Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration: A Life That Can Never Be Free of a System

Meditation practice has two parts: right mindfulness and right concentration, both essential and vital to our lives, because our life must always abide within some system — it can never be free of the support of a natural system. Nature's systems are three: the wholesome (kusala), the unwholesome (akusala), and the neutral (abyākata).

The Aim of Each of the Three Systems

Each system's aim is distinct. The wholesome gives happiness, removes suffering, nurtures wellbeing, and raises the quality of our life. The unwholesome aims to destroy our life utterly, to bring us hardship, causing harm at every turn. The neutral system aims only to waste our time — creating neither benefit nor harm, simply squandering our time to no purpose.

Choosing a Side, Then Aligning With It: Bringing the Mind to the Body

We must choose the side of the wholesome system to abide with. Having chosen, we must then bring our actions into alignment with it. To do this, the Buddha, upon his arising, pointed directly to determined knowledge of body, feeling, mind, and dhamma — or, in the simple language our teacher uses, bringing the mind to rest with the body, fusing mind with body. When mind abides with body, the stream of merit arises through determined, unlapsing knowing — something that must be trained, since we are not accustomed to it, having never practiced it since childhood, with no one to point out that we need to know always without lapsing: knowing what we know, being aware of our own body, of the breath, of the movement of hand and foot, aware in every posture, or abiding with the recitation "sammā-arahaṃ" together with the Buddha image. We must choose one meditation object to train with, so that knowing has something to hold onto.

Mindfulness and the Sub-Second Speed of the Contest for Control

Determined knowing has two components: mindfulness (sati) and clear comprehension (sampajañña). Mindfulness arises when the wholesome dhamma becomes ruler of the heart, arising together with the wholesome mind. Whenever the wholesome side manages to seize the moment, we become aware; but whenever the unwholesome or neutral side seizes it instead, mindfulness cannot arise. Mindfulness therefore appears only in stretches — yet because the speed of this contest for control operates at the sub-second level, it feels to us as though we are continuously aware. In reality, between one stretch and the next, gaps are filled by the unwholesome or the neutral at a level of fineness too subtle for us to notice. We only become aware of it when we catch ourselves having forgotten — because in that moment, the unwholesome or the neutral had seized more control, so that awareness at that instant never registered, leaving no trace in memory. Since our initial mindfulness only exists because the wholesome side manages to seize the moment, we must train to sustain and extend it — otherwise we simply drift along however fate carries us. We must take an active part in extending mindfulness's continuity, until clear comprehension can perceive the fine details of the dimension, allowing us to enter ever subtler dimensions.

Businesses, Organizations, and Families: Prosperity or Decline by Whichever System Rules

As we determine our knowing, the sphere of knowing arises and the sphere of not-knowing — ignorance — falls away. This sphere of knowing draws in pure energy to purify the defilement that prevents us from settling. Defilement is what creates problems and obstacles in the many forms of the hindrances. These defilements arise from wrong views, arising when the unwholesome system possesses the mind and draws in energy that is sinful and calamitous. Whenever the wholesome system manages to seize and occupy the heart as ruler, it establishes wholesomeness — that is, mindfulness — and this very sphere of knowing draws in pure energy together with subtle assets and a blueprint for success. But whenever the unwholesome possesses the mind, it draws in defilement together with calamity instead. What our future life will be depends entirely on which system we abide with — whether in business and commerce or within each family's way of living. If we abide with the wholesome system, life naturally flourishes; the same is true of business. If any company or firm abides in the right system, that business or organization naturally prospers — this is simply the normal course of things. But if it abides in the wrong system, decline sets in, deterioration sets in — whether that wrong system is the unwholesome or the neutral. The unwholesome system directly destroys the prosperity of an organization or a life; the neutral system, likewise, brings no growth. But abiding in the wholesome system — the good system — naturally brings prosperity.

Determined Knowing Is Abiding With the Wholesome System

Determined knowing is abiding with the wholesome system. We determine our knowing so that the sphere of knowing — the sphere of mindfulness — arises; we become aware of our own body; whatever we intend to do, mindfulness recalls it, retrieving the needed information from memory instantly. Knowing always without lapsing, knowing what we know — the sphere of knowing then draws in the pure energy called merit to flow in continuously, directing us to keep knowing, moment after moment, sustaining this state at ease.

The Stream of Merit and Dedicating Merit to Our Ancestors

As we determine the sphere of knowing in this way, it draws in the pure energy called merit continuously, and we use this time to dedicate merit to our ancestors — parents, siblings, grandparents, and the teachers who have helped us, the guardian devas who protect and assist 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

Having made this wish, we extend the heart, filled with loving-kindness, to encompass our home and surroundings. Wherever the mind extends, the light of mettā — which arises from the mind as its birthplace — shines there too, dissolving resentment (paṭigha) both in our own heart and in the hearts of others. We extend it further, across the village, the sub-district, the district, the province, throughout Thailand and neighboring countries, until it embraces the whole world, making this world a crystal world, bright and pure. May all beings — the earth-dwelling devas, tree devas, sky devas, celestial beings of every heaven, the brahma and formless-brahma realms, together with the denizens of hell, the hungry ghosts, and the animal realm — be free from suffering and find happiness together. We then extend this mettā further still, out into the vastness of the universe, embracing countless stars throughout the ten thousand world-systems and the infinite cosmos, without limit.

Resting in the Triple Gem and the Closing Aspiration

We rest the mind, still, in the center of 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 in the subtlest body-center of our teachers, resting in the center of Nibbāna, in the center of every Buddha, every Paccekabuddha, and every Arahant. They take our seeing, remembering, thinking, knowing, and our earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements, and refine them, so that our dhamma-sphere grows ever more clear and pure. Using this auspicious moment, we make an aspiration, setting a blueprint for success to arise for us now and in every life to come, along our entire path of building perfections — for happiness, success, and fulfillment of every righteous wish, for knowledge and purity, abiding always with what is right and good — closing with a Pali chant of dedication.