Born for This: Practicing the Dharma Is Life's Primary Duty

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by teaching that practicing the Dharma matters enormously for every life — so much so that we could say we were born specifically to do this. Everything else exists to support it: earning a living exists to support practice and to help others gain the chance to practice, to know, to understand, to train. This is an important duty — the very definition of being a good spiritual friend (kalyanamitta).

Four Levels of Practitioner: Ordinary, Virtuous, Good-Hearted, Noble

He lays out the levels clearly. The **ordinary person (puthujjana)** is anyone still cycling through vice, caught up in ordinary sights, tastes, smells, and sounds. One level up is the **virtuous person (sadhujana)**, who keeps precepts and lives by Dharma. The **good-hearted person (kalyanajana)** has already learned and understood, and spends their time helping others come to know, understand, train, and gain the opportunity to practice and train in the Dharma themselves. The **noble one (ariyajana)** has already reaped the results of practice — knowing, understanding, and reaching the level of nobility starting from the first jhana, or in truth more likely from the gotrabhu Dhamma body onward — though one who has attained even the first jhana may reasonably be called noble as well. We must therefore learn, understand, and practice correctly, to raise our own standing higher and higher.

The Principle from the Tipitaka: Determining Clear Awareness of Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dharma

In this practice, 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." Phra Ajarn says he must repeat this sentence every time because it matters so much — it is the sentence that leads us directly into a life of wonder. It is clear from the outset that we must determine; if we don't, we let life drift wherever nature happens to take it. A life left like that cannot rely on anything; happiness and prosperity cannot be hoped for.

People often say, "When will my life get better?" — but it cannot get better unless we dwell within the wholesome system, because there are only three systems: the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the neutral. The neutral system offers no growth at all; it takes our time and resources into eating, entertainment, outings, extravagant spending on things bought only to show off, blind to the value money could have in helping others. Even so, the neutral nature at least doesn't cause us direct distress. Only the unwholesome aims, by every means, to grind the world and its beings into ruin. Once it manages to seize the throne of our heart, its guidance — which feels exactly like our own thinking — is bent entirely on destroying us as thoroughly as possible. It never once guides us correctly.

Abstaining from the Unwholesome's Tools: The Feelings That Draw In Demerit

We must therefore learn to understand both the wholesome and the unwholesome, so we avoid entanglement with the latter — which begins, at root, with breaking precepts. The incorrect feelings that draw in unwholesome demerit include boredom, gloom, tedium, stress, irritation, weariness, discouragement, hopelessness, depression, restlessness, agitation, heat, chaos, confusion, and turmoil — all of these are the emotional signature of the unwholesome, the tools it uses to layer itself into our heart. When it seizes its moment, it lays these unwholesome feelings over our heart, drawing in dark, suffering-laden energy that produces hardship. We must therefore recognize the need to abstain from these tools of the unwholesome; abstaining alone makes the heart more beautiful.

Wholesome Ground of Heart: The Tools of the Wholesome

The good and beautiful path, meanwhile, requires cultivating wholesome causes — the tools the wholesome side uses to lift our mind and heart higher. When the wholesome side seizes its moment, it lays wholesome feelings over our heart instead: relaxation, openness, spaciousness, emptiness, ease, fullness, cheer, freshness, clarity, coolness, purity, radiance, calm, comfort, gentleness, and softness. These states are all mental factors (cetasika) belonging to the wholesome side, forming the ground of our heart — good ground, that draws in the pure energy called merit.

Whatever work or duty we take up, may it rest on this good ground: doing it with a relaxed heart, open, spacious, empty, at ease, full and cheerful — nothing but ease whether sitting, lying down, walking, or speaking. Practicing meditation is no different: practice with ease, with a relaxed, open, light heart. This wholesome ground makes it easy and comfortable to cultivate the causes of practice.

Samma Arahang: The Secret That Leads to Calm and Insight

Our teachers have handed down a technique: recite "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang." Each lineage of merit has its own particular secret, discovered by whichever founding teacher reached sacred knowledge, and that secret is passed down to their students so they can practice correctly. Samma Arahang is a recitation that leads us to calm, reaching both tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassana) meditation. In the beginning, let the recitation become second nature — present with the heart at all times, day and night, whether sleeping, waking, standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, with nothing but "Samma Arahang." Give it focused, attentive contemplation, the way threading a needle demands concentration, staying focused on the recitation to enter the dimension of the words.

