The Study Of Dhamma Is To Support The Practice by Ajahn Kalyano 23 May 2026

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:13]This is the month of Wisaka, the moon, the moon day that we celebrate the birth, enlightenment and par nibbana of the Buddha.

[00:00:34]So next week will be the actual full moon.

[00:00:40]Generally it's a time people recollect the Buddha the qualities of the Buddha say as monks Buddhist monks it's a time of usually brings up thoughts of gratitude if we didn't have the Buddha we wouldn't have our lifestyle a way of practice is if we wouldn't if we didn't have the Buddha, we wouldn't know the way to nibbana, the way out of suffering.

[00:01:24]So generally it's a time of happiness reflecting on our good fortune.

[00:01:34]Sometimes we ask, well, what did the Buddha teach then? Why why is the Buddha so important? That's a reflection you can bring up over and over again.

[00:01:46]We say the nowadays we we say the Buddha taught Buddhism but that word didn't exist in the time of the Buddha.

[00:01:56]The Buddha taught the Dharma and the Vinaya.

[00:02:08]Nowadays we tend to talk about the practice of dharma taught us the way. He taught us the way of practice that is the dhamma and the vinaya in traditional Buddhist countries like Thailand, Burma and so on. Often the role of a monk is divided into the study and the practice of dharma.

[00:02:46]We used to write that on our visa forms for Thailand. They say why are you here?

[00:02:53]For the study and practice of dharma.

[00:02:56]It's a sort of general well-known phrase.

[00:03:01]Study is gantatura.

[00:03:08]Practice is often uh noted down as vipasana ta. Ta means like business or activity.

[00:03:20]Kanta means study, learning. Vipasana as we know refers more to meditation, training the mind in clear seeing.

[00:03:31]So these are the two things that the the Buddha passed down to us as Buddhist monks. We study and we practice.

[00:03:44]But sometimes we get it confused or we get the balance wrong.

[00:03:50]Just like lay people as well sometimes get their lifestyle balance wrong. As monks we get our lifestyle balance wrong. So sometimes we study a lot, practice a little, practice a lot, study a little.

[00:04:09]When it's out of balance, sometimes you get problems. So sometimes when we study a lot, we know a lot from the books, from the trapita, from discussion, from listening, talking, which is good.

[00:04:27]But then if we don't put it into practice then it's kind of superficial knowledge.

[00:04:41]If we like to meditate and practice a lot sometimes but it's not founded in good understanding if we don't study enough.

[00:04:56]When I was a young monk in Thailand, often there'd be this these sort of splits between the study monks and the practice monks. And the study monks would say the practice monks have lots of views and opinions because they don't study. So they're just full of their own views and opinions. It's not in line with the Buddha maybe. And obviously there'll be some cases that was true.

[00:05:22]They could be quoted and then sometimes Everyone would get tred with the same brush full of views and opinions, wrong views, wrong practices, don't know the real number.

[00:05:37]Then going the other way, sometimes the meditation monks, the study monks, they they learn all this, but they never practice it. often they become administrators and monks in positions of authority but they're not necessarily it was said not necessarily would they know how to concentrate their mind or abandon defilements like the meditation monks of course these are just names study practice and there are some very good study monks who also know how to meditate and there's some many forest monks, meditation monks who have studied a lot.

[00:06:27]So it's very difficult to generalize.

[00:06:32]When you study a lot as a monk, you tend to do exams in Thailand and in the other Buddhist countries. And often when you do exams and you get a title, they call you maha. When you've reached third grade of the pi studies, you're a maha.

[00:06:53]And many monks who attain that started to realize that they're spending a lot of time learning, memorizing, gaining knowledge. But they hadn't really meditated very much or really applied that knowledge in their daily life.

