พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าเหตุใดพระสัมมาสัมพุทธเจ้าจึงสรรเสริญปฏิบัติบูชาว่ามีอานิสงส์มากกว่าอามิสบูชา เพราะปฏิบัติบูชานำใจเข้าสู่มิติภายในอันละเอียด ต่างจากอามิสบูชาที่ใจยังติดอยู่กับโลกภายนอก และชี้ว่าคนส่วนใหญ่ทำปฏิบัติบูชาน้อยเพราะอวิชชาปิดบังไม่ให้เข้าใจว่าความทุกข์ขณะปฏิบัติเกิดจากการชำระมลทินPra Ajarn explains why the Buddha praised practice-offering (paṭipatti-pūjā) as bringing greater merit than material-offering (āmisa-pūjā): practice-offering carries the mind into refined inner dimensions, while material-offering leaves the mind still bound to the outer world. He also explains why most people practice less than they give materially — ignorance conceals the fact that the discomfort felt during meditation is simply the process of clearing away defilement.
Someone asked Pra Ajarn to expand on a teaching by Luang Pu concerning two kinds of homage — material offering (āmisa-pūjā) and practice offering (paṭipatti-pūjā) — asking why practice offering carries greater merit, yet why most people still give materially far more than they practice.
Material Offering and Practice Offering
Luang Pu taught: āmisa-pūjā is homage paid through offerings of material goods; paṭipatti-pūjā is homage paid through practice. Of the two, the Buddha praised paṭipatti-pūjā as the better. Reflecting on the reasoning behind this teaching, it becomes clear that the Buddha wished for us to diligently practice and follow in his footsteps, rather than simply pay homage to him. His teaching bears fruit for anyone who practices it, at any time, without limit — as expressed in the word akāliko ("timeless") in the verses praising the . The noble disciples were, originally, ordinary human beings just like us; even the Buddha himself was not a deva or a brahma beforehand. It was through practice alone that they rose to the status of noble ones. The only question that remains is whether we ourselves will actually practice.
Why Practice Offering Bears Greater Fruit: An Example from the Pali Canon
Pra Ajarn illustrated this with an example from the Pali Canon, comparing the results of material offering with practice offering through cultivating for just the duration of a finger-snap. He explained that the merit from cultivating loving-kindness for even that brief moment exceeds the merit of offering material gifts laid out continuously for a full yojana (about sixteen kilometers) for seven days and seven nights. The reason is that cultivating loving-kindness means raising a wholesome quality directly within the mind. All 84,000 sections of wholesome are, in essence, spheres of light, and they can only be established in one place — the mind. When the sphere of loving-kindness is established, its light extends to benefit every particle of the elements of dhamma and all beings, with the very purpose of benefiting both ourselves and all beings, allowing system to settle within us — producing far greater results than giving while the mind remains fixed on the outer world.
Practice Offering Carries the Mind into More Refined Inner Dimensions
With material offering, the mind remains bound to the external world, to the sense of self and others — still outside, unable to enter the inner dimensions. Practice offering, by contrast, is a journey into the inner dimensions, level by level. The deeper one enters these inner dimensions, the purer and more refined the pure energy drawn in becomes, and the more refined and sacred the resulting qualities and become. Pra Ajarn gave an example: an ordinary layperson who offers a mountain of material gifts receives merit no larger than a fist; but a monk who has ordained, through the automatic pull of the 227 precepts into the inner dimensions, receives merit as vast as a mountain from an offering no larger than a fist — because the pure energy drawn in from a refined dimension differs so greatly. The five precepts draw one into the inner dimensions to a certain degree; the eight precepts draw one deeper still. The resulting merit differs according to how refined a dimension one reaches.
Why Most People Practice Less Than They Give Materially
Someone then asked: why do people who already understand this principle still practice so little, giving materially so much more instead? Pra Ajarn explained that this results from (avijjā). Since side cannot stop people from doing good outright, it works through another route: preventing beginning practitioners from experiencing calm. Each of us carries defilement that must first be cleared away — coarse defilement causes real torment, moderate defilement causes irritation, and even once we reach refined defilement, which feels open and empty, there is still no or brightness yet, because subtler defilement remains hidden beneath. Only by continuing to clear it away does true happiness and calm begin to form.
When practitioners don't understand that the discomfort arising during practice is simply this process of clearing defilement, they tend to give up before it bears fruit. Ignorance itself won't let this be known — it conceals and obscures the truth from awareness. The unwholesome side keeps whispering that sitting achieves nothing, while the neutral side urges giving up early. If the wholesome side's strength is weaker at that moment, it lacks the power to compel the practitioner to continue, and the practitioner mistakenly believes these discouraging thoughts are entirely their own, not realizing they are being incited from within. Without understanding that the difficulty felt during practice is actually an indicator of how much defilement is present, one doesn't realize that and continued clearing are needed, and so gives up too soon — losing the continuity within the wholesome system, and the long-term benefit to one's life. Buddhism, by contrast, teaches us to study the training in morality, concentration, and wisdom, so that we come to understand the truth of life and genuinely journey into the inner dimensions — the true path of clearing away defilement.