46. Reciting Chanting Verses
By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī
December 29, 1986
Once the Rains Retreat is over and the Dhamma examinations are done, there is time for reciting chants and blessings — so hurry up and recite. You must train and admonish the young novices, and those novices who come to stay with you must be instructed and corrected together. During the Rains Retreat, you have to study for the Dhamma exams, so there is no time for reciting chants. After the Rains Retreat ends, there are several months of free time. Let everyone apply themselves to reciting chants and blessings. If you still cannot recite, recognize your own deficiencies, whether you are an old monk or a new one. Not being able to chant is embarrassing — you lose face among your peers and even feel ashamed of yourself. We have ordained to study and learn. If we don’t have any recitation of chants and just stay idle, we are lacking in our daily duties and observances.
After you have learned to chant, you still need to practice further — practice both the Pali verses, the prose passages, and the samyoga (mixed) style. You need to master all three. Because we have ordained, we will have to associate with various groups and communities. When we live in the forest and have no social contact, it seems fine. But when we do enter society, that is when we see our own deficiencies. At that moment, at that time, it is too late to fix anything.
I have always said this: in the past, I practiced chanting until I could do it well. I could chant the Pali verses, I could chant the prose, I could chant the samyoga. To chant samyoga, you need to know the rhythm, the phrasing, the letters. Recite and memorize until it is firmly fixed in your heart. Only then will our chanting be correct, with proper phrasing and sections, whether it is Pali chanting or samyoga chanting. Now, some people chant Pali as if it were prose, and chant samyoga as if it were prose — not knowing what is what, mixing everything up randomly. Pali should be Pali, samyoga should be samyoga, and prose should be prose.
The religion nowadays is not like it was in my time. In the past, we lived in the forests and jungles and did no chanting at all. But even so, we still made an effort to recite and memorize, and we managed to chant reasonably well. Nowadays, there is extensive social interaction — you reach large towns and cities, and even reach the royal palace. As leaders and administrators among your peers, you must take care of everything properly. Thinking that you are fine all the time — that’s not right. It is by seeing your own shortcomings that you become diligent and persistent, that you strive to do good and to study what you lack.
Chanting must be part of your daily routines. Every year, after reciting the Patimokkha, we conclude with chanting. Nowadays many of you can recite the Patimokkha. Anyone who still cannot recite the Patimokkha should try to learn it. It can be done, as has been shown. If you don’t try to recite the Patimokkha and the concluding chants, then nothing will happen. The Patimokkha is something personally necessary. If you can chant every verse and every section fluently — whether from the royal or official chanting book, both Pali and prose — then you will always be confident and bold.
Just like with the Patimokkha: when someone else recites it, you are interested and want to go up and recite because you know you can. The same applies to chanting. Once you can chant, you become diligent and persistent, and you keep chanting regularly. But if it’s not like that — you see others chanting and you wonder, “Will I be able to do it or not? Will it stumble or get stuck?” — you remain doubtful and hesitant. Your mind is not bold and resolute. Your effort in meditation goes the same way. Reciting chants and blessings becomes a kind of parikamma (preparatory repetition). Some people claim that if you recite chants, you cannot meditate. That is just what people who don’t know how to meditate say. If you really know how to meditate, everything becomes meditation. You focus your mind on the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, firmly established in virtue, in the Dhamma, in the Buddha’s teachings. By reciting chants and blessings, you are following the Buddha’s teachings within your own mind. Use those very chanting words as your parikamma — it works perfectly. The people who make such claims don’t get anywhere. They can’t meditate and they can’t chant — they can’t do anything.
But those who can meditate are not like that. They can chant, they can study for the Dhamma exams, and meditation comes naturally. Once you can meditate, everything becomes meditation. You are always initiating things. It’s the same in government work, the same in lay life where people earn their living — there is always initiative. “That still needs to be done, this still needs to be done, that duty must be done, that obligation must be done.” With constant initiation, you can lose track of day and night. In one’s livelihood, days pass by, and you forget.
In meditation it is the same. There is always initiative in our practice and training. How far have we progressed in practice now? Is there still something to train? What is it? After training, have we gathered it together? And then there is further training to come — what else will we need? It continues on, connected and unbroken. You must always think like this. For example, you have trained in a parikamma — are you skilled in it? You have trained in meditation — are you skilled yet? If not, then be diligent and persistent. Regarding the technique you are contemplating — are you adept at it? Are you fluent? If not yet fluent, if there is still deficiency, you still need to do it. You must hurry to make yourself adept.
Then, going forward, what haven’t you done yet? What have you not yet contemplated? What are you not yet fluent in? What are you not yet skilled in? You must try to make that thing skillful. When initiative arises in your mind, you will be diligent and persistent. You don’t just stay still, complacent, doing nothing — with no initiative at all. Then you just remain stuck; you won’t go anywhere. You must have initiative, and then you will be diligent and persistent. That’s all.