[00:07:11]So sometimes they would come and stay with Ajenta even completely give up their position in a monastery where they may have been a teacher and abbert with based on their study and they may have a title like maha prau then they go and stay with Ajentcha to learn meditation and Ajentcha was very kind, compassionate. So, he'd let them stay with him and learn. And some of them had to really adjust because they'd been in maybe a city temple, a temple in a urban area with a lot more convenience than you could find at Agent Char's monastery.

[00:08:01]And they may have been a teacher. So they had many disciples and students and were popular and well supported perhaps and they come to live with Ajincha and they're assigned a moldy old cootie in the corner of a damp forest and they just have to learn how to be mindful and meditate and put up with the mosquitoes and the difficult conditions and the one meal a day.

[00:08:30]So people recognize that they said, "Oh, this is this is really impressive that they can let go of their position and their support and come and live in the forest as a true forest monk." So people would praise them because they have to let go and be very humble.

[00:08:51]Often those monks become very good teachers once they've learned to meditate, pacify their mind, recognize defilements and abandon defilements.

[00:09:03]They have their basis of textbook knowledge as well and they have ability with meditation. So they become very good teachers.

[00:09:16]when they often had to work hard to overcome.

[00:09:21]Often the conceit that forms around knowledge. When you have a lot of knowledge, you think you know and maybe you do know the textbooks.

[00:09:32]Remember the sutas, quote them, explain them very well.

[00:09:37]The vinaya maybe know all the rules and all the commentarial information on the rules.

[00:09:46]Some even know the abidama very well.

[00:09:50]But then if they couldn't meditate yet and they often had a kind of lingering conceit and attachment to the knowledge which came up especially in their early years of practice with Ajentcha.

[00:10:06]They had to learn how to rein in that part of their character so they weren't arrogant in the face of other monks who maybe could meditate and were very mindful but didn't know as much as them.

[00:10:29]And Jen Cha used to say it's the difference between bottled water and spring water.

[00:10:39]Book knowledge, text book knowledge, the ideas, the information, the knowledge you can remember, think about, debate on, it's like bottle water. Eventually, it runs out. It's superficial. It doesn't really get down to rooting out defilement. Unless you practice. And when you practice and develop mindfulness and meditate, then it's more like spring water. You have a a spring bubbling up.

[00:11:09]Some places you go in the forest, it's just natural spring water coming up like a pond up on the hill. Even in the middle of a drought, the middle of the summer, if it stops raining for many years, it's always got water in it.

[00:11:26]Bodhi pal is the same. There's a spring at the top of the hill. The droughts are more severe there, but the spring always has water in it bubbling up. That's like someone who's cultivated mindfulness.

[00:11:41]They understand the vinaya and practice it and then they cultivate mindfulness and develop vipasana insight into the three characteristics.

[00:11:53]They're constantly returning to mindfulness and insight into impermanence, suffering, not self.

[00:12:04]Like a spring just constantly bubbling up in the mind.

[00:12:12]It's not to say that the bottled water doesn't have a use. The textbooks and the study we do does have a use but it has to be developed with the practice as well and it's for the practice to support the practice even in the time of the Buddha monks would argue over the different aspects of dharma different aspects of vinaya their different interpretations different emphasis this what is right what is wrong until we manage our attachment to views and opinions our expression of conceit then there's always this chance we can argue over the dhamma you think about it we have the Buddha the dhamma the sana we have the best refuge in the world the truest refuge we can still argue about it when conceit takes over in the time of the Buddha It was the most famous case was a kosambi where the monks were arguing over a simple vinaya rule about the proper practice in a toilet. In the old days before pipe water, you have water in a pot and you have a dipper to use that water to clean yourself, clean the toilet before you leave. And you're supposed to leave the dipper upside down. So it's got no dirty water sticking in it.

[00:13:50]It's a point of mindfulness. If you're not mindful, in a rush or something, you're careless. So you might leave the dipper face up.

[00:13:59]You're supposed to leave it face down.

