Why We Must Practice: The Principle from the Tipitaka

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by stressing that practicing the Dharma is essential for every life, because every life is governed by three natures — through thought, speech, and action. If we don't train ourselves to stay within the wholesome system, other natures will take over and steer us toward theirs, which brings us no benefit at all — and if the unwholesome possesses the mind, it will misguide our thoughts, words, and deeds toward its own ends, bringing great harm. We must therefore learn and train ourselves to remain within the wholesome system, because only the wholesome system truly helps and benefits us, now and in the future.

He cites the principle recorded in the Tipitaka, taught by the Buddha: "Monks, you should determine clear awareness of body, feeling, mind, and dharma, in order to eliminate covetousness and grief toward the world." This single teaching contains the principle, the method, and the goal together — determine your own awareness, because if we don't determine it ourselves, some other nature will step in to determine it for us, to no benefit at all.

What Does It Mean to Determine? How Mindfulness Differs from Clear Comprehension

Once we must determine, the question is: determine what? The answer is "to determine is to know" — knowing is mindfulness (sati), knowing clearly is clear comprehension (sampajanna). Mindfulness is recollection: the mind returns to itself. Clear comprehension is the detailed knowing of whatever state has appeared. The two play different roles — mindfulness grasps the topic first, while clear comprehension knows the detail that leads into the inner dimension. Wherever we determine our attention, that is where awareness goes: on the breath, on the feet, wherever we direct it. At first, mindfulness knows only the topic; the fine detail of the inner state hasn't yet appeared, because it remains covered by the obscuring elements of ignorance.

The Sphere of Knowing Draws In Pure Energy to Purify Defilement

While mindfulness is sustained, it continuously draws in the pure energy called merit to flow through the center of the sphere of knowing's brightness. This pure energy purifies the defilement — the ignorance that uses obscuring elements to block us from perceiving the inner state — until that obscuring darkness thins enough for the underlying state to appear. Mindfulness then automatically converts into clear comprehension, perceiving that state fully: lightness, spaciousness, a fine, gentle, tender quality. When mindfulness and clear comprehension perceive such states, it means we have entered the inner dimension, the dimension of the heart. Within our heart lie countless dimensions beyond number, and we enter each deeper level only through this continuous determining of awareness.

When the Unwholesome Intrudes, Mindfulness Fades Away

The sphere of knowing — mindfulness — is a wholesome sphere: a clear, bright, round orb that arises every time the wholesome system takes hold as the ruling force in the mind, a mental factor born together with a wholesome consciousness. But if the unwholesome or the neutral nature manages to intrude and take the ruling position instead, mindfulness must fade, because mindfulness can only stand where a wholesome mind has arisen. What replaces it is ignorance — not-knowing. When mindfulness arises, ignorance falls away; when ignorance arises, mindfulness must fade, because purity and defilement are natural enemies. When purity arises, it purifies the defilement that causes the problems and obstacles of life, whether in the outer world or the inner one.

Patience in the Early Stage, and the Voice That Urges Us to Give Up

He explains that wherever defilement exists, it must act according to its role — creating problems and obstacles in the many forms of the hindrances, making practice difficult, confusing, and troublesome. So in the beginning we need a little patience, continuing to determine our awareness until pure energy lightens the defilement. As defilement lightens, the problems and obstacles lighten too, and ease gradually arises. He warns that without understanding this mechanism, we lose our diligence and patience, and a voice will urge us toward discouragement and weariness. That voice telling us to quit halfway is not our own voice — it is the voice of the unwholesome or the neutral nature that has possessed the mind. Once it takes hold, it guides us this way; we must recognize that this voice is not us.

Staying Neutral: Eliminating the World's Delight and Distress

The Buddha taught that the purpose of practice is to eliminate covetousness and grief — delight and distress — toward the world. "The world" here means the six sense objects: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects, encountered through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The reason delight and distress are forbidden is that the unwholesome and the neutral nature use them as tools to keep humans and all beings under their control, imprisoned within their dimension. Any being unaware of this, whose mind sways with delight and distress, can be commanded to think, speak, and act for that nature's benefit. When we think, speak, or act wrongly, we draw in the energy of demerit continuously. We must therefore learn to keep the heart neutral — neither delighted nor distressed. This quality is called tatramajjhattata cetasika, the foundational mental factor of equanimity (upekkha), which develops into ever subtler and brighter refinement.

