Mai nae & Por dee

 Mai nae

In the last five or six years of his teaching career, most of Luang Por’s Dhamma talks were recorded on audio cassette. In this collection of talks, now stored digitally, Luang Por deals with a wide variety of themes, amongst which one frequently repeated teaching stands out – that of ‘mai nae’. The phrase ‘mai nae’ translates most readily as ‘unsure’, ‘uncertain’, ‘changeful’ or ‘indefinite’[14] and is an everyday term that all of Luang Por’s audience would have immediately understood. A farmer, for example, asked in the planting season whether he expected to get a good harvest that year, would most probably reply, ‘Mai nae. If we get enough rain, it should be all right.’ The phrase ‘mai nae’ here, is a simple recognition that things are affected by many variable conditions (e.g. how much rain falls) and are thus never completely predictable.

Luang Por taught his disciples to practise the perception of ‘mai nae’ as a means of cultivating the wisdom faculty. By constantly reminding themselves that both internal and external phenomena were ‘mai nae’, they developed aniccasaññā (the perception of impermanence), and with practice, the associated perception of dukkha (the inherently flawed, ultimately unsatisfactory nature of experience) and anattā (the conditioned, selfless nature of experience). These perceptions of the ‘three characteristics of existence’ created a pathway for vipassanā, the deep, wordless insight that uproots defilements and leads to the end of suffering.

The practise of ‘mai nae’ achieves its power from directly confronting the ingrained tendency of unawakened beings to invest experience with the appearance of solidity. This sense that the things within and without us are real and substantial is founded upon unexamined assumptions. The perception of changefulness became the tool Luang Por most often recommended to challenge those assumptions. Luang Por chose to use the phrase ‘mai nae’ in preference to the more traditional ‘aniccaṃ’ or ‘impermanent’, to bring a fresh slant on wisdom development. For his disciples, ‘mai nae’ was a familiar, approachable idea, deeply embedded in the culture. It demystified Dhamma practice and made it seem immediately practical.

The specific emphasis of the ‘mai nae’ practice may be examined by comparing it to the comparable phrase ‘this too will pass’. Whereas ‘this too will pass’ reminds us of a future beyond the present experience and so puts it into perspective, ‘mai nae’ points to the nature of the present phenomena itself.

In daily life, Luang Por taught that the ‘mai nae’ reflection was particularly effective in dealing with attachment to ideas and views. In this context, the word might be better translated as ‘maybe not’. Whenever the mind was about to draw a conclusion or jump to one, when it was about to make a judgement about something, he taught the meditator to recall, ‘maybe not’. Maybe that’s not how it is, maybe that’s not how it happened, maybe that’s not what he or she is really like. Whenever the sense of certainty arose, meditators were to temper it with a gentle ‘maybe not’. Even if they were convinced, they were still to reserve a small space in their mind for the possibility of being wrong: ‘Yes, but maybe – just maybe – not.’ In this way the mind was to become more careful and nuanced in its attitudes.

Luang Por gave this practice the greatest importance: ‘Mai nae is the Buddha himself’, he would say, ‘It is the Dhamma.’ He taught the recollection of ‘mai nae’ both as a means of re-educating a person’s attitude to their life, and also as a specific technique in meditation. As hindrances arose in the course of a sitting, he would encourage the meditator to recognize the hindrance as ‘mai nae’, or ‘changeful’ before returning to the breath. As the mind became more subtle, this accumulated perception of ‘mai nae’ – that whatever arises does not endure – is an exercise of the wisdom faculty that ensures that the mind does not fall into the trap of attaching to joy or to stillness, and is primed to develop vipassanā.

When you see impermanence clearly, you become a true monk. Seeing the impermanence, the instability of form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness, the mind does not attach to the five aggregates.

It doesn’t matter what it is – even if something happens that upsets you so much that tears are forming in your eyes – remind yourself, ‘This is mai nae.’ Always bear this in mind, with your sati, with your alertness. Whether you feel satisfied, dissatisfied, think this is good, this is bad – see it all as ‘mai nae’ and you can release the attachment. When you see things as ultimately without value, the letting go occurs automatically. ‘Mai nae’ is the object of vipassanā.

When something arises, call it ‘mai nae’. Don’t forget this word. Don’t let it drop. The Buddha taught us not to grasp on to the good or the bad. Whatever arises, pool your resources in this word. It is the source of wisdom, and the object of vipassanā. Make it your constant focus of attention; it will take you beyond doubt … ‘mai nae’ is a tool to uproot attachment to experience. It will enable you to see the Dhamma clearly.