[00:14:03]So there's the dama master and the vinaya master. And one of them goes into the toilet and comes out. And then the other goes in and finds the deeper in the wrong position.

[00:14:15]So then uh a controversy began and then they the monks in the monastery divided into the two factions and wouldn't stop arguing, complaining, criticizing.

[00:14:30]Maybe they had a lot of other issues that all come out. When when you start arguing with someone, you tend to bring up you drag up the past and other stuff.

[00:14:42]So the Buddha talked about harmony didn't work. So sent Sar Puta Mogulana Maha Mogulana to talk didn't work. So in the end the Buddha got tired of it the arguing off he went. So he spent his 10th reigns in the Pallaya forest in retreat.

[00:15:08]Went off on his own. First he went to visit I think Venerable and Aruda on the way. The three monks living together in harmony and he praised them for living in harmony. They help each other with the chores. They don't complain and criticize. They don't argue over small points of dhamma or vinaya. They just support each other and have a peaceful environment, harmonious environment so everyone can get on with their meditation. So he prays that Then he went off to the pallaya forest and didn't take any monks with him. And normally the Buddha would have an attendant monk who would do everything because it's the Buddha they want to show their gratitude and respect and wash his bowls, clean his couti, wash his robes, bring him some water for bathing. All the things that you learn as a forest monk, how to look after senior monks.

[00:16:08]They would do that. But then the Buddha went off on his own in the forest.

[00:16:14]So whether you say it's the das or just the good karma of the Buddha, an elephant and a monkey came to do the attending duties on the Buddha. So you have this famous pictures descriptions of the Buddha being looked after by a monkey and an elephant in the forest. And the elephant would bring fruit that he could pick off the tree with his trunk and he'd bow down, offer it to the Buddha.

[00:16:46]He'd get a bunch of twigs and leaves in his trunk and he'd sweep the floor for the Buddha around the place where he stays.

[00:16:57]The monkey would do other jobs, bring food, offer water.

[00:17:03]So together they made a lot of merit looking after the Buddha. And the Buddha had a nice rest and he praised seclusion. Sometimes sometimes it's good, it's good to go on retreat, have a rest from the people you normally spend time with.

[00:17:23]Have a rest from the arguments. Yes.

[00:17:28]So the monkey and the elephant made a lot of merit. The Buddha got a rest and he didn't need the retreat to further his practice because he already had good practice.

[00:17:38]But maybe he was recollecting the Dhamma and no doubt spreading meta out to other others even though he was alone in the forest.

[00:18:04]But we have to be on our guard because even knowledge of the vinaya, knowledge of the dharma can become cause for conflict, views and opinions, disagreements, disharmony.

[00:18:21]have to try and remind ourselves you this is we our good fortune that we have the Buddha as our teacher the dharma the teachings so well explained by the Buddha we still have them today we have the trapitica and we have the ways of practice handed down from teachers like lump man lumpa this is our good fortune And it's natural in the beginning we don't understand everything.

[00:18:55]So as we're learning we read we listen then we practice then we go back and we read and we listen more.

[00:19:04]But the purpose is for deepening insight deepening insight into the true nature of existence body and mind. the five candas to see them as they are impermanent, suffering and nonself.

[00:19:27]That's something these three characteristics are to be to be known.

[00:19:34]They're not just to be believed in but to be known through mindfulness and investigation.

[00:19:54]Sometimes people quote the story when Lumpo Tongrat, one of Lumpocha's teachers was living with the monks with Lump Man.

[00:20:06]Bulman really trusted him uh because he was reputed to be enlightened very quickly when once he became among very wise and very direct in his teachings and not scared of anyone. So sometimes Lumpman relied on him to help explain things to the other monks in the monastery and sometimes his teachings were very direct. says one time there were two monks arguing about a point of dharma vinaya. I'm not sure what the point was that they were arguing about, but some interpretation of a point of dharma.

[00:20:49]And in Lumpoman's monastery, you couldn't make a lot of noise.

