What's Up with Ajahn Chah's The Knower?

The Watercooler
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Thanks for reminding me about that, but I don’t feel like I have made any allegations or accused someone of something. True, I have memtioned that there is a theory I am more inclined to believe but I am open to other explanations as well. My purpose is to find out the truth, even if it contradicts my assumptions. Which is why I have tried to reach out to the venerables as people with more knowledge of the context and tradition than me.

As for my repudiation of the Original Mind theory, I made extra effort to criticize the theory and not the ajahns. My experience with Thai forest monks has been positive so far, their teachings, books and meditative instructions can be a real help. But some of the teachings one finds in this tradition are just not what the Buddha taught.

Tobsum it all up, we can all be sure that there is an issue with these two renditions of the same talk being quite different. One of them is closer to what @Viveka described, the other one to the Original Mind theory. In any case, such major discrepancies between two versions of the same talk are a cause of legitmate concern. This is why I would like to know the truth.

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@Vstakan and @4GreatHeavenlyKings

Doubt can be either a rightly apprehended temporary tool or a misapprehended detrimental lingering hinderance. In one aspect it can be utilized as a discerning bridge towards proper confirmed confidence that is quickly abandoned once crossed over or it can conversely be a persistent, consistent mental turmoil that is never quenched.

Your doubt seems reasonable.

Perhaps, it is in fact well placed doubt.

It would be prudent to consider where someone is mostly likely to find confidence in the dhamma.

I would suggest reading the Saṁyutta Nikāya cover to cover (skipping the first vagga of verses on the first pass might be helpful) multiple times. Purchase Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation because the footnotes alone are worth the cost, even if one doesn’t have the knowledge base to fully understand them initially. All it takes to get the full value from Bodhi’s notes is a functional understanding of Pali grammar/vocabulary, a rudimentary familiarity with Abhidhamma terminology, and being comfortable with the commentary and sub-commentary being wrong as often as right about the many nuances.

Bhikkhu Bodhi has great classes available free online for elementary/intermediate Pali as well as classes on the Abhidhammattha Saṅgāha, an overview manual on the Abhidhamma, which is at least interesting, if not particularly practical to praxis.

Make the Saṁyutta your bridge. Read every translation. Cross reference different translations against each other. Understand the definitions of core Pali terminology, not simply how they are translated into English. Know what the commentary/sub-commentary’s glossing of tricky words is, right or wrong.

Conceivably one might learn why certain ubiquitous understandings of core terms are in fact laughable in their naïveté. Like that the word dhamma used in the plural changes in meaning by 100%.

If anyone is aware of any noun in any language whatsoever that changes its meaning in a 100% fashion by simply going from the singular to the plural please let me know. Lol. This is probably the most bizarre grammatical anomaly in history.

By understanding the overall message and intentions of the doctrine in the Saṁyutta the stumbling blocks (for translators and commentators) of saṅkhāra, dhamma/dhammā, and nibbana, etc… will illustrate themselves over time and one will build an understanding that is divorced from popular contemporary figures.

Best of luck.

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“What is Contemplation?” was originally published in Seeing the Way, a 1989 anthology of teachings in the Thai Forest tradition. All subsequent publications use this same translation with the exception of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s in 1994. Here’s a couple of links to the original publication. :

https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books/Ajahn_Chah_SEEING_THE_WAY.htm#CONTEMPLATION

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Thanks for pointing that out! :pray: That changes the situation a bit and makes it look somewhat more likely that The Knower’s translators changed the talk.

Although the big question of why the two versions are so different and which one is closer to the real teaching by Ajahn Chah is still standing. Anyway, your comment was of help, thanks again!

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I just want to say that at times I’ve felt very sad and dejected upon learning that some respected Ajahn teaches something that, according to my own perception, seems very hard to reconcile with the suttas.

I don’t know what to do about it though, except stick to teachers who are sutta oriented?

