พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าโลกหลอมให้เราเข้าใจผิดว่าความสุขอยู่ที่การได้เห็น ได้ยิน ได้กลิ่น ได้ลิ้มรส และได้สัมผัสสิ่งที่น่าใคร่ ทำให้เราเสียเวลาชีวิตไปกับการแสวงหาสิ่งเหล่านี้จนหมดไปโดยไม่ได้สร้างเหตุแห่งความหลุดพ้นที่แท้จริง และอธิบายเสริมว่าความศักดิ์สิทธิ์ที่แท้จริงเกิดจากกุศลธรรมในใจ ไม่ได้เกิดจากวัตถุภายนอกThe teacher explains that we are conditioned by the world to believe happiness lies in seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching pleasant things, causing us to spend our limited lifetime chasing them without creating the true causes for liberation. He also explains that true sacredness arises from wholesome states in the mind, not from any external object.
Someone asked the teacher to expand on the topic "a life that has been deceived."
The teacher explained that we are shaped by advertising and by the conditioning of those who do not understand the truth, delivered through every kind of media that reaches us through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind — teaching us that what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is . Beautiful sights, pleasant sounds, fragrant smells, delicious flavors, and pleasing senons — we come to believe these are true happiness, and so we spend our limited lifetime chasing after them without ever creating the real causes for liberation. Worse still, the law of karma sweeps us along through the cycle of rebirth, and sometimes that "journey" is really a passage through realms of genuine suffering — not the kind of travel we imagine it to be.
The way out of this deception is to cultivate and , maintaining continuous awareness so that pure energy can be drawn in to cleanse away im, until inner realization arises and the mind is gradually led into ever-finer inner dimensions. Along the way, the only real obstacles are suffering and fear — both tools of side. If we simply maintain awareness of the suffering itself, that awareness will draw in pure energy to cleanse the impurity causing it, and the suffering will naturally lighten.
What Makes Holy Water or Unusual Natural Phenomena Sacred?
Someone then asked whether the holy water prepared by monks is the same as water used in other auspicious ceremonies, and about the unusual rain phenomena mentioned in the scriptures.
The teacher explained that sacredness does not come from any external substance — not earth, water, wind, or fire — but from the pure, wholesome energy present in the mind of the one performing the ceremony. When a monk chants with a pure mind, quality of that mind radiates outward and purifies the elements in the water or surrounding environment as well. As for unusual rain phenomena — such as rain that falls without wetting anything, or rain of gem-like substance — these arise from the meritorious power of capable beings who bring them about, not from any inherent sacredness in matter itself.
The teacher added that anyone can generate this kind of sacredness around themselves simply by keeping the mind good — not complaining, not scolding, not criticizing, not looking down on others. Doing just this allows wholesome qualities to radiate outward and automatically purify the surrounding elements. True sacredness, therefore, lies in a mind abiding within the wholesome system — never in anything external.