Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration: Uniting Body and Mind

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by explaining that practice consists of right mindfulness and right concentration. Right mindfulness aims to settle the mind together with the body — bringing mind and body together first. Once body and mind become one and settle firmly, we can enter the inner dimension — that is right concentration, which moves progressively into subtler and subtler inner layers. Each layer, each dimension, carries its own stains that try to keep us out. Without relying on the wholesome system, it's easy to slip back out of a dimension once entered. But relying on the wholesome system, we can not only remain within a dimension but actually clear its stains and be carried onward into a subtler one still.

The Drill and the Wood: Two Phases of Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension

This is the heart of today's teaching. He develops the drill image in careful detail: first, we bring the power drill to rest against the exact spot in the metal or wood we intend to bore, letting that position settle, balanced, before doing anything more. Only once it has settled evenly do we gradually press the drill forward into the wood.

He makes the mapping explicit: the drill bit itself corresponds to mindfulness. In the first moment, pressed against the wood but not yet entering it — that phase is right mindfulness. But once it has settled firmly, the drill bit begins to spin and bore into the wood or metal — that is clear comprehension. In other words: the phase of pressing and settling, not yet spinning, is mindfulness; the phase of actually spinning and boring into the wood or metal is clear comprehension.

He stresses that it is the same drill bit throughout, but with two different functions. Mindfulness recalls, is aware — it begins simply by knowing our own presence, then goes on to take orders: whenever we wish to recall something, mindfulness is the shortcut that brings it to mind. Recalling a meditation object, for instance, mindfulness fetches it from the storehouse of memory. Clear comprehension, by contrast, knows down into the fine detail. Mindfulness only knows the general topic — it cannot penetrate the detail. That detail is handed over to clear comprehension, whose task is to know it thoroughly, in full.

Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension: Dhammas of Great Support

He cites the Buddha's teaching that among the 84,000 sections of the Dhamma, these two — mindfulness and clear comprehension — are dhammas of great support, because they are what let us settle firmly and then descend into the fine content and detail of everything. To go deep into the detail of any dhamma requires exactly this pair working together.

Mindfulness is a mental factor belonging to the wholesome states, arising together with them. The moment the wholesome side seizes the seat of the mind, mindfulness arises immediately along with it — but it cannot yet reach the detail. Only when clear comprehension takes over can the detail be reached. Wisdom then takes the detailed information that clear comprehension has gathered and uses it to resolve problems — wisdom depends on mindfulness and clear comprehension as its foundation.

Delight and Aversion: The Bait That Imprisons Us in a Dimension

He cites the teaching on right mindfulness: monks should clearly know body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, in order to remove covetousness and grief regarding the world. He explains why removing delight and aversion matters so much: because delight and aversion are exactly the tools the unwholesome and the indeterminate use as bait, drawing us in to become trapped, imprisoned within their dimension, conditioned by a steady diet of content and information that keeps us unable to leave.

We can only be freed once the wholesome side manages to seize the seat of the mind and unlock us. While we think, speak, and act according to the unwholesome side's purpose, that side can draw the energy of sin into the center of a sphere of sin. Once that activity is complete, a completed template forms — sinful energy and misfortune sealed within the sphere of sin, stored away to bear its fruit at some point in the future.

Time Is Our Most Precious Resource — Don't Hand It to a System That Gives Nothing Back

He teaches that if we don't wish to remain imprisoned, we must cooperate with the wholesome side by continuously knowing. The moment we stop knowing, ignorance and blindness arise, leading us to see wrongly and know wrongly, and distress follows, and suffering and hardship follow after that.

He warns that if we are not within the wholesome system, we inevitably fall into some other system — if not the unwholesome system that destroys us, then the indeterminate system that simply burns through our precious time without producing either benefit or harm. Nothing is more valuable than time; time is limited, so we must recognize its worth and use it well. Only the wholesome system takes our resources and time and turns them into something of real value — toward happiness, success, and the fulfillment of everything good.

Keep Knowing, With a Relaxed and Easy Mind

He teaches that this continuous knowing exists to receive the stream of merit and its treasures pouring through the center of the sphere of knowing's brightness. Stay continuously aware without lapsing, knowing what we know, resting on the meditation object. Raising an object of attention is called vitakka; examining and dwelling on it continuously is called vicāra — continue this examination steadily, enjoyably, with a relaxed, easy mind, without rushing or forcing, because the only goal is simply to draw in pure energy.

The Triple Gem Shines at the Center of Our Being

As we sustain the sphere of knowing without lapsing, the Buddha Jewel, the Dhamma Jewel, and the Sangha Jewel appear shining clear at the center of our being, and we appear shining at their center. The Sangha Jewel is the one who upholds the Dhamma Jewel; the Buddha Jewel already oversees the whole system of nibbāna and wholesome states. They watch over our merit and our practice at all times. We, their students and disciples, remain always at their center — they hold us there, watching over, protecting, and caring for us. Both we and they appear shining at the center of nibbāna, among the countless noble ones, who also connect our stream of merit and fortune to us.

Dedicating Merit and Radiating Loving-Kindness

As the stream of merit flows through the center of our body and mind, he has us dedicate this merit to our ancestors — recalling our parents, siblings, grandparents, and teachers who have shown us kindness, along with the guardian spirits who protect and support us, and all beings — including our karmic counterparties — whom we may have wronged, asking for mutual forgiveness.

Having dedicated merit, he leads an aspiration of goodwill for the world and all beings, that all may be free from suffering and share happiness equally, then has us expand this loving-kindness-filled heart — covering our home, spreading across village, district, province, country, and finally the whole world, until it becomes a radiant crystal sphere, clean and pure, through loving-kindness's special power to dissolve resentment from the heart — and expanding further, across the countless stars and galaxies of the boundless cosmos.

Closing Aspiration

In closing, Phra Ajarn leads an aspiration for success to be established in us now and in all lives to come. May the merit and blessings of our teachers and our own accumulated goodness since beginningless time combine into sacred, potent merit. May we be freed from misfortune, karmic results, demonic obstruction, and obstacles of every kind; may greed, hatred, delusion, lust, ignorance, wrong view, craving, and clinging come to an end; may we gain the eye that sees the Dhamma and penetrate the knowledge of the Dhamma body; may we be strong in health and steadfast in spirit as we build perfections toward nibbāna. He closes by asking that old wrongdoing be forgiven, and that new merit bear fruit successfully for us all.