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This is an assumption that may not be useful. The Buddha taught how unreliable is perception. We can see this in operation everyday. You and I could read the same passage yet perceive it differently, and in good faith paraphrase it and come out with different slants. There is a huge difference between a technical ‘translation’ and a ‘re-telling’ of something. My hypothesis is that the second ‘version’ of the talk is a re-telling rather than a translation. In principle, both have elements of unreliability built into them, but the latter is much more likely to result in something that reflects the ‘re-tellers’ perception and understanding. It can be the result of the best intentions, of wanting to clarify something that appears a bit unclear to be clearer- but then it is transformed into that persons view. This may be a totally unconscious and invisible process. Views are built on perceptions, which are unreliable. That is why the Buddha says that views are something to be abandoned, and that perception is to be seen to be unreliable. One of my favourite reported stories about Ajahn Chah is that he would have a constant ‘uncertain’ attitude towards ‘views’. Is it ‘x’ ? … uncertain, not sure…

The Buddha was so meticulous in the way he used language, with such a high order of internal consistency across his teachings. How often do we see him chastise one of the monks “foolish stupid man, when have you known me to teach it like that”… Sometimes I would find it frustrating - why say things in such a complicated and convoluted manner… :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I think this is the reason why, to reduce the possibility of wrong perception… (reduce not eliminate). The Buddha also foresaw that over time, just through the natural action of attention/perception/formation of views that his teachings on cessation would become corrupted, to something more comfortable … we even see the proto-evidence of this at the end of MN1 - and the monks were not happy…

That is why the EBTs are such a gift. One can go back with a pretty high degree of certitude, and actually read what the Buddha taught. Through the scholarship on EBTs and parallels we are closer than ever (in the last 2000 years) of having access to the actual teachings of the Buddha. This is the Standard against which everything else is measured. Reading many translations really helps, as well as referring to the parallels. And this is where I have such gratitude to Sutta Central and the work of Bhante Sujato and all the others who contribute scholarship and translations. Here we have an easily accessible tool for multiple translations and parallels. And then one can always learn Pali. Or Thai if you want to listen to and understand what Ajahn Chah was saying. There are recordings of his talks.

The Buddha said not to believe logic, or gurus, or masters, but to always compare it to his teachings and to accept it ONLY if they match. But it doesn’t stop there, it also needs to be reflected by ones own practice experience - only then can one truly come to an understanding. The rest is a pointing… the test is when it becomes a lived reality.

With regard to the issue of Nibbana and the end of the path, there is one resource that I have found that really presents this in the most thorough and skilled way, leading us through the maze of misunderstandings and through the history of misinterpretations - always coming back to the Buddhas teachings as the authority. It is the work Nibbana the Mind Stilled by Bhikkhu K Ṇānananda. It is a challenging read, 800 very dense pages. Bhikkhu Anālayo did a 3 year series on it, covering 11 chapters/sermons per year. This is probably the best way to do it - by reading the text together with listening to the lectures. Here is the link

Added:

It is our desire that someone tell us the answer that makes us suffer, when we discover that they are fallible human beings. But this need not be the case, if one realises that these are just perspectives and experiences of individuals, and not invest anything more into it. Also one needs to be careful not to reject the whole lot, just because some aspects are limited. EG if the teacher is spot on about most things, but maybe not about cessation, it doesn’t mean that all the other teachings are worthless. Expectations cause a lot of suffering.

Just keep comparing it to what the Buddha said and to practice experience. The tricky thing is that it takes a LOT of time to become familiar with the Buddhas teachings. The more of a ‘short-cut’ we look for, the less reliable the information. There really is no short cut… just the Noble 8 fold Path and the word of the Buddha.

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I think this is really important. I’ve learned a lot from teachers whose use of language I sometimes find problematical, and I deal with it by internally translating their terms into something that makes sense to me. So a teacher might say something like: “If you let go of clinging, greed, hatred, and delusion you’ll find your true nature.” That sounds a little odd to me, but in the context the “true nature” they are referring to is probably
yathābhūtañāṇadassanaṁ, commonly translated as “knowledge and vision of things as they really are”: AN10.3: SuttaCentral. This translation is also a little problematic, as it sounds like some static “reality”. Bhikkhu Sujato uses: “true knowledge and vision”: AN10.3 SuttaCentral, and some suggest that “knowledge and vision of things as they have become” better captures the dynamic nature of the knowledge. More colloquially: “knowing how stuff works”.