[00:20:55]Similar to Lumpocha, when Lumpocha was around, he couldn't make a lot of noise near to him. It was always looked as being unmindful, unskillful to make a lot of noise, talking unmindfully near the teacher.

[00:21:14]So these two monks were having a disagreement about the dam. They went out to the back of the monastery way far away in the forest. So their voices couldn't be heard. Lumpman couldn't hear them in those days.

[00:21:29]when Lumpur Tongrat heard them and he was tired of their arguing and he didn't think it was helpful for them to just argue. He wasn't going anywhere. So he walked out and he stood listening to them for a while and they were just going back and forth at each other getting very emotional. So in the end he walked into the middle of these two monks who were arguing squatted down went to the toilet did some excrement and then he picked up so they say he picked up some paper and use that to clean himself then walked off without saying anything.

[00:22:15]I wasn't there so I don't know this is true but that was the story handed down.

[00:22:21]The point being that he was saying that when you argue about the dummer you make it into something dirty, unattractive, repulsive.

[00:22:31]Even the dummer can become like that when conceit and attachment to views takes over and we start arguing and having bad feeling, negative emotions.

[00:22:42]We take the highest and make it into something very ordinary or even below ordinary.

[00:23:00]Most monks will study first. I mean that's how we become monks. Often we begin by reading about Buddhism, listening to talks, then perhaps start to meditate and want to learn more.

[00:23:20]We come into the robes and we spend quite a lot of time studying because there's many things to learn.

[00:23:27]Learn the basic pari words. We learn to chant. We learn some of the meaning of words like mindfulness, sati, clear comprehension, sana and so on. We learn the concepts may have our favorite sutas or favorite teachers and their explanations and that's all good.

[00:23:52]But then we also have to put it into practice which is why we meditate sitting walking meditation practicing mindfulness in daily life practicing the different monastic duties looking after the lodgings looking after the teacher looking after the robes or the bowl and so on.

[00:24:15]We're learning in practice as well as reading and studying.

[00:24:23]A minority of monks, they tend to come to meditation first and do the study later. I would say that's definitely a minority, but there are a few like that.

[00:24:39]One I knew, Lo Sanan, who was a great uh you might say dumber friend of Ajincha. He would regularly travel across Thailand from where his monastery was to see and pay respects to Ajincha as well as other forest monks.

[00:25:00]Noso Sanguan lived in the west of Thailand in where's his monastery Tong Samakam is it Utai Supanbury yeah Supanbur which is on the west west of Bangkok so it's a long way from Ajentcha's monastery but someone would come over to visit pay respects listen to the dharma meditate with Ajentcha uh he was a very quiet monk. He didn't speak a lot but he's very alert to the dhamma and had great meditation and was considered to be enlightened.

[00:25:41]I remember him saying how when he began as a monk he hardly knew any dharma from the text cuz he couldn't read. He left school almost didn't go to school at all. He had to help his parents with their fields.

[00:26:00]He didn't got get much formal education.

[00:26:03]So he couldn't read and write when he became a monk. He could memorize the ordination chant, but he couldn't read and write. He learned to read and write later as a monk as he practiced more and he wanted to know out know the dharma. But to start off with, he just learned to meditate, reciting Buddha, practicing anapana and practicing vipasana, developing insight.

[00:26:30]And from a very young age, he developed Janna, psychic powers, all kinds of special knowledge, but just arising from the mind. The mind that was still peaceful, not from from the books.

[00:26:49]And at first he was happy with that. But later he said he started to as he was more senior he started to meet people.

[00:26:56]People asked for teachings and he was a bit nervous even though he had very little or no attachment.

[00:27:05]The nervousness was out of his love and respect for the Buddha. He didn't want to misrepresent the Buddha because he couldn't read and write. He wasn't sure if he was be teaching the right dharma to people.

