Why We Practice: Life Under the Control of Three Natures

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by stressing that Dhamma practice is essential and necessary for every life, because every life is governed by three natures. We must practice to align ourselves with the wholesome system, so it can take the seat of our heart and care for us more securely. Every act of practice marks progress along the middle path, building steadily; it secures our standing and our future. Without practice, life brings only regression — the neutral and unwholesome sides drag us back toward ever coarser paths, never allowing us to simply stand still.

Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration: Merging Body and Mind With the Triple Gem

He explains that practice has two parts: right mindfulness (sammā-sati) and right concentration (sammā-samādhi). Right mindfulness is simply maintaining awareness without lapsing — bringing the body to the mind, the mind to the body — and dwelling in equanimity, not falling into gladness or sorrow, keeping the mind neutral. When we can do this, the Triple Gem dwells within us; we dwell at the center of the Triple Gem, and we dwell at the center of nibbāna, the center of the countless knowing, all-powerful beings who watch over and correct us. We become fortunate when under the care of the wholesome system, cultivated by bringing the mind to the body, staying aware of the body without lapsing, or dwelling with our meditation object — reciting "Samma Arahang" paired with visualization. First we merge mind with body, then merge our body with the Dhamma body, and our mind with the mind of the Dhamma body, into one unity, sustaining that awareness continuously.

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

He teaches that when mindfulness arises, ignorance — not-knowing — falls away. This mindfulness draws in the energy called merit, flowing continuously into the center of the sphere of knowing's brightness. This purity is what purifies the defilements that create every kind of obstacle under the hindrances (nīvaraṇa). Staying anchored in our meditation object — reciting "Samma Arahang," or whatever object we are already skilled in — keeps the mind still, aware without lapsing, anchored continuously to a clear signal.

The Mind Flows in Only Two Directions: Watching the Mind's Movement Between Gladness and Sorrow

He teaches that by staying focused and reflective on our meditation object continuously, we come to observe what actually happens in the mind. The mind is an instrument of knowing that automatically registers whatever arises in daily life — gladness or sorrow, satisfaction or irritation. The mind tends to flow toward only these two things. When glad, we want it to last; when sorrowful, we get stirred up into pursuing the matter obsessively. He teaches that we should dwell in equanimity, eliminating the world's gladness and sorrow entirely — this is the Buddha's teaching for living. Cultivating right mindfulness aims precisely at eliminating the world's gladness and sorrow. If we reflect carefully on daily life, we see that every day's trouble comes down to just this one thing: gladness and sorrow.

The Buddha's Words: Clearly Knowing Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma to Eliminate the World's Covetousness and Grief

He affirms the Buddha's teaching to the monks: "Bhikkhus, you should clearly know body, feeling [vedana], mind [citta], and dhamma [phenomena], in order to eliminate covetousness (abhijjha) and grief (domanassa) regarding the world." Covetousness and grief are the world's gladness and sorrow — gladness and sorrow bound up with sense pleasures: form, taste, smell, sound, touch, and mental objects. These are the five outer dimensions plus one inner dimension — mental objects — which together constitute "the world."

The Key Clarification: The "Vedana-Citta-Dhamma" He Points To Is Not the Five Aggregates' Feeling-Perception-Formations-Consciousness

He points to the single most important clarification of this teaching: the Buddha instructs us to know clearly in "body and mind." True enough, the mind consists of feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness (vedana-sanna-sankhara-vinnana) — yet what the Buddha points to directly is "vedana-citta-dhamma." What are this vedana, citta, and dhamma? The "body-feeling-mind-dhamma" he designates here is not the same as "body-feeling-perception-formations-consciousness." Feeling-perception-formations-consciousness belongs to the mind (jai) itself. But this vedana-citta-dhamma belongs to the intruding "body" — a foreign presence that has come to possess the mind. When that intruding presence takes hold, its own feeling arises, and the thoughts of that mind layer onto our own mind: its thinking ripples through our heart, its feeling appears as "dhamma." Thought and feeling both ripple through the heart together. He therefore directs us to watch precisely the movement of the mind as it ripples — and not to become glad or sorrowful over it, because that is exactly how the world's issues are used to make us glad or sad. This vedana-citta-dhamma is the feeling and thinking of the intruding presence toward the everyday matters of the world, used as bait to draw us into gladness and sorrow so that it can hold us captive within its own dimension — stirring our thoughts, needling our thinking, feeding us information that feels like our own thoughts, then twisting our emotions toward greater dissatisfaction, gladness, or grief. The more intense the gladness or grief, the bigger the issue becomes. He therefore teaches us to clearly know this vedana-citta-dhamma layered onto us — the "body within body" layered onto our body, the vedana, citta, and dhamma layered onto our own feeling, mind, and mental states — which is simply the ripple of the heart arising from that intruding presence's feeling and thinking. We must never assume it is our own thought, even though it has intruded and dressed itself in the world's everyday matters to sway us.