The point is that being overly concerned about whether someone uses exactly the expressions that I prefer is probably counterproductive. I’ve certainly had the experience on retreats of getting internally worked up about such things, which isn’t helpful! Hence my translation strategy. Of course, there will be cases where it’s not just a matter of expression, but I don’t like to jump to that conclusion without some careful consideration.

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The problem is that the teacher’s wrong views are bound to lead to bad results in him and his practice. Even if I think he is spot on, how do I divide the wheat from the chaff? Ignoring the teacher’s words altogether could also be unwise because the wheat is still there.

The end result, i.e. two rather different talks, is way too visible and even somewhat drastic for these changes to creep into the text in an unconscious and invisible manner. No matter which version is further from the source material, I can’t really believe its author could not notice how far his rendition deviates from Ajahn’s literal words. What is even more heart-wrenching for me is that this deviating version, whichever it may be, is told to be Ajahn Chah’s authentic words: not the translator’s intepretation of it but Ajahn’s direct words.

What the intention behind it was, I do not know and I am not interested to know it because the end result is suboptimal in itself, no matter what the intention behind it originally was.

That is why I find this issue so important for me. I rely on the integrity of a tradition and its transmitters that they will not present their ‘re-tellings’ as ‘translations’. My support of a tradition has many reasons, but of them is that it is exactly that - a tradition, something relating to me important teachings of advanced practitioners without me having to learn Sinhalese, Thai, or Burmese. Imagine that an English-language instruction for your German-produced dish washer would be changed in such a way. It would be absurd to expect that you learn a new language each time you buy a piece of house equipment or medicament from a new country. How much more important is the Dhamma!

If it were a scientific, political or even philosophical text, trying to figure out what went wrong and who is responsible for that (whether maliciously or not is beyond the point). But when it comes to religion or Dhamma in particular, some people for some reason seem to be acting like it is no big deal. Just to be clear, it is not an attack on you or anyone or criticism of someone in particular. I am just trying to get my point across: the Dhamma is the most important thing that there is, which is why I would like to treat this situation the same as it would be treated in most other areas.

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Well, if you look at the side-by-side comparison of the two texts, you’ll see that it is not merely a matter of using other expressions. I am okay with Ajahn Chah’s using the term 'Original Mind’and whatnot. My concern is whether Ajahn Chah really said something like ‘get back to the source, which is your Original Mind’, etc. because the other text does not feature such an expression at all or changes the expression in ways that go beyond merely using other expressions.

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You are indeed exact in your diagnosis here.

I’d refer to the Mahātaṇhāsankhayasutta in Majjhima Nikāya #38 which deals explicitly with this issue on multiple levels. There are no excuses or justifications which would be acceptable.

Ajahn Chah unfortunately can not provide clarification and his teachings were haphazardly recorded.

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Okay, so I found the original talk in Thai. Are there any Thai speakers here in this thread or in our community that could listen to the recording of the talk and compare it to both versions?

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I think this is splitting hairs because if you don’t know Central Thai/ NE Lao dialect, whichever this one is in, you cannot really get confirmed confidence through a third party.

It seems very likely to me that when Ajahn Chah’s surviving teachings are taken in as a whole, this “Original Mind” talk could be taken mostly as an idiomatic tongue-in-cheek expression. :man_shrugging:

Either way it doesn’t matter. The suttas/root texts are the sole authority…

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I’m not sure if I can answer your question satisfactorily, but I hear your pain and confusion, and I understand what you’re going through. I have been through something similar myself. It’s never easy to feel that the spiritual teachers that one looks up to might be fallible.

Let me clear up a few things.

