คำสอน · พระอาจารย์สุรพงค์Teaching · Pra Ajarn Suraphong
ยินดียินร้ายร้ายนัก: คำเตือนของหลวงปู่ที่ทำให้คนถึงกับฆ่าตัวตายElation and Dejection Are Truly Dangerous: Luang Pu's Warning About What Drives People to Suicide
พระอาจารย์สุรพงค์ถ่ายทอดคำเตือนอันหนักแน่นของพระเดชพระคุณหลวงปู่ว่า ความยินดียินร้ายที่ปล่อยให้เกินขีดเกินควรนั้น "ร้ายนัก" ถึงขนาดที่มนุษย์บางคนกินยาตายหรือฆ่าตัวตายเพราะมัน ท่านสอนให้เห็นว่านี่คือเครื่องมือที่ฝ่ายอกุศลใช้ล่อลวงใจ จึงต้องฝึกวางใจเป็นอุเบกขา ไม่ยินดีไม่ยินร้ายเกินขอบเขต พร้อมนำเข้าสู่การนั่งสมาธิเต็มรูปแบบPhra Ajarn Suraphong passes on a stark warning from Luang Pu: unchecked elation and dejection are "truly dangerous" — dangerous enough that some people have taken their own lives because of them. He teaches this as a warning against the danger of unchecked emotion, showing how the unwholesome side uses it as bait, and teaches equanimity as the remedy, before leading a full guided sit.
Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by explaining that meditation practice is essential to life. Without it, we effectively leave life to yathākamma — to whichever force manages to seize the seat of the mind. If side seizes control, it forces us into wrongdoing by body, speech, and mind, with no way to resist. If side seizes control, it drags us into idle pleasure-seeking, squandering our precious time and resources without any benefit.
Clearly Knowing Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma: The Buddha's Instruction to the Monks
He cites the Buddha's teaching to the monastic sangha: "Monks, you should clearly know body, feeling, mind, and , in order to abandon craving and displeasure toward the world." In simple terms: you must determine your awareness — there is no option not to. If you don't, some other force will step in and direct your awareness toward what it wants, which only brings harm and suffering upon yourself.
Knowing the Body and the Mind: What Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma Mean
He explains that knowing the body means bodily awareness or awareness of the breath. Knowing the mind divides into three: feeling — whichever of pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain clearly appears; mind — what the mind constructs, such as the recitation "Sammā Arahaṃ" and visualization; and Dhamma — the fine, soft, subtle state that results from holding a meditation object, the part that takes over from to perceive in detail.
"These Two Things Are Truly Dangerous": Luang Pu's Warning About Elation and Dejection
This is the heart of this teaching. He teaches that the whole purpose of clearly knowing body, feeling, mind, and Dhamma is to abandon the world's elation and dejection. He passes on a warning from Luang Pu: these two things — delight and distress — are "truly dangerous." Some people have taken poison, hanged themselves, or otherwise taken their own lives because of elation and dejection. The unwholesome side and the indeterminate side use this swing between delight and distress as bait, luring people into accepting and clinging to both extremes, then using that acceptance to lure them further still. Excessive delight is steered toward dejection born of dissfaction and perceived loss; both extremes serve the same purpose — to provoke harm, steering us toward hurting others through body or speech.
Why the Buddha Taught Us to Abandon the World's Elation and Dejection
He explains that if we live only through sensual pleasure — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind seeking out sights, tastes, smells, sounds, and touch — but if we instead abide in and equanimity, both wholesome states, no trouble arises. But if we swing into excessive delight or distress, the unwholesome and indeterminate sides will lure us into their dimension, trapping us there. This is exactly why the Buddha taught: clearly know body, feeling, mind, and Dhamma, in order to abandon the world's craving and displeasure entirely.