The sphere of knowing — mindfulness — continuously draws in pure energy, purifying the defilement that obscures our meditation object, lightening the obscuring elements to the level where the underlying state of Samma Arahang can appear. Mindfulness then converts into clear comprehension, perceiving that state directly. At first, mindfulness only determines awareness of the recitation itself; then it draws in pure energy to lighten the obscuring defilement. Once that defilement lightens enough for the state we're determining to appear, mindfulness converts into clear comprehension, perceiving that subtle state without any more concealment — clear comprehension then stays continuously aware, without lapsing.

Form Carries Name: Like Sugar Carrying Sweetness

"Samma Arahang" is the descriptive name of the arahant Dhamma body; from the recitation, the name-state connects to the form-state. Whenever we speak the name-state, the form-state must appear, because form and name are always paired — form carries the qualities that name relies upon. Phra Ajarn compares it to how sugar carries the crystal form that holds sweetness, or how salt carries saltiness. "Samma Arahang" carries the Dhamma body that practices rightly and well, oriented toward freedom from every defilement — this is the quality of the Dhamma body, composed of boundless wisdom, purity, and compassion. These three qualities belong to the Dhamma body from the gotrabhu level onward.

The Buddha Image Appears at the Center of the Heart: Merging as One

We determine our awareness of the subtle arahant Dhamma body, reciting his descriptive name, "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang." When we speak his name, he appears at the center of our heart — a crystal Buddha image, clear, pure, and radiant. He does not appear in vain; he continues to expand, layering as one with us, making our entire being clear like crystal, like diamond. Vitality arises without our even realizing it — ease, freshness, and joyful fullness appear. But because the heart arises and passes away moment to moment, with a constant contest for control, we may perceive this only in small flashes. Yet as we merge fully into oneness with him, our perception grows clearer.

We learn to merge into oneness with him by determining that we are the Buddha image, the Buddha image is us — our entire being becoming the radiant, clear, crystal Dhamma body, subtle, gentle, and soft. Even if we remain dim, hazy, and dark, with no brightness yet arising, that's fine — it's not a problem at all, but perfectly normal for everyone at first. We correct this by putting on the feeling that we are the Buddha image, the way an actor playing any role must put on the feeling of being that thing. The moment they do, that role layers down together with its own mind and mental factors, into the center of our body and heart, then guides our actions in a form that feels exactly like our own thinking.

Luang Phor once said that attainment ranges from 0%, from 1% up to 100% — whatever level we achieve at first, take that as a starting point. He said everyone can reach the Dhamma; how quickly depends on how much one knows and understands. It can be called easy, or it can be called hard. Reaching the Dhamma body is something that already exists — we are not fabricating it from nothing — and he himself wishes for us to merge with him into one being, because that makes it easier for him to help us.

Merging Body and Mind at the Body's Seventh Base

Once we merge with him into one being, our body and his body united as one, we cast off the ordinary feeling of being human entirely, leaving only the feeling that we are the Buddha image, the Buddha image is us. Then we merge our mind with his mind into one being. Whatever he does, we do the same: he gathers his mind to stop, gathers it to be still; we gather ours to stop and be still, following him, into the center of our body, the center of the Buddha image — the seventh base, the position that is the central meeting-point of every wholesome body, uncountable as the sands, all sharing this one same center.

Stop within stop, still within still, ever inward toward the center of the center — the center of our body and the center of the Buddha image, one and the same center, the position pointing straight toward the path of Nibbana. Not forward, not back, not left, not right, not up, not down — refining ever inward toward the center of the center. As we settle the mind into stillness like this, aimed straight at the path to Nibbana, Nibbana itself, dwelling at the innermost point, draws us into its own center. The stream of merit bubbles up continuously through the center of our stillness, our stopping, our knowing, giving rise to a lineage of merit and treasure.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

As we dedicate this merit to our ancestors, let us recall our departed relatives and forebears, 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 and share equally in this merit.

Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the World and the Cosmos

With the merit dedicated, we cultivate loving-kindness for the benefit of the world and all beings, asking that they be free from suffering and share in happiness. In making this aspiration, Luang Phu taught that we should draw on the heart of a mother's boundless love and goodwill for her own young child, then look upon all people and beings as though they were that same beloved child, aspiring: may the world and all beings be free from suffering and share in happiness; may those with much suffering have less, those with little suffering be free of it entirely, those with little happiness have more, and those already happy grow happier still.

