พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าฝ่ายอัพยากตะก็มีธรรมของตนเองเช่นกัน คอยตรึงให้มนุษย์วนเวียนอยู่กับงาน การพักผ่อน และสังคมโดยไม่รู้ตัว พร้อมอธิบายเรื่องบุญศักดิ์สิทธิ์กับบาปศักดิ์สิทธิ์ และธรรมที่ทำให้องค์กรเจริญรุ่งเรืองอย่างยั่งยืนผ่านการตั้งตนชอบและความเอื้อเฟื้อเผื่อแผ่Pra Ajarn explains that the neutral (avyākata) nature has its own body of teaching too, quietly keeping people absorbed in work, leisure, and social life without their noticing. He also explains 'sacred merit' and 'sacred sin,' and the qualities that make an organization prosper sustainably — integrity and genuine generosity toward others.
Someone asked: and unwholesome sides each have their own form of 'sacred merit' and 'sacred sin' — does the neutral (avyākata) nature have its own body of teaching too, one that keeps people tied down to earning a living and wastes a whole lifetime? And is this connected to still being weak?
The Neutral Nature Has Its Own Body of Teaching
Pra Ajarn explained that each of the three natures possesses its own full 84,000 units of teaching. The neutral nature's teaching has just one aim: to keep us from doing either good or bad. For instance, when we're about to meditate, it suggests going for a walk instead would be nicer; once we've sat a while, it suggests taking a break. Those whom the wholesome side manages to keep in sustained effort are relatively few, and even then only to a limited degree. Conversely, side can only keep a person enduring suffering for so long, since no one likes suffering — so the neutral nature simply invites relaxation, leading us off to enjoy ourselves comfortably. This is what the Buddha meant by : it keeps humans cycling through work, rest, and socializing, all of which look like life's genuine necessities. Since everyone forgets everything upon being reborn as a human after another realm, the neutral nature dominates and shapes most people; only a small portion falls fully under the wholesome or unwholesome side's control.
What Is 'Sacred Merit' and 'Sacred Sin'?
A further question referenced someone whose family faced a financial crisis so severe it destroyed their faith in merit, leading them into every kind of wrongdoing until they grew wealthy — only to go bankrupt again later and eventually ordain. Was this connected to 'sacred sin'? Pra Ajarn explained that the more refined the level at which good or bad is done, the more pure — and thus more 'sacred' — it becomes. Sacred sin means sinking ever deeper into darker levels; the darker the mind becomes, the more forceful and effortless its unwholesome results become, to the point that even the wholesome or neutral side cannot intervene. Even so, there remains a limit tied to the duration of that completed unwholesome cycle — once it runs out, it can no longer act. Sacred merit works the same way: the more refined the inner level one reaches, the more easily and powerfully a resolve of the mind succeeds. Ordaining as a monk or novice is itself a move into a more refined dimension than lay life — as Luang Phor once said, a layperson's merit the size of a mountain yields a result the size of a fist, while a monk's merit the size of a fist yields a result the size of a mountain.
What Makes an Organization Prosper Sustainably
Another question compared two long-standing overseas companies, neither ever taken over across many decades. The first held strict integrity as its very first value; the other had, for almost a hundred years, continually donated wealth to help society. Pra Ajarn explained that 'right establishment of self' — integrity — is what allows the wholesome system to take hold of and claim an organization, letting the wholesome side continually guide and correct it. Anyone who enters such a values-driven system while under unwholesome influence simply cannot stay comfortable there. For the company built on generosity, continually donating wealth to people outside the organization earns it the right to serve as a channel through which the wholesome side's backing distributes wealth to help people more broadly. Both approaches are necessary together: right establishment of self to generate a wholesome wave, and genuine sharing with others so that wealth keeps circulating to create further benefit.