Why We Must Practice: The Principle from the Tipitaka

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by emphasizing that practicing the Dharma matters enormously for every life — so much so that we could say we were born specifically to do this, because it is the one thing that can help us both now and across countless future lives. If we stay within the wholesome system, we remain under the care of the Triple Gem and Nibbana — the knowing ones of boundless power, uncountable as the sands. What follows for us is a life of wonder. But if we don't practice, if we don't stay within the wholesome system, we default into the neutral or unwholesome systems instead. The neutral nature offers no real benefit at all, consuming our precious time and resources on eating, entertainment, and outings until nothing is left to build the future. The unwholesome nature aims only at destruction.

He cites the principle the Buddha taught the monastic Sangha, recorded in the Tipitaka: "Monks, you should determine clear awareness of body, feeling, mind, and dharma, in order to eliminate covetousness and grief toward the world." He says this short sentence is immensely significant — a principle that leads to an extraordinary life, capable of transforming an ordinary person (puthujjana) into a virtuous one (sadhujana), and elevating the virtuous into a noble one (ariyajana).

Determining Is Our Duty: How Mindfulness Differs from Clear Comprehension

He expands: the Buddha taught that a monk "must determine." If we don't determine our own awareness, some other nature will step in to direct, persuade, pressure, and coerce us into determining instead — so we must determine first. But determine what? The answer is "to determine is to know": knowing is mindfulness (sati), and knowing clearly is clear comprehension (sampajanna). The two differ: mindfulness first grasps the important topic, while clear comprehension knows the fine detail that leads into the inner dimension — though the topic must be grasped before the detail can follow. Both matter, but their roles differ.

Mindfulness determines awareness in order to draw in pure energy that purifies defilement — the ignorance that covers us in obscuring elements of darkness, keeping us from knowing the details. As pure energy purifies this darkness enough for the underlying state to appear, he compares it to the hour just before dawn: darkness hides every tree and blade of grass, but as dawn nears we begin to see them. As the obscuring elements lighten, the underlying state gradually appears, and mindfulness converts into clear comprehension, which then perceives that state in detail.

Determining Is Awareness and Command

He teaches that the role of a human being is to determine — to be fully aware of what we want, what our goal is, our purpose, our aspiration, and to set it down clearly. This can be called an aspiration, or a command, because we are the owners of our own body and mind — the only ones who can issue the command. Acceptance matters here, because issuing a command means accepting; without acceptance, no command is given, nothing is determined.

He asks us to consider someone managing a business who must plan what to do tomorrow, versus someone who never plans anything at all — waking up with no idea what to do. This is the difference between someone who can issue commands and someone who cannot.

Two Causes of Powerlessness: No Knowledge, and Having the Right Without the Power

He identifies two kinds of people who cannot issue commands. The first **lacks knowledge** — even holding the right, without knowledge, without power, their authority eroded by defilement, unable to act, because they don't know what the outcome will be. Ignorance takes control, guided by wrong view into error, and so we fear issuing commands or determining our own affairs.

The second is **powerless despite knowing** — knowing right from wrong perfectly well, yet unable to restrain themselves, forced, without power, enslaved by whatever has taken control. Knowing good and bad but unable to hold back shows that ignorance is in control, leaving us unsure whether what seems like our own thought is actually an inner directive. Not knowing the outcome, we cannot decide. Even after learning and understanding, knowing right from wrong, we may still be unable to resist, because we are overpowered and coerced into acting that way.

He offers this image: **"Powerlessness comes down to just two things — knowledge and authority. It's like a king, an emperor, whose ministers hold no army and so hold no power, while the ministers who command the troops hold the real power, because the armed force is in their hands."** A king who holds the right by title but no armed force of his own can be overrun and ruled in fact by the ministers or generals who command the army. This is the image for having the right without the power to actually exercise it.

Our True Armed Force Is Purity

He teaches that our armed force is purity itself. We are fighting the unwholesome, and purity is our army. Knowledge paired with purity is therefore of great importance — but it must also come with happiness, because we will be walking this path continuously; knowledge is necessary, and knowledge paired with happiness and purity is the key. When we practice with knowledge and understanding, practice becomes easy — its purpose is the purity we use to build sovereignty over ourselves. Otherwise we remain enslaved to whatever misguides us, powerless. Our power comes from purity; if we don't overcome the unwholesome, it will overpower us instead.

Knowledge and purity let us press forward with diligence, sustained by ease and contentment. Whatever we pursue with knowledge and purity flourishes and advances. Even with knowledge and purity, difficulty can still remain, because there is already karmic residue (vipaka) to clear — we must lighten it until we are free of it. Once that residue is cleared, progress and comfort become plain to see. Knowledge paired with happiness and purity is therefore the key to reaching every wonder.

Staying Neutral: Neither Delighted nor Distressed

He teaches that determining clear awareness of body, feeling, mind, and dharma serves to eliminate delight and distress — remaining in the world without letting the heart sway with it. Keep the heart neutral: when things go well, there's no need to feel elated, because excitement scatters the mind away from itself. Keep it neutral, because everything that is good can turn bad, and bad can turn good — the contest between the different natures never stops.

Without continuous mindfulness like an arahant's, the unwholesome can seize the moment, and mistakes naturally occur. When we err, we grieve; wrongly guided, the heart grows tainted and draws in demerit for nothing. Or when we're overjoyed, the mind scatters, opening the door again to being misled into another mistake — a cycle repeating itself. So in meditation, besides training mindfulness and clear comprehension to stay with body and mind, we must also learn not to feel elated or distressed over whatever arises moment to moment. Keeping the heart neutral, unscattered, sovereign over itself, it grows calm and still — this balance is called equanimity (upekkha). Once calm, comfort follows, happiness gradually arises, and balance deepens further. This is the foundation of calm and insight practice that keeps mindfulness and clear comprehension firmly established.

