Top 90 Ajahn Chah Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, THAT is your teacher.”

— Ajahn Chah

Featured in: Teacher Quotes

2. “If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.”

— Ajahn Chah

3. “If you are still following your likes and dislikes, you have not even begun to practise Dhamma.”

— Ajahn Chah

4. “Letting go a little brings a little peace. Letting go a lot brings a lot of peace. Letting go completely brings complete peace.”

— Ajahn Chah

5. “But when I know that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”

— Ajahn Chah

6. “When sitting in meditation, say, “That’s not my business!” with every thought that comes by.”

— Ajahn Chah

7. “Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.”

— Ajahn Chah

8. “The heart is just the heart; thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. Let things be just as they are.”

— Ajahn Chah

9. “If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good.”

— Ajahn Chah

Featured in: Mindfulness Quotes

10. “When the heart truly understands, it lets go of everything.”

— Ajahn Chah

11. “Happiness and suffering do not depend on being poor or rich, they depend on having the right or wrong understanding in our mind.”

— Ajahn Chah

12. “If it shouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen.”

— Ajahn Chah

13. “Where does peace arise? Peace arises whenever we let something go.”

— Ajahn Chah

14. “To give up doing evil is more important than making merit.”

— Ajahn Chah

15. “Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again.”

— Ajahn Chah

16. “Do not be a bodhisattva, do not be an arahant, do not be anything at all. If you are a bodhisattva, you will suffer, if you are an arahant, you will suffer, if you are anything at all, you will suffer.”

— Ajahn Chah

17. “There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.”

— Ajahn Chah

18. “The Dhamma is revealing itself in every moment, but only when the mind is quiet can we understand what it is saying, for the Dhamma teaches without words.”

— Ajahn Chah

19. “When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness. And when we stop clinging, we can begin to be happy.”

— Ajahn Chah

20. “The forest is peaceful, why aren’t you? You hold on to things causing your confusion. Let nature teach you. Hear the bird’s song then let go. If you know nature, you’ll know truth. If you know truth, you’ll know nature.”

— Ajahn Chah

21. “If you want a chicken to be a duck, and a duck to be a chicken, you will suffer.”

— Ajahn Chah

22. “You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.”

— Ajahn Chah

23. “Don’t be attached to visions or lights in meditation, don’t rise or fall with them. What’s so great about brightness? My flashlight has it. It can’t help us rid ourselves of our suffering.”

— Ajahn Chah

24. “Dharma is in your mind, not in the forest. Don’t believe others, just listen to your mind. You don’t have to go anywhere else. Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.”

— Ajahn Chah

25. “Only one book is worth reading: the heart.”

— Ajahn Chah

26. “Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”

— Ajahn Chah

27. “We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything.”

— Ajahn Chah

28. “The serene and peaceful mind is the true epitome of human achievement.”

— Ajahn Chah

29. “Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You’ll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are – no holding on, no attachment, free.”

— Ajahn Chah

30. “When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing.”

— Ajahn Chah

31. “Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.”

— Ajahn Chah

32. “All religions are like different cars all moving in the same direction. People who don’t see it have no light in their hearts.”

— Ajahn Chah

33. “You should think about your own death 3 times per day at the very least.”

— Ajahn Chah

34. “I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches and eat its fruits. To the birds, the fruit may be sweet or sour or whatever. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree’s point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.”

— Ajahn Chah

35. “The mind of one who practises doesn’t run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don’t enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer.”

— Ajahn Chah

36. “Just know what is happening in your mind – not happy or sad about it, not attached. If you suffer see it, know it, and be empty. It’s like a letter – you have to open it before you can know what’s in it.”

— Ajahn Chah

37. “If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer.”

— Ajahn Chah

38. “Read yourself, not books. Truth isn’t outside, that’s only memory, not wisdom. Memory without wisdom is like an empty thermos bottle – if you don’t fill it, it’s useless.”

— Ajahn Chah

39. “If you haven’t cried deeply a number of times, your meditation hasn’t really begun.”

— Ajahn Chah

40. “Time is our present breath.”

— Ajahn Chah

41. “To practice Dhamma means to observe and examine oneself.”

— Ajahn Chah

42. “If we see suffering then we don’t have suffering.”

— Ajahn Chah

43. “Know and watch your heart. It’s pure but emotions come to colour it. So let your mind be like a tightly woven net to catch emotions and feelings that come, and investigate them before you react.”

— Ajahn Chah

44. “Mental activity is like a deadly poisonous cobra. If we don’t interfere with a cobra, how poisonous it may be, it simply goes its own away.”

— Ajahn Chah

45. “We don’t meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering.”

— Ajahn Chah

46. “Wisdom is in yourself, just like a sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one.”

— Ajahn Chah

47. “We protect virtue so that virtue will protect us.”

— Ajahn Chah

Featured in: Virtue Quotes

48. “Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.”

— Ajahn Chah

49. “A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn’t.”

— Ajahn Chah

50. “The mind is intrinsically tranquil. Out of this tranquility, anxiety and confusion are born. If one sees and knows this confusion, then the mind is tranquil once more.”

— Ajahn Chah