The Unwholesome Side's Tools: Stirring Thought and Twisting Emotion to Hold Us Captive

He explains further that when the unwholesome or neutral force takes the seat of the heart, it incites us to act as it wishes. If neutral, it wastes our life on frivolous indulgence; if unwholesome, it clouds the mind with greed, hatred, delusion, and lust. It pressures, squeezes, and directs us toward actions through which it can smuggle further wrongdoing into us. The Buddha therefore taught us to watch the mind's ripple in each present moment as this presence intrudes. If we fail to stay aware, the mind scatters and fragments, unable to gather itself, losing all self-governance — because a mind without strength is easily overwhelmed, ruled, forced, and directed.

Gathering the Mind, Merging With the Dhamma Body: Building Mastery Over Oneself

He therefore teaches us to gather the mind, bringing it to the body, then merging our body with the Dhamma body and our mind with the mind of the Dhamma body into one unity — to build mastery over ourselves, strengthening our spiritual faculties (indriya). Strengthening those faculties requires mindfulness, right mindfulness, and faith — confidence in the Buddhist path, which is the cultivation of right mindfulness as taught by the Buddha and passed down by our teachers.

The Essential Principle and the Simple Technique: Recitation Paired With Visualization

He restates the essential principle taught by the great teacher, the Buddha: "Bhikkhus, you should clearly know body, feeling, mind, and dhamma, in order to eliminate the world's covetousness and grief." This principle must be held firmly; only then do teachers offer simplified techniques. The simple technique is staying focused on recitation, merging ourselves with the sound of "Samma Arahang" — the designated name of the state we are attending to — in order to draw in energy that purifies defilement.

Continuously Drawing In Pure Energy: Like Waves Crashing Endlessly Against the Shore

He explains the mechanism in detail: the sphere of knowing is a wave. Once it arises, the mind ripples in a form capable of drawing in pure energy. This pure energy, called merit, purifies existing defilement. When pure energy meets defiling energy, the two are already opposed; when they meet, one must purify the other — each side struggles against the other, and, as the saying goes, little water loses to great fire; whichever side is weaker loses. We must therefore stay continuously aware, without lapsing, to keep drawing in pure energy without interruption — like waves endlessly crashing against the shore. If we practice only in fits and starts, defilement never runs out, and the little water keeps losing to the fire.

From Manual to Automatic: Training Until It Becomes a Habit

He teaches that we must train our awareness until it becomes second nature — moving from manual effort to semi-automatic, and eventually to fully automatic, much as industry a hundred years ago developed from household craft into industrial systems, and industrial systems eventually became automated. Everything develops this way; whether in the world or in the Dhamma, things move toward automation — but if we never begin the process, we can never reach that automatic stage. He compares this to sending our children to school for a better future: cultivating right mindfulness is the same kind of "life skill" — a duty we must develop from manual practice, through learning and understanding, into semi-automatic, and finally into a fully automatic system.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

As we stay continuously aware without lapsing, we dwell at the center of the Triple Gem, the center of nibbana, the center of the stream of merit. This stream of merit bubbles continuously through the center of the brightness of our sphere of mindfulness. We then dedicate this merit to our ancestors — recalling our relatives waiting anxiously in the next world, wondering when their descendants born into the human realm will do good and send merit their way. Now that we have done good, we dedicate this merit to our ancestors — our parents, siblings, grandparents, our teachers and benefactors, the devas who help and support us, our caretakers and guardians, and all beings we may have wronged, our karmic counterparties — asking mutual forgiveness and sharing this merit equally with all.

Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the World and the Cosmos

Once merit is dedicated, he has us radiate loving-kindness to benefit all beings and the whole world. He teaches us to draw on the heart of a mother's love and goodwill toward her beloved child: may all beings, our fellow travelers in birth, aging, sickness and death, be free from suffering and find happiness — 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 then expand this loving-kindness-filled heart to cover our home, spreading across village, subdistrict, district, province, all of Thailand, neighboring countries, and finally the whole world, until it becomes a radiant, clean, pure crystal sphere — reaching the earth-bound devas, tree devas, sky devas, all the heavens, the Brahma and formless-Brahma realms, and even beings in hell, as hungry ghosts, and as animals — expanding further still across the countless stars and galaxies of the boundless cosmos, without limit.

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 the end of his life, becoming a Great Brahma enjoying long-lasting bliss, then later a universal monarch ruling the four continents. Treasure requires merit, and merit requires doing good to establish the wholesome system — drawing in the stream of merit is only possible by dwelling within that wholesome system, and loving-kindness is one of its tools for benefiting all people and beings.

Closing Aspiration

In closing, Phra Ajarn leads an aspiration for success to be established in us, now and in the future. 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 every obstacle; 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 nibbana. He closes by asking that old wrongdoing be forgiven, and that new merit bear fruit successfully for us all.