Once this aspiration is made, we expand this heart, filled with loving-kindness, to fill our entire being; our whole body becomes radiant with the loving-kindness appearing at the center of our heart. Loving-kindness is a wholesome sphere; all 84,000 sections of the Dharma, including the sphere of knowing that is mindfulness itself, are clear, bright spheres. These wholesome spheres draw in the pure energy called merit continuously, purifying the defilement in our heart until it becomes clean and pure. Loving-kindness carries the special quality of dissolving resentment and irritation entirely.

We expand this loving-kindness-filled heart to cover our home; the light of loving-kindness and of the Dhamma body shines wherever the heart extends, since loving-kindness relies on the mind as its birthplace. It shines through every particle of the surrounding air, illuminating people, beings, and things alike. This light of Dharma can penetrate every particle within, unlike ordinary light, which cannot pass through the interior of an object. We extend it further to our neighbors, then continuously outward to cover the whole village, subdistrict, district, and many provinces, covering the entire country, and further still to neighboring countries and nations, until it covers the whole world, making it a crystal world, radiant, clear, cool, and pure.

May the earthbound devas, tree devas, sky devas, the heavenly beings of every level, the Brahma and formless Brahma realms, and beings in hell, as hungry ghosts, and as animals, all be free from suffering and share in happiness. We then extend this loving-kindness-filled heart into the cosmos, covering countless stars beyond number, extending continuously through the ten thousand world-systems and the infinite cosmos. Wherever the heart extends, our Buddha image expands correspondingly to reach that far as well. Benefiting all beings, all things, and every element of Dharma requires this act of determining; whoever benefits the world and the cosmos may in turn make use of its treasures.

Resting Still in the Center of the Triple Gem and Nibbana

We gather the mind to stop and be still at the center of this loving-kindness, shining boundlessly in every direction around us. The stream of merit bubbles up continuously through the center of loving-kindness's brightness; we become the center of the world and the cosmos. We rest the mind, stopped and still, in the center of the Triple Gem — the Buddha jewel, the Dhamma jewel, the Sangha jewel — the center of the subtle Dhamma body of Luang Pu, still in the center of the subtle Dhamma body of Luang Phor, still in the center of the subtle Dhamma body of Khun Yai Acharn. The heart is an accomplishing element — however we determine it, so it becomes.

We rest the mind, stopped and still, in the center of Nibbana pervading every element and every dharma, in the center of every Buddha, every Paccekabuddha, and every Arahant. As we appear bright within the center of Nibbana, he appears bright within the center of us; he takes our seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing, our earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements, and refines them to clarity and purity, dissolving every stain of defilement, and connecting us to a lineage of merit and treasure.

Phra Ajarn compares this to how, before each new morning, we must wash away the accumulated stains of the day before, just as we must wash the clothes we've worn and bathe the body every evening. But the heart's defilement runs deeper and is harder to purify. Our heart must therefore pass through a purifying instrument of some level — and the finest quality instrument of all is Nibbana itself, the highest-quality purifier of defilement that exists.

Closing Aspiration

As we gather the mind to stop and be still continuously, until we can rest stopped and still within the center of Nibbana, the center of the knowing ones of boundless power, uncountable as the sands, we take this auspicious moment to pay homage and make an aspiration for success to arise in our lives, now and in all lives to come, throughout our entire path of building perfections — complete with knowledge, happiness, and purity, and the fulfillment of every righteous and good wish. May the merit, blessings, radiance, and decisive power of Nibbana pervading every element and dharma, together with the blessings of Luang Pu, Luang Phor, and Khun Yai Acharn, combine with the merit we ourselves have diligently accumulated since beginningless time into sacred, potent merit. May we be freed from misfortune, karmic results, demonic obstruction, and every obstacle in life; may greed, hatred, delusion, lust, ignorance, wrong view, craving, and clinging be extinguished without remainder; may we gain the eye that sees the Dhamma and penetrate the knowledge of the Dhamma body; may we enjoy strong health and boundless resolve as we build perfections toward the ultimate end of the Dhamma. He closes by asking that old wrongdoing be forgiven, that no new wrong be committed, and that all our accumulated merit bear fruit successfully for us all.