The Buddha’s Channel

They tell the story of a senior monk from Bangkok who went to visit Ajaan Mun one time. He was kind of dubious about the forest tradition. So he asked Ajaan Mun, “I live in Bangkok where there are lots of knowledgeable people all around. But even there, there are times when I come up with a problem in the Dhamma that nobody can solve. Here you are, out in the forest all alone. Who do you go to when you need to solve a problem? Where do you hear the Dhamma?”

Ajaan Mun replied, “I hear the Dhamma all the time, all day long, except when I’m asleep. A leaf falls; it teaches inconstancy. A bird sings; it teaches dukkha, stress, suffering. Things don’t go the way I want? It teaches anatta, not self.”

The senior monk said, “In that case, it shows you know how to listen.”

He was listening to the right channel—we put it that way. Just think of all the TV and radio waves going through the air right now. You get a TV here and you could get all kinds of different things. The same with the radio: There’s music radio; there’s hate radio. There’s all kinds of stuff. It depends on which channel you listen to, which channel you tune into. But there’s also the channel of the Dhamma because the Dhamma is showing itself all the time.

Our problem is that we refuse to listen to it. We have other interests; we tune into other channels. We tune into the channels of our own greed, aversion, and delusion. That’s why we don’t see the Dhamma, even though it’s right in front of our nose. It’s there displaying itself all the time: the principles of cause and effect, what’s skillful, what’s unskillful. It’s there to see.

You look into your own actions, look at your intentions, and look at the results of your actions, and you’ll learn—if you’re tuned into the Dhamma channel, tuned into the Buddha channel. If you tune into the channel of what you want and don’t want, what you like and don’t like, you’re going to miss the Dhamma, even though it’s here all the time.

So try to tune into the right channel. That way, you learn Dhamma lessons wherever you go. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, there’s a lesson for you—if you listen, if you look.