Attitude Toward Practice: Don't Let the Unwholesome Side Convince You It's Heavy and Hard

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by teaching us to hold a healthy attitude toward Dhamma practice. He warns that if we feel practice is heavy, difficult, or burdensome, this is a dangerous sign — it means the unwholesome side is the one steering that feeling. The unwholesome side does not want us to practice at all, so it plants a poor attitude toward practice in us. Whenever we sit down to practice and feel that it's heavy, hard, or difficult, recognize that voice as coming from the unwholesome side.

Why It Feels Hard: Defilement Clashing with the Mindfulness Coming to Purify It

He explains that feeling difficulty doesn't always mean we're practicing incorrectly. Rather, the defilement already present within us is meeting head-on with the mindfulness that is coming to purify it. Whenever that clash occurs, hardship naturally arises — like a war between the wholesome and unwholesome sides lingering in the heart. The defilement lodged there is what makes us feel that difficulty.

Start With Whatever Is Easiest

When practice feels hard, he advises trying the simplest thing first. Simply maintaining awareness isn't difficult at all; reciting "Samma Arahang" isn't difficult either. Do it with a relaxed, at-ease mind, and gradually cultivate a good attitude toward practice. Ease itself is just knowing — being present in the body, aware of the breath in and out — nothing difficult about it. If we train ourselves to stay aware throughout every posture of daily life, sitting practice becomes easy, because it's simply the same familiar thing. But if we never train at all and suddenly sit down to practice, it feels unfamiliar — and anything unfamiliar seems hard.

He teaches: never expect perfection. This is strictly forbidden. Perfection unfolds on its own, gradually — we need only do what's easy, whatever brings ease and enjoyment.

When the Unwholesome Side Intrudes, We Feel Discomfort: It Is They Who Are Uncomfortable, Not Us

He points to an essential truth: when the neutral or unwholesome force intrudes and overlays our heart during practice, it is that force itself that feels discomfort toward the sound of wholesome recitation, because the two are opposed to each other — so it resents the recitation. It then overlays a sphere of discomfort onto our heart, making us feel uneasy and burdened, and tricks us into thinking the discomfort comes from our own recitation being "too intense." But the truth is: "It is they who are uncomfortable, not us." The discomfort we feel arises because that force has intruded and overlaid discomfort onto our heart — trying to convince us we're practicing too strictly, when in fact the unwholesome side simply doesn't want us to recite at all. We must understand correctly who the true cause really is.

Building Familiarity: Give It Three Days of Continuous, Focused Recitation

He offers a concrete method: if we dedicate three days to continuous, focused recitation of "Samma Arahang" from morning to night, it becomes much easier afterward — the recitation becomes second nature, sitting naturally on the lips and in the heart. Three continuous days are needed so that the strength of the wholesome side becomes sufficient. Once wholesome force gains strength through continuous recitation — whether standing, walking, sitting, lying down, stretching an arm, bending it, doing this or that, washing our face, brushing our teeth, eating, driving, talking with others — "Samma Arahang" stays on our lips and in our heart at all times. After those three days, it becomes easy; the mind grows familiar and recites automatically. In the beginning, some forcing may be needed, because as the neutral or unwholesome force intrudes, it grows increasingly uncomfortable with wholesome recitation, and finds it harder and harder to seize the seat of the heart.

The Sphere of Knowing Arises, Ignorance Falls Away: The Mechanism of Mindfulness and Merit

When the sphere of knowing arises, the sphere of not-knowing — ignorance — falls away. This sphere of knowing, the sphere of mindfulness, is a wholesome sphere, bright and luminous, arising in only one place — the heart — and nowhere else; once it arises there, the heart itself becomes bright and clear. As the sphere of mindfulness arises, it continually draws in the pure energy called merit into the center of its own brightness, forming a stream of merit that bubbles up continuously along with a stream of treasure. This pure dharma-energy purifies the defilements that create obstacles and hindrances, lightening them. Our only role is to maintain awareness so the sphere of knowing can arise, drawing in pure energy that itself purifies all defilement.

Recitation Paired with Visualization: The Buddha Image Merges as One with Us

Luang Phu once said that verbal recitation and mental visualization are a pair. As we recite, the Buddha image continually arises at our center; even if we cannot see it, we can rely on a mental image in its place, staying aware of it with every recitation issuing from within the image. It does not arise for nothing — it expands and merges, layer upon layer, becoming one with us. Our head becomes the crystalline, pure sphere of the Dhamma body, radiant and gentle; our forehead becomes the same pure crystal; our eyes become the eyes of the Dhamma body, closed in a faint, gentle, ever-bright smile; our neck, shoulders, arms down to our fingertips all become the crystal-clear, pure Dhamma body; our chest, abdomen, and back become the same pure crystal image; our hips, thighs, knees, shins, and feet all become the radiant, pure crystal Dhamma body. From head to toe, we are entirely the crystal Dhamma body. We are the Buddha image; the Buddha image is us.

Reaching the Buddha Image: From 1 Percent to 100 Percent

Luang Phu Yai once said that reaching the Dhamma body ranges from 1 percent to 100 percent. As we keep our attention on the Buddha image, we progress little by little — from 1 percent to 2 percent, onward to 10, then 20 — as we sustain unbroken awareness. The stream of merit continues bubbling through, dissolving the defiling elements that obscure and cover us. As these lighten, our perception of the Buddha image grows steadily clearer.

As we maintain awareness, the Dharma Jewel appears bright and clear within us. Sustaining the sphere of knowing is sustaining the Dharma Jewel; the Sangha Jewel then arises within the Dharma Jewel, while the Buddha Jewel already oversees the whole system. At this moment, the Triple Gem appears shining at our center.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

As the sphere of knowing continues drawing in pure energy without pause, we dedicate this merit to our ancestors — recalling our parents, siblings, grandparents, and all our teachers and benefactors, along with the devas who help and support us, our caretakers and guardians, and all beings we may have wronged, our karmic counterparties — asking that we forgive one another mutually and share equally in this merit.

Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the World and the Cosmos

Once merit is dedicated, he has us generate goodwill toward all people and beings. Luang Phu taught us to draw on the heart of a mother's love for her beloved child, letting that pure, clean loving-kindness arise, then extending it to the world and all beings — our fellow travelers in birth, aging, sickness, and death. May those with much suffering have less, those with little have none, those with little happiness have more, and those with much have ever more. We expand this loving-kindness-filled heart to cover our home, our village, district, province, Thailand, neighboring countries, and finally the whole world, until it becomes a radiant, clean, pure, and warm crystal sphere — reaching the earth-bound devas, the tree devas, the sky devas, all the heavens, the Brahma and formless-Brahma realms, and even beings in hell, as hungry ghosts, and as animals — and further still, across the countless stars and galaxies of the boundless cosmos.

He teaches that whoever benefits the world and the cosmos may, in turn, make use of the treasures of the world and cosmos — as the Bodhisatta of old did, practicing loving-kindness continuously until reaching jhāna attainment, becoming a Great Brahma enjoying long-lasting bliss, then later being reborn on earth as a universal monarch ruling all 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.