พระอาจารย์ขยายความคำสอนของหลวงปู่ว่าจิตเดิมแท้ใสยิ่งกว่าน้ำใส แต่เมื่อฝ่ายอกุศลชิงช่วงเป็นเจ้าเรือน จะนำจิตอันเป็นราคะ โทสะ หรือโมหะมาซ้อนบังคับความคิดคำพูดการกระทำ ศีลจึงเป็นเกราะสำคัญที่คอยยับยั้งไม่ให้จิตซ้อนนั้นบังคับเราได้สำเร็จThe teacher expands on Luang Pu's teaching that the mind's original nature is clearer than water, but when the unwholesome side takes hold, it overlays a mind conditioned by lust, aversion, or delusion, forcing our thoughts, words, and actions. Morality stands as the crucial guard preventing that overlaid mind from succeeding.
Someone asked the teacher to expand on Luang Pu's teaching: that the mind is a clear sphere, the size of the black of the eye, even clearer than usual — called the ṅga- — clear as water. When the mind is conditioned by lust, it is like water tinged red; conditioned by aversion, like water mixed with green or black dye; conditioned by delusion, like water stirred with mud.
Mind and Mental Factors: The Two Essential Things in Life
The teacher explained that life comes down to only two essential things: and s (). The mind is what knows clearly, shaping our thoughts, while mental factors relate to feeling. Right now, as we practice , our realm is the realm of dhamma, so the clear mind knows clearly the dhamma we are discussing. But at every moment, the three underlying natures compete to take hold of the mind. When side succeeds, it overlays the clear mind with a mind conditioned by lust, aversion, delusion, or , according to whatever the situation involves, changing our thoughts to match whichever mind has been overlaid — much like a manager or director stepping in to take control. The wholesome side works the same way: while listening to dhamma, a wholesome mind overlays ours, shaping our understanding until it becomes clear and complete.
When an Overlaid Mind Pulls Us Out of the Realm of Dhamma
If something is weighing on us — an unfinished work project, an unresolved matter with someone close to us — an overlaid mind will take that old im and use it to construct another layered realm, pulling us out of the realm of dhamma. Once pulled out of it, the drawing-in of pure energy, , cannot continue, because we have already been confined within another dimension.
The information the mind shapes in this way has different levels of coarseness. When the unwholesome side holds power, it drags that information down to the level of hell-beings, hungry ghosts, or animals; when side holds power, it lifts that information up to the level of the celestial body, the brahma body, the formless-brahma body, or the -body, accompanied by feelings of relaxation, spaciousness, lightness, and joyful ease. This layered realm, shaped by a mind within the mind, is then sealed and sent out through the six sense doors for us to act out in the present moment itself — not in some future life, but right now — much like an actor who must play the role and convey the feelings exactly as the script demands.
Morality: The Guard That Stops Us From Following the Overlaid Mind
The teacher explained that at the very moment an overlaid mind is forcing us to speak or act out an unfit role, morality plays a crucial part in stopping it. An inner voice objects: “I cannot do this — it breaks the precept I have undertaken.” An internal argument arises between the sphere of morality and the unwholesome mind that has taken over as director. If we hold to our precepts, that sphere of morality can prevent us from acting out the wrong role. But if we break our precepts repeatedly, the strength of morality gradually erodes, until it no longer has enough power to restrain us, and breaking precepts becomes easier and easier.
He explained that life is a constant contest of claimed rights and exercised power. Both the wholesome and unwholesome sides claim the right to act, and whichever side we yield to gains greater power over us. The more the unwholesome side manages to overcome the wholesome, the greater its power grows; conversely, the more the wholesome side overcomes the unwholesome, the greater its own power grows. Rights and power must always go hand in hand.
Purifying Impurity Restores the Mind to Clarity
As long as the mind's impurities remain unpurified, it stays tinged — sometimes black, sometimes red, sometimes green — with delusion forming its underlying base color, keeping it perpetually clouded rather than bright and clear as it should be. We must therefore continually refine the mind, purifying its impurities little by little, so that it can return to its original clarity.