The Sphere of Knowing Draws In Pure Energy to Purify Defilement

As we hold the heart neutral, without delight or aversion, starting with mindfulness that determines awareness — knowing is mindfulness, knowing clearly is clear comprehension — we abide in the wholesome. The spheres of mindfulness and clear comprehension are wholesome spheres; all 84,000 sections of the Dharma are clear, bright spheres, arising nowhere but the heart. Once arisen there, they draw in the pure energy called merit to flow continuously through the center of the sphere of knowing's brightness. This merit lightens the stains of defilement to a degree, and another portion drives the wholesome system forward toward what is right and good.

He has us recite continuously, "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang" — a secret handed down by our teachers, the keyword of our lineage, needed in this life and every life to come, because our purpose in being born is to reach the subtle Dhamma body — one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement — spanning many levels, from the gotrabhu Dhamma body through stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, up to the arahant. "Samma Arahang" is the key name for the Dhamma body oriented toward complete freedom from defilement. Recite it until it becomes second nature — while washing, brushing your teeth, eating, driving, working — let "Samma Arahang" resound within, without letting any other sound intrude.

Let us determine our awareness continuously, without lapsing, knowing that we know. The sphere of knowing need only arise for the sphere of not-knowing — ignorance — to fall away, because without the sphere of knowing arising, ignorance overtakes us, misguiding us with wrong view, fabricating error, forcing us to act wrongly. We must therefore let the sphere of knowing arise, to connect with the knowing ones who transmit their knowledge to us. "Stay continuously aware without lapsing" is a phrase Luang Pu himself repeated again and again.

The Buddha Image Appears at the Center of the Heart

When we utter his name with focused, attentive contemplation — like threading a needle, which demands concentration to guide the thread through the eye — resting on a foundation of a relaxed, open, spacious, empty, at-ease heart, not one that is pressured, rushed, tense, irritable, weary, discouraged, or restless. Such unwholesome ground is like soil poisoned against any crop. The wholesome ground — relaxed, open, spacious, empty, at ease, full and cheerful, clear, cool, and pure — is what lets the crop of merit flourish.

When we speak his name, "Samma Arahang," the Buddha image appears at the center of our heart — not appearing in vain, but continually rising, expanding, and merging as one with us, image after image, layering through the center of the heart and expanding to fill our entire body. "Samma Arahang" is a descriptive name (nemittika-nama) of the subtle arahant Dhamma body, a name born of his qualities: one who practices rightly and well, far removed from every defilement and stain.

Merging Body and Mind as One with the Buddha Image

He leads us to reaffirm our true identity again and again: we are the Buddha image, the Buddha image is us. Our head becomes bright, pure crystal of the Dhamma body, crowned with a radiant lotus-bud crest. Our eyes become his eyes; closed gently, with a serenely smiling face brimming with boundless loving-kindness. Forehead, cheeks, mouth, and nose all become the radiant, subtle, gentle crystal Dhamma body. Neck, shoulders, arms, chest, belly, lower belly, back, hips, knees, shins, calves, and soles all become the radiant, pure crystal Dhamma body. We are the Buddha image, the Buddha image is us.

Phra Dej Phra Khun Luang Phor taught that reaching the Dhamma body ranges from 1% to 100% — hard for those who don't know and understand, easy for those who do, because the heart is an "accomplishing element": however we determine it, so it becomes. And he is already within us; we need not create him. We only need to put on the feeling that we are the Buddha image, the way an actor puts on the feeling of whatever role they play, and body-within-body, feeling-within-feeling, mind-within-mind, and dharma-within-dharma of that role appear.

Gathering the Mind to Stop and Be Still at the Body's Seventh Base

Next, gather the mind to stop, gather it to be still, at the center of the Buddha image, the center of our body. Whatever he does, we do the same — he gathers his mind to stop and be still, so we gather ours to stop and be still, following him. Our body merges with his; our mind merges with his. Settle the mind at the seventh base, the center of the body — the central point of every body, coarse and subtle alike — found where two imaginary threads cross: one stretched from the navel to the spine, the other from the left side of the waist to the right; the point where they intersect marks this position.

Stop within stop, still within still, going ever inward, toward the center of the center — not left, not right, not forward, not back, not up, not down — reaching Nibbana at the innermost, subtlest center, uncountable as the sands. We are traveling the path to Nibbana and dwelling in his center. The stream of merit bubbles up continuously. This stillness draws us into subtler and subtler dimensions, unknowingly, even while things remain dim and hazy — it already yields wondrous results.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

As the stream of merit flows continuously through the center of our body and heart, let us 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 (khu kam khu wen) — asking that we forgive one another and share equally in this merit.

Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the World and the Cosmos

Once the merit is dedicated, we generate goodwill for the world and all beings. Luang Phu taught us to draw on the heart of a mother's boundless love for her own child, forming it into a sphere of loving-kindness: 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. This loving-kindness appears bright at the center of our heart, radiating through every pore, every cell, every atom of our body. We expand this heart to cover our home, then our village, subdistrict, district, province, Thailand, neighboring countries, until it becomes a radiant, clean, pure crystal sphere covering the whole world.

From there we extend further, to the earthbound devas, tree devas, sky devas, the heavenly beings of every level, the Brahma and formless Brahma realms, and even beings in hell, as hungry ghosts, and as animals — may they all be free from suffering and share in happiness. We extend still further, across the countless stars and galaxies of the boundless cosmos. Whoever benefits the world and the cosmos may in turn make use of its treasures, as the Bodhisatta of old did, practicing loving-kindness continuously until the end of his life, becoming a Great Brahma, then later a universal monarch ruling the four continents, whose people in that age lived by virtue and never harmed one another.

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 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.