  • Is it the case that some of the Thai Forest Ajahns say things that sound uncomfortably close to eternalism?
    • Yes, this is acknowledged and widely debated in Thailand.
  • Is Ajahn Chah among them?
    • Certainly less so than, say, Ajahn Maha Bua. I can’t really recall anything that he’s said that made me go, hmmph. When questioned directly on the matter, as in the discussions quoted above, he equated the “original mind” with cessation.
  • What about Ajahn Chah’s students?
    • Well, there are a lot of them and I can’t speak for all. But one monk shared with me a conversation about this with Ajahn Liem, and he agreed that the original mind stuff spoken of by some Ajahns sounded like eternalism.
  • Are the translations of Ajahn Chah’s work reliable?
    • TBH I’m not really sure. I do know that Ajahn Jayasaro has both impeccable Thai and a lot of integrity, so I would expect his translations to be reliable. But I have never really checked them in detail.
  • Are some translators guilty of translating the Ajahn Chah they wanted to hear, rather than the one who existed?
    • It seems so, and this has been a topic of discussion among the Sangha for many years. Apart from the “original mind” thing, it’s also been claimed that Ajahn Chah’s emphasis on jhanas has been downplayed or removed.
  • Do some of the western Ajahns read their own eternalistic readings into Ajahn Chah?
    • I can say that this happens with how Ajahns such as Amaro or Thanissaro quote and deal with the Suttas. It’s worth remembering that Ajahn Amaro spent only a short time in Thailand. When I hear him speak about the Thai forest tradition, it sounds nothing like what I heard in Thailand.

As some practical advice, I’d caution about reading too much into what any of the Thai Ajahns say. They were not philosophers and did not attempt to develop coherent bodies of thought. By their own admission, they were offering practical guidelines based on their own experience. Ajahn Maha Bua would say, “If what i say disagrees with the texts, just put it aside.”

The Ajahns all taught in their own idiosyncratic ways, using language in playful and creative ways (especially Ajahn Chah!) If you try to capture the language and bottle it, you end up with a bunch of dead specimens. The value of the Thai forest tradition is not in philosophy, but in inspiration and a dedication to authentically living the Dhamma.

Don’t try to understand the Dhamma from the top down. That’s a rookie mistake. Look to the simple things, the basic things, things that everyone knows. Build up from there.

For myself, I can’t get too excited if someone has a different understanding of Nibbana than I do. But if they cannot get their heads around the idea of relating to women with equality, respect, and decency, then we have a problem. And perhaps it is a coincidence, but did you ever wonder why the same monks pushing eternalism are also the same ones opposing bhikkhuni ordination? (Psst: it’s about power.)

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Thanks for your answer, Venerable, it definitely did help me.

As for my concern with that particular talk and its translation, maybe I will enough merit for Ven. Dhammanando to spend some of his precious time on that when he’s back from his vassa-related Internet abstinence, as I do not know other people who could help me with that. Or he will not - in that case it will be a nice exercise in letting go, I presume.

Oh yes. I just read Luang Pu Waen’s talks for the first time today, and oh boy… Still, sometimes Ajahns’ focus on quasi-etermalistic doctrine is way too pronounced for me to simply say it is because of their being practitioners first - take, for example, Ajahn Maha Bua, or Ajahn Mun for that matter.

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Yes, I mean, at a certain point I just decided that it wasn’t for me. I remember with gratitude all I learned, and how my life was changed, but my teacher is the Buddha. Understanding him is my path.

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Hi Vstakan,

I’ve never met Ajahn Chah, so I can’t confirm or deny anything he has said or hasn’t said. But I’ve often taken this “knower” as a pragmatic instruction rather than a kind of eternal consciousness.

I’m a bhikkhu ordained by Ajahn Brahm, who as you know was a disciple of Ajahn Chah. (I don’t consider myself parth of a tradition, though, other than that of the Buddha.) Ajahn Brahm has often said that the translations of Ajahn Chah’s talks are not good, or at least some of them. And Ajahn Brahm is quite convinced Ajahn Chah didn’t believe in a permanent “knower” or what have you. We only have his word for it, though, so that counts for nothing much. (:

But anyway, that doesn’t mean translators are, as you say, lying “or close to it”. If you have a certain view, you just see it reflected everywhere, even where it isn’t. That happens especially if that view is so central to your life. You can imagine how this can be the case with permanent cittas. Monastics often live their life based around that idea, so they see it everywhere. Heck, people even see it in the suttas, where it obviously (to me) is denied unambiguously. (E.g. DN1, SN12.62) It’s just like Christians see God everywhere, or if you have a hammer, you see nails everywhere! And so they see a permanent knower in talks of Ajahn Chah (whether it was there or not).

