Practice Is Training to Dwell Within the Wholesome System

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by explaining that practice is learning and training ourselves to dwell within the wholesome system, in order to draw in pure energy along with its subtle treasures to power that system and raise our inner dimension to ever finer levels. This lets us connect with knowers of greater power who can help us in every way. Practice has two parts — eyes open and eyes closed. With eyes open, we practice through our work and activities so the wholesome system can guide us and bring success easily, leading us toward an astonishing life. With eyes closed, we aim to enter ever more refined inner dimensions, to purify our elemental nature.

Purifying our elemental nature means reducing the proportion of the unwholesome and the neutral, and increasing the proportion of the wholesome. As the wholesome proportion grows, our purity grows with it. Practicing with eyes closed focuses on entering the inner dimension; practicing with eyes open focuses on carrying out outer activities to astonishing success by relying on the wholesome system. Eyes-closed practice focuses on the refinement of dimension itself, which brings benefit — access to a source of pure energy, to refined subtle treasures, and to a connection with knowers of even greater wisdom and power who can bring about astonishing success.

Samatha Clears Sensual Desire, Vipassana Gives Rise to Wisdom: Two Kinds of Cultivation

Meditative cultivation comes in two kinds. Samatha concerns inner rest and stillness, connecting with purity, in eliminating sensual desire — samatha aims specifically at clearing kama-raga. Vipassana, on the other hand, gives rise to wisdom; it is determining in order to know clearly whatever we set out to know — whatever we wish to understand, we determine it, and thereby reach the refinement and knowledge of that thing, guided by the relevant knower. Once we reach it, we know it clearly. The method of practice is for our teachers to advise with their own techniques, but we still need to understand the principle the Buddha himself taught, which covers the whole substance of the matter. Even as teachers offer various techniques, we must know the overarching principle he taught the monastic sangha.

The Buddha's Words: Determining Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma to Eliminate Covetousness and Grief

It is recorded in the Tipitaka: "Bhikkhus, you should clearly determine body, feeling, mind, and dhamma, in order to eliminate the world's covetousness and grief." Phra Ajarn needs to restate this key principle, whose purpose is to eliminate the world's covetousness and grief — this is the essential point. Covetousness and grief are gladness and sorrow, beginning from pleasure and displeasure; when we are careless about pleasure and displeasure, they expand into gladness so strong the mind scatters, or sorrow so heavy the mind grows dull and unclear. Both are forms of losing balance.

Losing Balance Means Being Captured: Why Gladness or Sorrow Is Dangerous

Once balance is lost, control becomes difficult, and we drift astray. When we feel glad or sorrowful, we become captured within the dimension of the unwholesome or the neutral. Once captured there, they mold, confine, and restrain us, directing and forcing us into acts that serve sin and unwholesomeness. Whether gladness or sorrow, both lead to harming ourselves and others. This is the crucial point to understand.

In practice, experience naturally includes both gladness and sorrow — good experience brings gladness, poor experience brings displeasure. We need to know that this is because defilement is present; poor experience is simply normal when defilement exists. If defilement is present, it will cause problems, obstacles, and hardship in practice. Once we understand this, we recognize: ah, this means defilement is abundant. Our role is only to determine and know, without needing to feel pleasure or displeasure, gladness or sorrow.

Equanimity: Resting the Mind in Balance So It Can Stop with Ease

We should not feel so glad about a good experience that the mind scatters, because gladness captures us within that dimension and leads to wandering, distracted thoughts. We need to dwell in equanimity (upekkhā), resting the mind neutrally — neither pleased nor displeased — so the mind stays balanced. Once balanced, the mind can stop and still with ease; determining to stop within stopping and still within stillness becomes easy. But if the mind is scattered, we cannot determine stopping and stillness at all. We must first bring the mind to a balanced point, and only then determine to stop and still — this makes cultivation easy.

Interest, Attention, and Focus: Reciting "Samma Arahang" with Applied and Sustained Thought

He has us recite "Samma Arahang" — a word we must use continuously, through however many lifetimes we are born. In determining the recitation, give it interest, attention, focus, and reflection — applied thought (vitakka) and sustained thought (vicāra). Applied thought raises the recitation and holds it in mind, continuously recollecting "Samma Arahang." Sustained thought reflects on it, back and forth — "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang" — reflecting again and again, with continuous focus, on a relaxed, light, easeful mind, on a foundation of goodness: a relaxed, open, light foundation.

"Samma Arahang": The Name of the Subtle Dhamma Body, and the Closeness Built by Repetition

"Samma Arahang" is the name of the subtle Dhamma body. When we utter his name, he appears at the center of our heart. Whatever dhamma we determine, that dhamma establishes itself — whether wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral; the moment we determine it, it arises in our heart. "Samma Arahang" is the name called according to his qualities — one who practices well and rightly, far from the defilements. The moment we utter this name, the subtle Dhamma body arises and appears in our heart. Once he appears, it is not in vain — he expands, overlaying and becoming one with us, making our whole body the radiant, cool, clean, pure crystal Dhamma body.

