Right Mindfulness, the Foundation Before Right Concentration

Practice begins with right mindfulness before moving to right concentration. Right mindfulness is the act of determined knowing, sustained through mindfulness and clear comprehension. Mindfulness is recollection — the instant a wholesome mind manages to seize the moment, recollection appears. When the wholesome mind becomes master of the house of our heart, mindfulness arises immediately. Once we have mindfulness, we can direct it toward whatever we wish to know — body-awareness, or the breath: in, we know; out, we know; short, we know; long, we know — staying aware, never lapsing.

The Meditation Object Must Be Clear and Continuous

Whatever meditation object we choose must be clear and continuous, suited to us. If the signal is unclear, patchy, we should switch to a more suitable one, so as to draw in pure energy. This pure energy purifies defilement — the very thing that creates problems and obstacles. The difficulty of practice depends entirely on this defilement: more defilement, more problems; less defilement, fewer problems. We therefore need to learn to purify defilement as thoroughly as possible — no small task — through the threefold training of precepts (sīla), concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā).

The Five Precepts: Protection From the Unwholesome System

The precept-training can protect, guard, and shelter us, freeing us from coarse defilement and carrying us toward subtler dimensions. Precepts help resolve the basic problems caused by defilement. A wholesome system arises simply from our abiding in precepts, and precepts we have properly undertaken draw in the pure energy called merit, flowing in through the center of our inner brightness. This pure energy purifies coarse defilement and leads us toward subtler dimensions. If we undertake the **Five Precepts**, they protect, guard, and shelter us from the **unwholesome system**.

The Eight Precepts: Protection From Both the Unwholesome and the Neutral System

If we wish to enter a subtler level of dimension, we must undertake the **Eight Precepts**, which protect us from both the **unwholesome system and the abyākata (neutral, indeterminate) system** — the current that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome but simply purposeless. Phra Ajarn explains that even though this neutral current doesn't create defilement the way unwholesome states do, it still leads us to waste our life on trivial, meaningless things, letting each day drain away. Even if we create no defilement in daily life, we destroy the precious time that the wholesome side could otherwise put to use. Our life ends up wasted — time, our most valuable asset, worn away day after day until we grow old.

The 227 Precepts: Protection at an Even Subtler Level

The monastic **227 precepts** protect us at a subtler level still, allowing us to abide continuously within the wholesome system in an even deeper way. Phra Ajarn points out that the more refined the precept-level, the more it shelters us and opens access to a correspondingly more refined inner dimension. While meditation practice itself can free us from coarse- and medium-level defilement, at the subtle level we need concentration training (samādhi-sikkhā) to refine the mind and dissolve defilement in each successive dimension, so we can advance to ever subtler dimensions.

Concentration Training: From Right Mindfulness to Right Concentration

Entering subtler dimensions requires concentration training, which has right mindfulness as its foundation. Once we can establish right concentration, we can proceed through subtler dimensions step by step. This is not actually difficult — it only requires us to abide with any single mental state or meditation object for even a moment; the sphere of knowing will then draw in pure energy that steadily purifies defilement on its own. All we need to do is maintain that determined knowing.

The Condition of Time: The Longer We Sit, the Subtler It Becomes

Reaching subtler dimensions depends on the condition of continuous practice time. Someone who sits in continuous meditation for five minutes cannot compare to someone who sits for ten. The longer we sit, the more refinement is brought forth. This refinement of mind is the very dimension we are entering — even if we cannot yet see that dimension, we can still perceive the growing subtlety of the mind. The more time we devote to practice, the more the drawn-in pure energy can purify defilement in each dimension, carrying us to progressively subtler dimensions.

Connecting to the One Who Knows Through Wisdom Training

The deeper the dimension we can enter, the more we can connect with the inner "one who knows, one who has power." Connecting through the sphere of knowing brings us into wisdom training (paññā-sikkhā). Though wisdom training begins with knowledge gained by memorization, it develops into understanding that can resolve problems, and finally into meditative wisdom that connects our knowledge with the inner knower, allowing us to reach the deepest, most subtle truths. The inner knower transmits that deep knowledge into our heart — which requires us to keep the mind refined and still in order to connect with that source.

Zeal (Chanda): Steadily Tending the Meditation Object

Once the mind settles, mindfulness sustained, awareness unbroken, the hindrances grow lighter, and we can enter the inner dimension, perceiving its states. Attending and reflecting continuously on that state, we eventually reach a point where the mind can stop — even briefly at first — and with practice this stillness lengthens. Staying with that stillness, at ease, is our role: to sustain zeal (chanda), to attend and to tend, keeping the sphere of knowing anchored to a clear and continuous meditation object.

The Stream of Merit and Dedicating Merit to Our Ancestors

As we sustain this knowing, whether arising from calm or from insight, a continuous stream of merit flows in. We use this moment to dedicate merit to our ancestors — parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers who have helped us, the guardian devas who protect us, and all beings we may have wronged, our karmic counterparts (คู่กรรมคู่เวร) — asking for mutual forgiveness, that they too receive a share of this merit.

Radiating Loving-Kindness to All Beings and the Universe

Phra Ajarn then leads the arising of loving-kindness (mettā), wishing that all beings who share this same suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death be free from suffering and find happiness together. He extends this loving mind outward to fill the home, then the village, the sub-district, the district, the province, the country, and finally the whole world and the entire universe, embracing countless stars and galaxies without limit. This special quality of mettā dissolves resentment (paṭigha) both in our own heart and in the hearts of all beings.

Resting in the Triple Gem and the Closing Aspiration

Phra Ajarn leads the mind to rest, still, in the center of the Triple Gem — the Buddha jewel, the Dhamma jewel, the Sangha jewel — and in the center of the great teachers who watch over our merit and Dhamma at all times, resting finally in the center of Nibbāna. The stream of merit from the deepest part of Nibbāna flows in to purify every sphere and body within us. Using this auspicious moment, he leads an aspiration for a life of happiness, success, and fulfillment in all that is right and good — knowledge, happiness, and purity together — closing with a Pali chant of dedication.