So don’t let that shake your faith too much. There are good intentions underlying those translations. Moreover, the translators don’t make any money out of it, it’s all for free, there isn’t any glory in it, or whatever. So if you’re disappointed, let it be just with views, not with intentions, morality or those things.

I reply because I can relate. At some point, when I was still a lay person, I was also disappointed in certain views prevalent in the forest tradition. But I found out they are not universal in that tradition, and there are also many traditions both inside and outside Theravada where this view of eternal mind isn’t held.

My advice is this: stick to the Dhamma, stick to the suttas taught by the Budha. Yeah, the Budha has been gone a long time. So it’s sometimes less inspiring than an arahant in living memory, like perhaps Ajahn Chah was. But that was the Buddha’s own advice: the dhamma will be your teacher after I’m gone (DN16). If you rely on the suttas, you have never reason to be disappointed in any teacher ever again.

I disagree, by the way with people who say, just start at the basics and see where you end up. To me it’s always been important to have an idea of nibbana. That’s how the Buddha started teaching (the third noble truth), so I think it’s important to have an intellectual understanding from the get-go. Also, so you know what you’re in for, haha! :smiley:

Now I’ll read the rest of the thread and see that others have said the same things already. :smiley:

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Thank you, Venerable! Your kind words are much appreciated and I am not saying it just for the sake of courtesy :pray:

This is why I often let clumsy and ideologized translations of Suttas pass. What we are having here is on another level, and I can’t really see how one doing it was not aware of it. Sure, it is most likely not an outright lie, but the amount of partisanship and self-deception involved here it is truly worrying for me.

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Thanks for the comment, and also for your work putting the translations side-by-side. I’m sure you’re helping many people with it.

Like you I don’t speak Thai. So I’m not in a position to really judge. But even if I were, I would assume the translations (or re-tellings) are all made out of good intentions to help others. That way at least you keep a happy mind! :slight_smile: Also, if you have a different view you can always have compassion for people stuck in samsara, lol. :rofl:

I’d not be particularly worried about other people’s self-deception, whatever it may be. Even in the time of the Buddha people misinterpreted his words. :smiley: And they could speak his language! That’s reflected in the suttas in many funny ways, like Sati the fisherman, and the Buddha being called an annihilist, etc. So what I personally care about instead, is not others’, but my own potential self-deception. :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Anyway, I recognize the emotions behind your words. As I said, I was also disappointed at some point. But for me, I realized that disappointment was not so much with individuals or translations… it came mostly from the realization that right view was perhaps much more difficult to attain than I thought! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: That if you have decades in the robes, you can still miss out. That’s perhaps the disturbing part, more than anything. (Regardless of what view you take to be right, this still holds.) Anyway, all you can do is keep walking the path, keep investigating.

For whatever it’s worth, let me say that with your investigations I think you’re making big steps in the right direction. :blue_heart: Not only intellectually, also emotionally. I belief at some point we have to face that we really have to face the Dhamma by ourselves. Teachers can’t hold your hand into nibbana! even if they have right view, or even if they are arahants. And that can (perhaps should) be a challenge. But it will eventually lead to you being your own island! :desert_island: So be happy, at least you’re swimming, not drowning. :slight_smile:

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Thanks again!

Wide words! And this is actually something that I am worrying about. The Ajahn Chah tradition / Thai forest tradition is comparatively popular here in the West. In some countries, like in Romania, that’s pretty much the only strain of Theravadin/EBT tradition available to anyone. So when you encounter something like this, I can’t help asking myself: ‘How many people did this investigation? How many people just accept this as Ajahn Chah’s words and teachings?’ And I think the answer is many. And it is scary because it is not about me anymore.

There is much cruder and straightforward eternalism in the English translations of some forest Ajahn’s talks, but these Ajahns are largely obscure for the non-Thai audience, so I am not worried about it. This here is another story.

Still, I see a lot of value in your words and Ibwil take them to heart. Apart from this communal dimension, the issue with translations of Ajahn Chah also has a personal dimension for my own practice, and I realy think that what you said really can help solve my problems in that regard :pray:

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My understanding of “original mind” is like that of a newborn baby, before it is conditioned by personal experiences, societal norms, etc. It is a state without judgement, simply observing events as they are.
“It is what it is”

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