We need to keep reaffirming our true self, because every time we do, we grow closer to being one with him. This closeness must be built, otherwise a gap and distance opens, and we drift further from him over time. So each time we reaffirm — we are the noble image, the noble image is us — that closeness and unity deepens.

Wearing the Feeling of the Noble Image: The Actor's Principle

Even if we don't perceive it clearly, even amid dimness and murk, that is not a real problem. We can merge into unity with him using the actor's principle. To play any role, an actor must recall that character; when he recalls it, the mental factors of that character appear in his mind. Once those mental factors appear, they display their qualities; whatever the mind knows, that is what we know. Once he knows those qualities, he can wear the feeling of being that character, and the performance follows.

We use the same principle by wearing the feeling that we are the noble image, the noble image is us — we are the noble image who practices well and rightly, far from all defilements. Determining this, the mind becomes clear, and because it becomes clear, merging with him occurs; his purity flows into us. He guides perception through the whole body — head, face, eyes, neck, shoulders, both arms, chest, abdomen, back, hips, thighs, knees, shins, calves, feet — all becoming the crystal Dhamma body, radiant, gentle, and soft.

From 1% to 100%: Reaching the Dhamma Body Can Be Easy or Hard

The Great Teacher used to say that reaching the Dhamma body can be easy or hard — easy because we know and understand, hard because we don't. The mind is an element that accomplishes whatever is determined. Access to the Dhamma body ranges from 1% to 100%; whatever we can perceive, take that for now as a starting capital, and let it grow gradually — from 1% to 2%, from 5% to 10%, 15%, 20%, and onward.

Stopping Within Stopping, Stillness Within Stillness: The Seventh Base and the Sphere of Nibbana

Once our bodies are merged as one, let our minds merge with his as one, simply by relaxing the mind into stopping and stillness at the center of our body and heart — the seventh base, two finger-widths above the navel. We may not be able to pinpoint it precisely, but the mind already arises and passes there naturally. Simply determining that we are at the seventh base, the mind goes there automatically. This center is the imperial center, the same center shared by every body — coarse, celestial, Brahma, formless-Brahma, and the Dhamma bodies — all sharing this one center.

Gather the mind to stop, gather the mind to still, into the center of the center. The stream of merit flows radiantly through every body. Stop within stopping, still within stillness, into the center of the center, on and on. At the very end of the center of the center lies the sphere of nibbana, the dwelling place of nibbana, of the countless, immeasurably powerful knowers. When we appear radiant within his center, he appears radiant within ours, and he refines our seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing — our earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements — into clarity, cleanliness, and purity.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

As long as the sphere of knowing continues to determine and know, aware of what it knows, mindfulness continues without interruption, drawing in the pure energy called merit continuously. We rely on this pure merit to benefit our ancestors — recalling our relatives, our parents, siblings, grandparents, our benefactor teachers, the devas who help and support us, our caretakers and guardians, and all beings we may have wronged, our karmic counterparties — asking mutual forgiveness and sharing this merit with all equally.

Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the World and the Cosmos

Once the merit is dedicated, we make an aspiration for the benefit of the world and all beings. The Great Teacher advised us to draw on a mother's heart of love and goodwill toward her beloved child, establishing that heart within us, then aspiring: may all beings, our fellow travelers in birth, aging, sickness, and death, be free from suffering and find happiness — may those with much suffering have less, those with little have none, those with little happiness have more, and those with much have ever more.

We then expand this loving-kindness-filled heart to cover our home and those dear to us — parents, siblings, spouses, children, and grandchildren — spreading further to neighbors, covering the whole village, subdistrict, district, province, and onward to neighboring countries, until it covers the whole world, making it a radiant, clean, pure crystal sphere, reaching earth-bound devas, tree devas, sky devas, all the heavens, the Brahma and formless-Brahma realms, and even hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals — then expanding further across the countless stars and galaxies of the boundless cosmos. Whoever benefits the world and the cosmos may make use of its treasures, as the Bodhisatta of old did, practicing loving-kindness continuously, becoming a Brahma enjoying long-lasting bliss, then a universal monarch ruling the four continents in peace, free from mutual violence.

Closing Aspiration

Phra Ajarn leads an aspiration for radiant merit, power, and might from nibbana throughout all elements and dhamma, together with the blessings of our teachers, to combine with the merit we have sincerely accumulated since beginningless time 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 a complete end; may we gain the eye that sees the Dhamma, penetrate the knowledge of the Dhamma body, and be strong in health, with boundless spirit to build perfections toward nibbana. He closes by asking that old wrongdoing be forgiven, and that new merit bear fruit successfully for us all.