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Buddhism is a training program to be prepared to reach the shore of Nibbana when meeting death. The arhat's mind is empty and reaches liberation when thrown into the maelstorm of death.

The bodhissatva decides to return for some more waves, like someone in this forum once said.

I keep struggling to find liberation through a complete experience of selflessness. Nothing to struggle really, it is simply not the moment due to conditions...
I know Zen teaches me to avoid goals or advances, but here I see a very strong difference. I remember Dogen speaking of two kinds of beings: ordinary and enlightened. Theravada approaches this in a similar way, perhaps insisting on the effort and admirableness of even coping with the most basic adherence, meaning to precepts, scripture, and daily practice.

So like in muay thai, they make our shins (body and mind) strong for our ultimate test.

May all beings obtain wisdom!

I’ve embarked on a re-reading of The Complete Teachings of Ajahn Chah which made a great impression on me when I first read it and I wanted to share with you selected passages from the book. Instead of dropping them all in the ‘Buddhist Quotes’ topic I thought I’d make a new topic for it, so that we can discuss the pieces if people feel the need.

The complete book can be downloaded here…
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/chah/the_teachings_of_ajahn_chah_web.pdf

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This practice requires endurance. Some people, when they come to practise, don’t want to be bothered by anything, they don’t want friction. But there’s friction the same as before. We must try to find an end to friction through friction itself.
So, if there’s friction in your practice, then it’s right. If there’s no friction it’s not right, you just eat and sleep as much as you want. When you want to go anywhere or say anything, you just follow your desires. The teaching of the Buddha grates. The supermundane goes against the worldly. Right view opposes wrong view, purity opposes impurity. The teaching grates against our desires.

These days, in the same way, the Buddha’s teaching is contrary to our hearts. People want to indulge in greed and hatred but the Buddha won’t let them. They want to be deluded but the Buddha destroys delusion. So the mind of the Buddha is contrary to that of worldly beings. The world calls the body beautiful, he says it’s not beautiful. They say the body belongs to us, he says not so. They say it’s substantial, he says it’s not. Right view is above the world. Worldly beings merely follow the flow of the stream.

These days, those of us who still have doubts about the practice hear these things and say, “Oh, how can I do that?” Sometimes we feel happy, sometimes troubled, pleased or displeased. For what reason? Because we don’t know Dhamma. What Dhamma? Just the Dhamma of nature, the reality around us, the body and the mind.

So there is truth in this world. Trees, mountains and vines all live according to their own truth, they are born and die following their nature. It’s just we people who aren’t true. We see it and make a fuss over it, but nature is impassive, it just is as it is. We laugh, we cry, we kill, but nature remains in truth, it is truth. No matter how happy or sad we are, this body just follows its own nature. It’s born, it grows up and ages, changing and getting older all the time. It follows nature in this way. Whoever takes the body to be himself and carries it around with him will suffer.