[00:27:19]He wanted to learn. So he taught himself later on in life as a monk how to read and write.

[00:27:27]And then he went to one of the big Bangkok monasteries to start studying the dharma after he had already become enlightened.

[00:27:36]And he could meditate better than anyone in that study monastery. But he was very humble. He wasn't conceited or proud.

[00:27:46]But he didn't know the sutas and the vinaya and the texts like the monks in that monastery because he hadn't studied. So he had to spend a lot of time reading, learning to read slowly diff with difficulty.

[00:28:02]But because he didn't want to misrepresent the Buddha, he just did that. He learned how to well he learned the dharma and then he could quote a little bit of dharma and he was just making sure that what he understood from his meditation was what the Buddha taught you in the four noble truths noble eight-fold path different aspects of dharma practice.

[00:28:30]So his initial understanding of dharma came from the peaceful heart is basically he knew what is conducive to suffering and what is conducive to reducing suffering. He was understanding from his own heart what is kila coming from ignorance craving attachment. What is the result of following craving? Attachment is always suffering.

[00:29:00]Mental suffering, physical suffering.

[00:29:05]Then he went back to the books and started comparing what he had understood with what he read.

[00:29:14]He had teachers, meditation teachers who also guiding him. So it wasn't like he was practicing completely on his own in the forest. He would talk to his teachers and compare what he experienced with what they taught and he explained to them. But in the end he wanted to know the words of the Buddha. So he went went to the Trapitica.

[00:29:45]So when he did give teachings quite clear because he didn't have a lot of words and language to elaborate on. He'd often t talk about the five candas. The five candas are the basis for developing insight. This is what we use as our raw material. And he said everybody has five candas.

[00:30:10]You're man, woman from whichever part of the world you're born in doesn't matter.

[00:30:16]Everyone has five candas. So this is the place you study. You say there's the study of the the books, the trapitica to start with, but then you have to study the candas. Learn from your own five candas form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations, sense, consciousness.

[00:30:38]You say you really have to learn about the candas by learning about the mind.

[00:30:43]You have to focus your attention on your own mind, your jitter. And if you know your jitter, then you can know the five candas.

[00:30:52]Because what it is, what is it that clings to and identifies with the candas is the jitter.

[00:30:59]So if you study the jitta then you can know the five kendas and you can know the the five kendas are basis of suffering because if you cling to anything you start to suffer. You worry your mind is not free and everything we cling to in the world begins from the five candas. Because with the five candas then you can see, hear, taste, touch, smell and you can remember and think with the mind.

[00:31:34]So our mind is constantly going out to the world through the candas through the senses sense bases we call the ayatana and reacting to the world grasping the world grasping the things of the world liking this and disliking that wanting this and not wanting that.

[00:32:02]So sometimes he'd quote Ajentcha because he liked Ajincha and Ajentcha taught very profoundly but in very simple terms. He'd quote Ajentcha often quote how Ajentcha would say well to train the mind you have to train it like the um village old village men who want to catch a lizard. Often the lizards they make their nest inside termite mounds.

[00:32:30]Even here in this monastery, we have termite mounds. Like behind the workshop, there's a termite mound. Quite often the termite mound would have will have holes in it. It's just a mound of earth made by the termites, but they have holes in and the lizard goes in.

[00:32:47]Then he can stay in there and then come out of the hole and go and collect food, eat food, and then come back. If you want to catch the lizard, you have to block up all the holes and just leave one hole and then wait. And then when the lizard shows its head comes out, you can grab it.

[00:33:12]You have to watch the mind. If you want to see how you form attachment to the five canders or the six senses, you have to focus your attention all on the mind because everything comes back to the mind.

[00:33:26]Sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, all come to the mind.

[00:33:31]The feelings and perceptions that arise as you see, as you hear, are accumulated karma or accumulated attachments will all arise in the mind.

[00:33:44]He said karma doesn't lie. Karma never lies. Karma is always true.