A Simple Way to Abide in Right Mindfulness
He teaches that abiding in is simple: we can know bodily sensation, know the breath, know the recitation and visualization, or know ease of body and mind. If a state of suffering arises — something difficult to bear — we can simply know that suffering as it is, or abide in equanimity. With this understanding, we now begin to determine our awareness together.
Half-Closing the Eyes Before Entering the Inner Dimension
Luang Pu and Luang Phor recommend that, at the outset, we half-close our eyes. If, upon going inward, we feel groggy, confused, or drowsy, we should not proceed further — instead, half-close the eyes again, then take up the recitation and visualization to cleanse the stains, because that state of grogginess and confusion has already been prepared to trap us. We simply keep determining awareness: "Sammā Arahaṃ, Sammā Arahaṃ," for now.
The Sphere of Knowing Arises, Ignorance Falls Away, and the Stream of Merit Flows In Continuously
When the sphere of knowing arises, the sphere of not-knowing — — falls away. This sphere of knowing is the sphere of mindfulness, a wholesome sphere among the 84,000 sections of Dhamma, entirely a sphere of light. It can arise nowhere but in the mind. Once arisen, it makes the mind bright and clear, and the pure energy called merit flows into the center of its brightness — like dipping a straw into water and blowing, producing a continuous stream of bubbles, becoming a stream of merit, clear, bright, clean, and pure.
The Subtle Wealth Within the Sphere of Merit: Blessings for Every Area of Life
Within the sphere of merit lies physical fortune, material wealth, , retinue, honor, praise, , the path and fruit of nibbāna, and the of — all complete and abundant at the center of the sphere. When merit flows through us, this subtle wealth flows through as well, and it is this subtle wealth that draws the coarser fortune of the ordinary world toward us. If we do not do good, the stream of merit will not flow, and we merely live off old merit and spend down old fortune until it runs out. We must therefore keep doing good, through the ten grounds for making merit, so that merit and fortune keep arising — and we can add an aspiration into the center of the sphere of merit every single time we do good.
Distinct Roles: Ourselves, the Sphere of Knowing, and the Pure Energy
He explains that we have one role, the sphere of knowing has another, and the pure energy called merit has yet another — each part has a distinct task, and we must not overstep into each other's roles. Some people, not understanding this, think they must personally battle the stain, even though they have no idea what a stain even looks like — this only leaves the mind agitated and the whole system disturbed. Our task is simply to determine awareness so the sphere of knowing arises, and to keep that task steady, honest, and sincere. When we do, everything falls into place.
Reciting the Name "Sammā Arahaṃ": The Dhamma Body Appears With Boundless Virtue
He teaches that the recitation "Sammā Arahaṃ" is the name of the Dhamma body. When we speak his name, he appears together with his boundless wisdom, , and compassion, together with the spheres of morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowledge and vision of liberation, present in every body, both coarse and subtle. As we keep determining awareness on this recitation, sphere — bright by nature — appears at our center, in our mind, drawing in pure energy continuously.
Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties
He has us dedicate this merit to our ancestors — recalling our parents, relatives, grandparents, and the teachers who have shown us kindness, together with the guardian spirits who protect and support us, and all beings we may have wronged, our karmic counterparties, asking for mutual forgiveness so that all may share equally in this merit.
Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the World and the Cosmos
He then has us draw upon the heart of a mother who wishes well for her young child, setting up that heart within us, then extending it to all beings: may those with much suffering have less, those with little suffering have none, those with little happiness have more, and those with much happiness have ever more. He has us expand this -filled heart to cover our home, spreading across village, district, province, every region of Thailand, and neighboring countries, until it becomes a radiant crystal sphere covering the whole world, clean and pure. From there it expands further still, across the countless stars and galaxies of the boundless cosmos. Whoever benefits the world and the cosmos may use the fortune of the world and the cosmos, as the Buddha-to-be once did, cultivating loving-kindness until he attained the first and second , was born a great Brahmā, and later a universal monarch ruling the four continents.
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, life after life.