a contemplative; it does not befit a monk practicing kammaṭṭhāna. Make yourself a kammaṭṭhāna monk. Make yourself a peaceful monk.