33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Paul Breiter has done it again!, May 29, 2005
This review is from: Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away: Teachings on Impermanence and the End of Suffering (Paperback)
I agree wholeheartedly with the Hawaii reviewer's statement that Mr. Breiter has once again brought forth the crystalline Dhamma from the late Ajahn Chah. Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away is another brilliant compilation of insights from this great teacher, but Breiter doesn't stop there.
No, in this new book, there are also stories about life with Ajahn Chah from this former monk who knew him as well as any Westerner, living and working with him and also translating for him in Thailand and when Ajahn Chah visited the U.S. These stories are just as enlightening as the Ajahn's direct teachings, but for those of us who like a little story here and there -- which was, after all, how the Buddha himself taught -- these little sprinklings of what it was like to be around this tough, enlightened being are a wonderful balm after the hard work of trying to internalize the Dhamma.
In short, this book is absolutely vital for anyone who loves the Dhamma as taught in the Thai forest tradition, or for anyone who loves to hear stories about enlightened masters of any tradition. Another simply brilliant job of bringing Ajahn Chah's words to the West by Paul Breiter.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Buddhism illustrated for Thailand's rural poor, May 6, 2007
This review is from: Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away: Teachings on Impermanence and the End of Suffering (Paperback)
Ajahn Chah was not a writer. He was born in a fishing village in northeast Thailand in 1918 and spent many years there speaking to farmers and fishermen. Many of these talks were recorded, transcribed and later translated and compiled by one of his western students, Paul Breiter.
Ajahn Chah spoke simply for a simple audience. To illustrate his points, he spoke of fields, ponds, rivers, fish, frogs, dogs, plowing, planting, and harvesting. He used folk tales and parables. Here he speaks of how we are responsible for our own suffering:
"Really, someone who suffers when living alone is foolish. Someone who suffers when living with others is foolish. It's like chicken turds: if you carry them around by yourself, they stink. If you keep them when you're among others, they stink. You carry the rotten things with you."
On the futility of becoming overly preoccupied in affairs of the world, he reminds his audience of the beetle, scratching in the earth:
"It can scratch up a pile that's a lot bigger than itself, but it's still only a pile of dirt. If it works hard, it makes a deep hole in the ground, but it's only a hole in dirt. If a buffalo drops a load of dung there, it will be bigger than the beetle's pile of earth, but it still isn't anything that reaches to the sky. It's all dirt. Worldly accomplishments are like this. No matter how hard the beetles work, they're just involved in dirt, making holes and piles"
Translating the colloquialisms must have been challenging, but, as you can see from the above, Paul Breiter has done a magnificent job capturing Ajahn Chah's voice, making "Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away" a wonderful volume for even those who may have been practicing the dharma for many years.
For those new to Buddhism, this would be an amusing and enlightening introduction, not only because of the colorful language but also for the way in which Ajahn Chah reduces the message of Buddhism to a few easy-to-grasp concepts. He seemed to like reminding his audience that Buddhism was not all that difficult to understand, and he did this through the message of impermanence. As he remarks in a teaching on meditation:
"The way I practice medication is not very complicated - just this. This is what it all comes down to: `It's uncertain'. Everything meets at this point."
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Teachings and Wonderful Stories..., April 12, 2006
This review is from: Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away: Teachings on Impermanence and the End of Suffering (Paperback)
Sometimes Buddhist teachings can seem inaccessable to Westerners, but this book is an exception. It contains tremendous insights into uncertainty and impermanence and solid teachings on dealing with the unsatisfactory aspects of life. It is not, however, just a book of dry teachings. There are lively stories and snapshots of monastery life that add an extra dimension to the book. I also enjoyed the softly humorous aspects of many of Ajahn Chah's teachings. This book is well-written and hard to put down. While perhaps not appropriate as an introductory text, I give it my unreserved recommendation for people with any background knowledge of Buddhism.
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