Being Dharma: The Essence of the Buddha's Teachings

This collection of ‘dharma talks’ from one of the great Buddhist teachers of the 20th-century is a fun, accessible crash course in Theravadan teachings on meditation, mindfulness, and more
 
Ajahn Chah influenced a generation of Western teachers: Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein, Joseph Goldstein, and many other Western Buddhist teachers were at one time his students. Anyone who has attended a retreat led by one of these teachers, or read one of their books, will be familiar with this master's name and reputation as one of the great Buddhist teachers of this century.
 
Here, Chah offers a thorough exploration of Theravada Buddhism in a gentle, sometimes humorous, style that makes the reader feel as though he or she is being entertained by a story. He emphasizes the path to freedom from emotional and psychological suffering and provides insight into the fact that taking ourselves seriously causes unnecessary hardship.

Deep in a Thai forest lived "a pot-bellied monk who looked more like a bullfrog than a saint" and yet whose no-nonsense brand of Buddhist meditation has profoundly influenced many of the West's most popular teachers. He was called Ajahn Chah. In Being Dharma Paul Breiter, Ajahn Chah's longtime interpreter, brings us his collection of Ajahn Chah's dharma talks. Here we find a teacher who prefers the concrete to the abstract and practice to theory. The practice is training the mind, and the goal is achieving a constant mindfulness that will end suffering and yield peace and compassion at every moment. Achievements, he says, come gradually with relentless training in meditation and practicing the moral precepts. Ajahn Chah's plain teachings and simple, straightforward examples cross language barriers easily as he instructs us on the fundamentals of impermanence and nonattachment. In Being Dharma Paul Breiter allows us to soak up the simple but profound wisdom of this master to the masters. --Brian Bruya

According to Jack Kornfield, Thai Buddhist master Ajahn Chah (1919-1992) never taught that there were two levels of dharma instruction one for the monk and an easier one for the layperson. Rather, he required all of the lay practitioners who visited him at his monastery to embody the dharma to the same degree that his monastic disciples did. In Being Dharma: The Essence of the Buddha's Teachings, Ajahn Chah's dharma talks (which could be as long as five hours each) are condensed for Western lay practitioners. Although the length has been shortened, the content is still bracing and memorable. Paul Breiter provides the translation, and Kornfield gives an insightful foreword.

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"Employing simple, precise language, his words convey his belief that liberation is possible for each of us through diligent effort and sincere intention."—Tricycle



"Chah's style of teaching Buddhism was informal and non-systematic; he was renowned for giving instructions in a way that an 'uneducated rice farmer' could understand. The talks in Being Dharma reflect Ajahn Chah's fundamental orientation toward Buddhism as a way of life, rather than a set of rules or rituals."— Shambhala Sun

Ajahn Chah (1919–1992) was a beloved Thai Buddhist master whose teachings were refreshingly uncompromising in their clarity and certainty—the certainty of a meditator who has achieved deep understanding of the Buddha's teachings. He was an important influence and spiritual mentor for a generation of American Buddhist teachers.