Reciting "Samma Arahang" with the Focus of Threading a Needle

He leads the recitation "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang" repeatedly, with focused, attentive contemplation — like someone threading a needle, aware of nothing but the eye of the needle. The whole world — trees, grass, people — vanishes while we're absorbed in threading. The same applies here: when we're absorbed in the recitation, everything else disappears; there is only "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang." With full attention, we perceive the beginning, middle, and end of each syllable, and time itself seems to stretch. Just as growing a crop needs fertile soil, cultivating meditation needs a fitting ground of heart — relaxed, open, at ease, clear, and cool. Recite continuously, syllable by syllable, without rushing — we are not after quantity, only continuous awareness without lapsing.

The Buddha Image Appears at the Center of the Heart: A Name Born of His Qualities

"Samma Arahang" is a descriptive name (nemittika-nama), a name called according to its qualities — one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement. When we utter his name, he appears at the center of our body and heart; form and quality (nama-rupa) appear together — the name is his quality, the form is what carries that quality. Once he appears, he does not appear in vain — he continues to expand, layering as one with us, until our entire body becomes the radiant, pure, clear crystal Dhamma body.

Merging Body and Mind as One with the Buddha Image

He leads us section by section: our head becomes bright, pure crystal of the Dhamma body, crowned with a radiant lotus-bud crest; the forehead gleams; the eyes become his eyes, closed gently, with a serenely smiling face brimming with boundless loving-kindness; neck, shoulders, arms all become the radiant crystal Dhamma body; belly, lower belly, back, hips, knees, shins, calves, soles all become the radiant, pure crystal Dhamma body. We merge with him as one, the way an actor puts on the feeling of a role — even if things remain dim and hazy, that's no obstacle. Phra Dej Phra Khun Luang Phor taught that reaching the Dhamma body ranges from 1% to 100%: easy for those who know and understand, hard for those who don't, because the heart is an accomplishing element — however we determine it, so it becomes. Whatever we can perceive, we take as our starting point, and gradually build from there.

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. Settle the mind at the seventh base, the center of the body, common to every body from coarsest to subtlest. Find it where two imaginary threads cross: one from the navel to the spine, one from the left side of the waist to the right; two finger-widths above that intersection marks the position. Even without knowing the exact spot, the heart already knows it, since we pass through this position every time we're born, die, sleep, and wake — we need only determine it, because the heart is an accomplishing element.

The Pen-Dot Under the Microscope: Sinking Ever Deeper into the Center of the Center

He explains what it means to gather the mind at the "center of the center" of the body, the center of the Buddha image, again and again. He offers this image: it is like marking a dot with a pen at the center, then using a microscope to magnify that dot. The tiny point is magnified, and we mark a new dot again at the center of that magnified point — then the microscope magnifies this new, smaller dot once more. We touch a needle-tip to the center of that newly magnified mark, and repeat — center of the center, again and again. In this way the mind grows ever subtler, but this refinement comes together with spaciousness and ease, never with tightness or constriction. Not left, not right, not forward, not back, not up, not down — sinking ever inward, toward the center of the center. The innermost, subtlest center of all is Nibbana itself. When we hold the heart loosely, neutrally, it appears bright and clear at the center of the knowing ones of boundless power, uncountable as the sands.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparts

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, aunts and uncles, relatives, 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 counterparts (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, drawing on the heart of a mother's 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. We expand this heart to cover our home, then village, subdistrict, district, province, Thailand, neighboring countries, until it becomes a radiant, clean, pure crystal sphere covering the whole world — then further, to earthbound devas, tree devas, sky devas, the heavenly beings of every level, Brahma and formless Brahma realms, even beings in hell, as hungry ghosts, and as animals — and further still, 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 until the end of his life, becoming a Great Brahma, then a universal monarch ruling the four continents, whose people in that age lived by virtue, never harming one another.

Closing Aspiration

In closing, Phra Ajarn leads an aspiration for success now and in all lives to come. May the merit of our teachers and our own accumulated goodness 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.