[00:33:51]What lies is the deluded mind. We have all kinds of views and opinions and attachments and we get deluded and miss things and misunderstand things. But karma itself doesn't lie.

[00:34:05]Every moment that you respond to a sense contact with craving, liking, not liking, wanting, not wanting, you make karma.

[00:34:19]Sense of self arises, becomes attachment, sense of self. You become certain ways or your ba and this leads to birth. In the short term, birth is just birth into that liking or that disliking.

[00:34:38]So you see some a form that you like.

[00:34:42]Craving arises, some kind of pleasant feeling, a perception that you associate with liking, familiar, something you want, like mental formations begin karma. the process of making karma, maybe trying to get what you like, see more, have more, and that leaves an impression. Even if it's very brief, it leaves an impression on the mind.

[00:35:14]The most common thing is, well, you see something you like, then you want to see it again. So, next time you see it, already you start to like it straight away. You're familiar with that sight or that sound or that taste.

[00:35:30]What are you going to do about that? You have to watch your mind. Like the old man watches the hole where the lizard's going to come out. You have to keep watching your mind to catch it.

[00:35:40]If you keep watching, then you can see this process at work. How karma leaves its impressions pleasant painful desire leaving these impressions on the mind and these impressions are left like seeds waiting to grow up again next time.

[00:36:02]So you have to keep watching there and then we say keep letting go. If clinging to the candas these five punchual padana candas are the cause of suffering. If we stop cling clinging then we won't suffer.

[00:36:19]But to stop clinging you have to watch and catch catch the mind that is beginning to cling.

[00:36:27]What do you do? Well, you just ignore it and ignore the clinging. Don't give into it. Don't follow it.

[00:36:34]But that's hard because the mind wants to cling. It's so used to it.

[00:36:42]It resists not following clinging. It doesn't want to not cling. It wants to cling. We cling to pleasure. We even cling to pain because out of habit, we just react with displeasure and pain to various things.

[00:36:58]But we cling to the canders all the time. So we suffer.

[00:37:04]So what we have to learn to do is to ignore that clinging, not follow it, not give into it, not give it importance.

[00:37:13]That's not easy. But if you practice watching like the old man watching for the lizard, then you can do it.

[00:37:21]The desire arises and you just let it pass away again. You don't have to do do much other than just know it as impermanent because what is impermanent is not a self. It's just a just a desire.

[00:37:36]You don't have to do any kind of big thing. You don't have to destroy desire or make a big story out of it.

[00:37:49]Just know it as a impermanent suffering, not self. What we call vipasana tora know it arising and knowing passing away.

[00:38:03]Little by little you get tired of things that are impermanent. So you stop grasping and stop attaching.

[00:38:13]That process of becoming tired, bored, fed up with grasping. It's a very natural process. You can't force it.

[00:38:24]It has to come through clear seeing.

[00:38:27]Hence the word vipasana.

[00:38:29]clear seeing of the way things are. You keep grasping at this pleasurable thing, this unpleasant thing reacting with aversion is endless and it's just more suffering.

[00:38:43]So your mind starts to loosen that attachment, become quiet basically ignores the desires more and more because you know desire leads to suffering doesn't lead to real contentment and happiness.

[00:39:07]So Lump Sanguan used to teach this kind of thing often quoting other teachers like Ajenta Mahab but he himself was very simple couldn't read or write for most of his life and yet he understood his heart his jitter very well looked after it very Well, so sometimes we study and that's our way into the dharma. Sometimes we just meditate, develop mindfulness.

[00:39:43]Sometimes a bit of both.

[00:39:46]But the aim is to get to that point where you can really watch over, guard, look after your mind and catch craving and attachment as it arises and basically say no to it.

[00:40:02]Ignore it, not give into it, not follow it, not build it up, not repeat it over and over again until it stops arising.

[00:40:17]So I'll leave you with those few reflections tonight.