One of the means by which Luang Por sought to inculcate the principle of ‘mai nae’ in his disciples’ minds was by maintaining an element of unpredictability in their daily lives. Changes would be introduced to the monastic schedule without prior warning and with no indication of how long they would last. A monk preparing for the annual Rains Retreat at Wat Pah Pong might be told a day or two before it began that he would be doing the retreat elsewhere, that he should gather his things together, clean up his kuti, and be ready to leave within the hour for a monastery hundreds of kilometres away. It was a style that kept monks on their toes, and it enabled Luang Por to create a singular atmosphere in his monastery, one in which the calming effects of simplicity and repetition were enlivened by a sense that nothing could be taken for granted. Ajahn Jun remembered how plans could change in a single moment:

“He’d say to me, ‘Get your bowl and robes. We’re going to such and such a place.’ By the time I got back again with my things he’d say, ‘Change of plan.’ This happened so often that I got a real feeling for ‘mai nae’ … Afterwards, I came to understand it to mean dividing things up 50/50, maybe/maybe not. I adopted it as my guiding principle in practice.”

Por dee

‘Por dee’ was another common everyday word that Luang Por’s disciples got to hear a great deal. ‘Por dee’ means ‘just-right’, or ‘just the right amount’. It refers to the optimum amount, neither too much nor too little. If a robe fits well, neither too long nor too short, then it is por dee. For some people, a sitting meditation period of thirty minutes might be por dee; for others, por dee might be an hour or more.

‘Por dee’ was the term that Luang Por used when he wanted to talk about the Middle Way more informally. He said that the ability to tune into the por dee mode for any activity is at the very heart of Dhamma practice. He would often tell the story of Ven. Soṇa who was taught by the Buddha to practice meditation in the same way he had formally played the lute, with strings neither too taut nor too loose[15].

Luang Por taught his disciples to develop a sensitivity to what was por dee in every area of their lives. At the meal time, awareness of por dee meant taking just enough food to fill the stomach, but not so much as to overeat and cause drowsiness or laziness. Por dee in sleeping meant taking enough rest to refresh the body, but not so much as to be indulgent. Everything had to be ‘not too fast, not too slow, not too tight, not too loose.’ He cautioned against the understanding that upholding por dee as a standard implied a bland moderation in all things. Por dee was to be gauged by the extent to which an action was conducive to the solving of a problem or the attainment of a goal. At certain times and places, a practice might seem to be extreme in the short term, but with regard to overall progress, it might, in fact, be por dee. In any endeavour, por dee represented the optimum, the most efficient strategy.

But how was a monk to know when his practice was por dee? Luang Por would answer this question with a simile:

It is as if you want to row a boat straight across a swiftly flowing river. You don’t aim your boat in a straight line. You aim slightly upstream, allowing for the strength of the current to carry you a little downstream, and so, consequently, straight across. In the same way, it is wisest to pitch your practice at a slightly more demanding level than you believe to be ‘por dee’ and allow for the strength of defilement to carry you down to the correct level.

I teach you to eat little, sleep little, talk little – everything has to be little! But is that por dee? Actually, it’s not; it hasn’t reached that even consistency, but I teach it to enable you to recognize por dee, just-rightness, to see what is appropriate for you … Rushing too much is not right. Know how to balance different interests until you find the right amount. If there’s too little, then add to it. If there’s too much, then take some away. This is right practice, or por dee.

In the Suttas, the Buddha teaches the Middle Way that avoids the two extremes of sensual indulgence and empty asceticism. Luang Por liked to expand the meaning of these two extremes to include like and dislike, pleasure and pain. By doing so, he sought to make clear that the teaching was not so much about a general approach to spiritual development, as a moment-by-moment stance towards mental states:

‘Just-rightness’ means not being drawn into either of the two extremes:

Kāmasukhallikānuyoga: being lost in pleasure and comfort and happiness; indulging in thoughts of being good, excellent, sublime;

Attakilamathānuyoga: aversion, suffering, dislike, anger.

These two extremes are not paths that a monastic should follow … The monastic sees those paths, but he doesn’t follow them, he doesn’t attach to them. In order to attain peace, he lets go of them, he abandons them.

The ability to maintain practice on this optimum por dee level was dependent on the wisdom faculty, and the perception of changefulness.

The practice becomes por dee when you recognize the impermanence of every mental state that arises and tell your mind that it’s ‘mai nae’. Patiently endure right there. Don’t move onwards from that knowing and don’t retreat from it. Persist at that point, and before long you will come to the truth.

Leaders of communities were also to constantly refer to the sense of por dee, whether in implementing monastic regulations or determining a daily schedule. In this context, por dee was to be acknowledged as a temporary balance that would need to be regularly re-calibrated, rather than a standard that once achieved could be sustained long-term. After an initial flurry of enthusiasm, there would be a slow but inexorable slipping of standards until an admonitory discourse from Luang Por would re-establish the standard. Recognizing this pattern, Luang Por would start each new cycle on the strict side of por dee, as a way of retarding the process. Once, when a monk complained that the standard that Luang Por had set was too strict and tight, Luang Por replied:

Tight is good. Before long it will ease off by itself.

Stillness Flowing The Life and Teaching of Ajhan Chah