Why We Must Practice: The Principle from the Tipitaka

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by stressing that practicing the Dharma matters enormously for every life, because humans and all beings are governed by three natures, each with its own agenda. Apart from the wholesome system, no other system brings us any real benefit — and if the unwholesome possesses the mind, it brings us harm. We must therefore learn and train ourselves to remain within the wholesome system, which is exactly the purpose of practice. He cites the principle 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." The teaching contains principle, method, and result together: a monk must determine his own awareness; if he doesn't, something else will step in to command it instead, to no benefit at all.

Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension: Two Instruments of Knowing with Different Roles

Determine what? The answer is to determine knowing — knowing is mindfulness (sati), knowing is clear comprehension (sampajanna). There are two because their roles differ: both are instruments of knowing, but mindfulness is the first to perceive the topic, while clear comprehension perceives the fine detail of a state. Mindfulness automatically converts into clear comprehension once the underlying state appears — but ordinarily that state cannot appear, because the element of ignorance uses obscuring elements to keep it hidden. We must therefore learn to sustain mindfulness continuously, so that this sphere of knowing draws in the pure energy called merit to purify the defiling darkness of ignorance, lightening it until the underlying state can appear. Mindfulness then converts into clear comprehension, perceiving that state and leading us, level by level, into ever subtler inner dimensions.

The Fish and the Baited Hook: Delight and Distress as the World's Bait

This determining serves to eliminate covetousness and grief — delight and distress — toward the world. "The world" is the dimension we perceive through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects. Living through these six dimensions, the key problem is delight and distress, which the unwholesome and the neutral nature use as lures — like bait hung on a hook. He offers this image: "We are like a fish that doesn't know any better, and swallows the bait with the hook hidden inside." Suffering and torment follow, because we become trapped in their dimension — delight and distress are the bait that holds us captive there, while they direct our thoughts, words, and deeds toward what they want, which is, ultimately, to destroy us. When we think, speak, or act wrongly, demerit arises. We must therefore learn to recognize this inner voice of command as something other than our own thought, and learn to remain unshaken by delight and distress — keeping the heart neutral toward every experience, even an unpleasant one, because an unpleasant experience arises from defilement simply doing its job: creating problems and obstacles.

Our Role Is to Draw In Pure Energy, Not to Purify Defilement Ourselves

He explains that we are not the ones who purify defilement — we don't know what it looks like or where it resides. But the pure energy knows, because purity and defilement are natural enemies. Our role is to train ourselves to draw pure energy in, which flows only once a wholesome mind has first arisen within us. We do this by determining our awareness through the recollection of the recitation "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang," reciting with a neutral, equanimous heart — neither delighted nor distressed by any experience. Focus on the recitation the way one focuses on threading a needle, aware of nothing but the eye of the needle; the whole world, all beings and things, vanish. Forming the recitation in the mind is called vitakka; sustained contemplation of it is called vicara — both serve continuous mindfulness.

Merit Purifies Defilement: From Suffering Toward Joy and Happiness

This sphere of knowing continuously draws in the pure energy called merit. As merit flows through the center of the sphere of mindfulness, it purifies the defilement that causes problems and obstacles, lightening our difficulties bit by bit, until a subtle inner state appears. Mindfulness converts into clear comprehension, perceiving that fine, gentle quality, and joy (piti) gradually arises. In the beginning we may need some patience if defilement is present, since a state that must be endured naturally appears. He explains that this suffering was stored up whenever we acted through ignorance — thought, speech, or deed born of the unwholesome draws in the energy of demerit and stores it away; once it accumulates fully, misfortune arises, whether accident or illness. In meditation, pure energy purifies this stored defilement, though the demeritorious side will try to obstruct our practice, to prevent us from reaching a subtler dimension.

Beyond the Empty Stillness, a Mass of Purity Begins to Form

He describes a mechanism that often surprises practitioners: once defilement lightens, we feel an open, empty stillness with nothing in it — the stage where the hindrances no longer disturb us. But subtler defilement, still beyond our perception, still blocks the state of happiness, comfort, and brightness. We must keep purifying it through continuous determining. As that subtle defilement lightens, we perceive the cleanness, the clarity of the heart. After that, a mass of purity begins to form, growing denser and denser, until happiness or brightness arises — some perceive brightness first, others happiness first. As the mass of purity grows denser still, we perceive both together. Our only role is to determine awareness continuously, without lapsing; everything else is the work of the internal automatic system, and we should not let craving interfere with its operation.

The Buddha Image Appears When We Utter His Name: The Arahant Dhamma Body That Carries Pure Dharma

Samma Arahang is a descriptive name (nemittika-nama), called according to the qualities of that Dharma — one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement. When we utter his name, the arahant Dhamma body appears at the center of our body and heart. This Dhamma body is the body that carries pure Dharma, the sphere of pure Dharma within the Dhamma body. Once he appears, he does not appear in vain — he expands, layering as one with us, until our entire body becomes this pure, radiant Buddha image, head to toe, all crystal-clear and shining.

Merging as One with the Buddha Image by Putting On the Feeling

He teaches that this Dhamma body is our true self. We merge with him as one by putting on the feeling — the way an actor about to play a role puts on the feeling of being that character; when they recollect it, its mental factors arise in their mind, and once they arise, the mind perceives that character's qualities. We use the same principle: put on the feeling that we are the Dhamma body, one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement. Determine section by section — head, eyes, gently smiling face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, belly, back, hips, thighs, knees, shins, soles — all becoming the radiant, pure crystal Dhamma body. We must reaffirm our true identity again and again, so that we and he merge ever more closely together. 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.

Gathering the Mind to Stop and Be Still at the Seventh Base, the Sovereign Center

Next, merge our body with his, our mind with his, into one — whatever he does, we do the same. He gathers his mind to stop and be still; we gather ours to stop and be still, following him, settling at the center of the body, the seventh base — the sovereign center (chakraphat center), the gathering point of every body's center: coarse human body, subtle human body, celestial body, Brahma body, formless Brahma body, up through the Dhamma bodies of the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arahant, coarse and subtle alike, all sharing this same center at the seventh base — a center that also connects to the body of the knowing ones of boundless power, Nibbana itself. As we gather the mind to stop, to be still, ever toward the center of the center, spaciousness and ease naturally arise — not tightness, not constriction. Not left, not right, not forward, not back, not up, not down — dwelling at the center of the center. The innermost, subtlest center of all is Nibbana.

The Stream of Merit: Purifying the Elements and Connecting the Line of Merit and Wealth

As we travel this path, a radiant stream appears at the center of the knowing ones of boundless power, uncountable as the sands — we appear bright within them, they appear bright within us. When this happens, they take the elements of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing — earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements — and refine them, purifying every trace of the defilement that causes suffering and misfortune, resolving it without residue, and clearing the path ahead so that we may pursue right livelihood with ease and comfort, connecting the line of our merit and our wealth so that we can sustain our lives and continue building perfections.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparts

As the stream of merit flows continuously through the center of our body and heart, let us recall our ancestors to dedicate this merit to them — 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 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 set the intention to cultivate loving-kindness for the benefit of the world and all beings, drawing on the heart of a mother's love for her own child: may all beings who share this suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death be free from suffering and share in happiness — those with much suffering, less; those with little suffering, none; those with little happiness, more; those with much happiness, ever more. We expand this heart to cover our loved ones, 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 reaching jhana attainment, becoming a Great Brahma after death, then a universal monarch ruling the four continents, whose people lived by virtue, free from harm and war.

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.