A student asked the teacher to expand on a teaching: "Our present life is like stepping onto a battlefield — a battlefield of life that is nothing but a struggle against defilements and outflows, where the loser and the winner are one and the same: ourselves. There is no opponent anywhere harder to defeat than ourselves."

Life is a battlefield against defilements, where the loser and the winner are the same person

He explained that our life is governed by three natures with entirely different goals. The wholesome aims to bring happiness, rightness, and goodness. The unwholesome constantly aims to destroy the lives of people and beings. The neutral neither destroys nor helps or supports in any way. All three take turns seizing control as the house-owner directing our life, whether we're aware of it or not. War is conflict driven by gain and loss — without loss or gain at stake, there would be no war. But this battlefield of life is real: we are at war with defilements and outflows, the impurities that constantly aim to utterly ruin our life — not some small loss of advantage, but suffering so severe we cannot accept it.

The three natures use us to fight ourselves, which is why it takes deep wisdom

The crucial point is that all three natures constantly use us to fight ourselves, using Dhamma or its opposite as the tool that forces us into that fight. This is strange, difficult knowledge to grasp, which is why we need to study and understand wisdom at a deep, refined level — through the five faculties: mindfulness, faith, wisdom, concentration, and effort, which build mastery within us and lead us to our true self, the Dhamma body — the essential tool for learning, understanding, and freeing ourselves from every form of ignorance.

Because this opponent is extremely difficult to fight, ordinary human-level wisdom cannot be used against it; deep, refined wisdom is required instead. What we need to recognize is that our knowledge and understanding must be upgraded — but first we need mindfulness, the essential tool that allows the wholesome system to establish itself. The system that supports our fight against defilements and outflows must be the wholesome system alone, and it can only establish once mindfulness and faith arise together — faith directed toward the way out, the way to safety, faith in the Buddha's teaching that will free us. Liberation requires its own tools: the spheres of Dhamma, virtue, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowledge and vision of liberation — an automatic system, a mechanism that refines the mind and frees us on its own.

Reaching the Dhamma body is essential, because the fight requires both knowing and seeing

This battle in the field of life differs from any other kind of battle — it must be fought with knowledge, happiness, and purity alone, and it demands our engagement day and night, without pause. Ordinary knowledge can be learned from books or ordinary teachers, but the knowledge needed to enter this battlefield of life can only be learned from the knowing presence within and with help from the capable presence within. It relies on a system that elevates us step by step — from the human body to a subtler body, from there to a divine body, which must then be upgraded to a Brahma body, a formless Brahma body, until finally reaching the Dhamma body — because this fight requires both knowing and seeing. It's like using a microscope to examine bacteria: one must both see the bacteria — a wriggling, thread-like shape — and know what it is, its properties, its effects, and how it functions. A scientist needs a microscope, sufficient light, functioning eyes, and knowledge and understanding, all together. Studying the Dhamma is the same — it must combine knowledge together with happiness and purity, the true knowledge of life itself.

Learning this way requires passing into the inner sphere of Dhamma. It begins with studying calm-abiding practice, to still the mind from the hindrances first. Once calmed from the hindrances, one feels open, empty — yet subtler impurity still remains, requiring us to learn to draw in pure energy to purify it further. As that impurity lightens, subtler states of Dhamma appear for us to note in turn — a cycle that depends on the knowing, capable presence that is our true self: the Dhamma body.

Practicing again and again until it's "just right" is the only way to prevail

What we study and practice each day aims at unifying our body and mind with the Dhamma body. Setting continuous, unforgetting awareness on the Dhamma body merges our body with its body, our mind with its mind, into a single unity. Doing this repeatedly, aiming for the moment when it's just right, draws in pure energy that lightens impurity. Once it's just right, progress from 1%, to 5%, to 10% can jump instantly to 100% — bursting into full brightness all at once. But even before it's just right, that's fine too — keep clearing away impurity; the merging into unity happens gradually until the moment arrives. In the meantime, understanding of the system, the mechanisms, the tools, the components, and the driving energy of each nature — wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral — gradually becomes clearer. All that's needed is faith and resolve: faith that leads us to the way out, to safety, and to the fulfillment we set our heart on before we ever descended to be born — and in time, we will reach a truly wondrous life.