Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration: Training Awareness Both Eyes Open and Eyes Closed

Meditation practice has two parts: right mindfulness and right concentration. In the course of our lives, we need to train and cultivate mindfulness both with eyes closed and with eyes open, going about our daily activities.

Reminder Marks: Stickers at Doors, Mirrors, and Bathrooms

Phra Ajarn recommends placing marks here and there as reminders. Getting into the car, place a mark; opening a door, place a sticker on it — for the bathroom, the sink where we wash our face and check the mirror, the bedroom, the dressing room — all should carry marks reminding us to determine mindfulness. This is necessary, because seeing these symbols, we will try to abide with mindfulness, and mindfulness arises.

Even With Marks It Isn't Easy: Why Determined Knowing Requires Training

But we must recognize that sustaining mindfulness throughout the day is not easy at all — even having set up these marks, seeing the mark and intending to determine mindfulness, sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don't. It isn't simple. And this is with the marks in place; without any marks at all, it becomes even harder.

The Buddha's Teaching: Clearly Discern Body, Feeling, Mind, Dhamma to Remove Craving and Aversion

The Buddha taught the monastic Sangha: "Monks should clearly discern body, feeling, mind, and dhamma, in order to remove craving (abhijjhā) and aversion (domanassa) toward the world." Determined knowing requires being taught to determine, because knowing means knowing something specific — body, feeling, mind, dhamma — and it must be clear knowing. Clear knowing requires clear comprehension (sampajañña).

Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension: From Recollection to Detailed Knowing

Mindfulness (sati) is simply recollection — just recollecting or being aware, nothing more. Going into the detail, the content, or the specific state requires clear comprehension. Mindfulness alone is only recollection; it cannot go into detail. Going into detail requires clear comprehension, which is the continuation of awareness that follows mindfulness. Determining knowledge of body, feeling, mind, and dhamma therefore has a purpose — it is not purposeless. The purpose is freedom from liking and disliking in the world.

The True Goal: Equanimity, Freedom From Liking and Disliking

It is not that we determine right mindfulness and right concentration and then still feel pleased or displeased by the results of our practice — happy when today's sitting goes well, sad when it doesn't. That is not the true goal. Because whenever we like or dislike something, we become captive — held in the dimension of the unwholesome or the neutral, which uses our liking and disliking as its tool.

The Danger of Liking and Disliking: Luang Pu's Warning

Luang Pu once warned that being pleased or displeased is truly dangerous — it could even lead someone to poison another person, or to kill, because it is precisely liking and disliking being used as the instrument. We must therefore understand the true purpose of cultivating right mindfulness and right concentration: to remove craving and aversion toward the world completely — to remove liking and disliking of the world completely — and let the mind rest in equanimity. When things go well, stay still and calm; when they don't, stay still and calm all the same. Being pleased by a good experience makes the mind ripple; being upset by poor practice makes the mind ripple too. Simply determine to know, always without lapsing — whenever any liking or disliking arises, know that we know it, and abide in equanimity, free of liking and disliking.

The Sphere of Knowing Arises, Ignorance Falls: The Pure Energy That Purifies Defilement

Know always without lapsing, staying with the clear signal of the meditation object we have well chosen, so the sphere of knowing has something to grip and rest on. As we determine our knowing this way, the sphere of knowing draws in the pure energy called merit, flowing in along the brightness of the sphere of knowing for as long as we sustain our determined knowing. Once knowing arises, the sphere of not-knowing — ignorance — falls away, and this pure merit-element comes to purify the defilement that creates problems and obstacles. Our role is simply to determine our knowing so that the sphere of knowing arises, causing ignorance — the sphere of not-knowing — to fall away. We ourselves are not the ones who purify defilement; we are only the ones who determine our knowing so that the sphere of knowing draws in pure energy. The problems and obstacles that result from defilement bring hardship and suffering, whether in study, work, daily living, economics, or society. When we cultivate wholesome causes, the stream of merit naturally arises for as long as the wholesome mind remains established.

The Stream of Merit and Dedicating Merit to Our Ancestors

The sphere of merit, the sphere of pure power that the sphere of knowing draws inward, contains a sacred and pure dhamma-element with power and majesty, able to dissolve every sorrow, illness, and calamity, along with every hardship and suffering. Within the sphere of merit also lie form-assets, wealth-assets, virtue-assets, retinue-assets, gain, honor, praise, happiness, the path and fruit of Nibbāna, and the knowledge of the body — all fully present within the sphere. When merit flows through us, subtle assets flow through us as well, and we use this to dedicate merit to our ancestors — parents, siblings, grandparents, the 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

Having made this wish, we extend the heart, filled with loving-kindness, to encompass our home. The mind is a field of accomplishment — however we determine it, so it becomes; determine it wide, it becomes wide; determine it narrow, it becomes narrow. Mettā, which arises from the mind as its birthplace, shines according to however far the mind extends, through the special quality of mettā that dissolves resentment in the hearts of the world and all beings until it fades away completely. We extend it further, across neighboring villages, sub-districts, districts, provinces, throughout Thailand and neighboring countries, until it embraces the whole world, making it a crystal world, bright, cool, clean, and pure. May all beings — earth-dwelling devas, tree devas, sky devas, celestial beings of every heaven, the brahma and formless-brahma realms, together with hell-beings, hungry ghosts, and animals — be free from suffering and find happiness together. We extend it still further, 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 Triple Gem — the Buddha jewel, the Dhamma jewel, the Sangha jewel — which shines bright within us, in the center of the great teachers who watch over our merit and Dhamma at all times, 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 to clarity and purity. They also connect us to a lineage of merit and fortune. Using this auspicious moment, we make an aspiration, setting a blueprint for success now and in every life to come, for knowledge, happiness, and purity, and for the fulfillment of every righteous wish, closing with a Pali chant of dedication.