There are a number of themes that are very familiar to people who practise Buddhist meditation: ‘mindfulness of breathing’, where you focus on the rhythm of the breath; ‘walking meditation’, that revolves around the feeling of the footsteps as you walk up and down a path; the internal repetition of a mantra, such as ‘Bud-dho’ – these are all designed to help ground the attention in the presence of this very moment, this present reality.

Along with these more well-known methods there are many others that can serve a similar function. One of these is known as ‘inner listening’ or ‘meditation on the inner sound’ or, in Sanskrit, ‘nada yoga’. These terms all refer to attending to what has been called ‘the sound of silence’, or ‘the nada-sound’. ‘Nada’ is the Sanskrit word for ‘sound’ as well as being the Spanish word for ‘nothing’ – an interesting and accidentally meaningful coincidence.

Within this little booklet are teachings on the nature of the mind and the world given by Luang Por Liem Thitadhammo. During a visit to Sri Lanka in March, 2013, Luang Por had this Dhamma discussion with the resident monastic community at Na Uyana Forest Monastery. The sincere interest in practising Dhamma and developing meditation led to practical and profound teachings on training the mind and understanding the world:

“….The guests that come to the monastery are only visitors, just like these visiting mental states that arise in our minds. Some make us laugh, some we delight in, while others bring up aversion and disappointment. When we see them from non-delusion, then we see it all as maya — as illusion and trickery, a system of deceiving….Know how to abandon the world. Know how to put it down.”

Luang Por explains that what we understand as the world is a misunderstanding. As a consequence of delusion we are overwhelmed with craving and attachment. Attaching to mental states and mind objects as ‘me’ and ‘mine’ makes us a victim of delight and aversion. This illusion of ‘self ’ and ‘belonging to self ’ arises from feeling and craving:

“….what we call the ‘Eight Wordly Dhammas’ arise from our sense of self-importance. Delight is a lokadhamma — this is sukha, or what we call happiness. Aversion is a lokadhamma, it’s dukkha — we don’t like it and we’re unhappy. See these lokadhammas as simply nature — things come, things go. The guests come and they go — it’s not their residence. For what do we go delighting and getting angry about?….‘Rupa, vedana, sañña, sankhara and viññana — having arisen they cease’. Seen in this way, everything is empty.”

It is hoped that by reading this teaching the reader will gain a clear view of the complete path of meditation practice, and understand that solely contemplating the mind is not sufficient to free it from the mental defilements. The assumption that the mental defilements arise within the mind, and so must be dealt with solely by contemplating the mind, is true but not altogether correct. It is true that mental defilements do arise within the mind and so must be let go of within the mind, but it is not correct to believe that one can start the work of cleansing the mind at this point. This practice, as Ajahn Dtun clearly shows, is for those already highly advanced on the path to liberation, as they push forward to reach the final stage of enlightenment.

The title of this book refers to the image of the Buddha’s teaching, the Wheel of Truth (or Dhamma). It is a wheel that he set rolling in his first discourse by proclaiming the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path of practice. This teaching remains as the axis of Ajahn Sumedho’s teaching and personal contemplative work. This particular collection of his Dhamma talks and dialogues is composed of material that has appeared in various newsletters and magazines before; it derives from different periods in Ajahn Sumedho’s teaching career, but it has been gathered into three parts to address overarching themes.