Every Life Is Controlled by Three Natures

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by explaining that Dhamma practice is essential and necessary for every life, because every life — especially our own — is controlled by three natures. Nothing is truly free, not even our own thoughts. Of these three systems, only the wholesome one can ever bring benefit; the others cannot, and worse, the unwholesome brings suffering, danger, and harm if we get entangled in its system. To avoid entanglement, we must learn to dwell within the wholesome system. Living without any system at all is impossible — no one exists without some system supporting them. Every life is under some form of control.

A Life Gone Wrong From Being Directed by the Unwholesome

Given this, we must choose which system to dwell within, then learn to understand how to stay aligned with the wholesome system continuously, so it can guide and rescue us from the countless mistakes of the past. Our lives have been full of errors, beset by many problems and obstacles, giving rise to various crises — all because we were directed by the unwholesome system, wasting time uselessly under the neutral system. So if we wish for a good, astonishing life, we need to learn to dwell within the wholesome system — which isn't hard at all, only unfamiliar. We simply need to learn what is right and good until it becomes familiar.

Why We Send Our Children to School: The Analogy of First-Day Unfamiliarity

Why do we send our children to school for their first day of learning? Every child feels unfamiliar, crying and clinging to home, every single one. But we patiently teach them, gently pushing them into the correct system of learning. It's the same here: the wholesome system is one that both children and adults need to learn and understand. Unfamiliarity still requires us to dwell in it, to learn and understand until it becomes familiar. We already know all kinds of things normally, but if we learn to dwell in determining what is genuinely beneficial to us, our lives will experience happiness, prosperity, peace, and flourishing — an astonishing life. An astonishing life is one lived within the wholesome system, with the Triple Gem overseeing it and nibbana behind it all, watching over everything.

Right Mindfulness Is the Heart of Dwelling Within the Wholesome System

Cultivating right mindfulness is the heart of dwelling within the wholesome system, because the moment mindfulness arises, the wholesome system arises with it — mindfulness and the wholesome system arise together, or when the wholesome side manages to seize the moment, mindfulness arises instantly. Even someone untrained in right mindfulness can have mindfulness when the wholesome side wins that moment. But if the unwholesome or the neutral side seizes it, they direct us under their control — bringing in greed, hatred, delusion, and lust, luring us with gladness and sorrow to keep us under their sway, using greed, hatred, and delusion like a hook to catch us, the little fish, as bait. The neutral side does the same, tempting us toward idle pleasure and entertainment, keeping us mired in busywork, unable to dwell within the right and good system.

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

The principle the Buddha taught, recorded in the Tipitaka, states: "Bhikkhus, you should clearly determine body, feeling, mind, and dhamma, in order to eliminate the world's covetousness and grief." He taught this with a clear purpose — to eliminate covetousness and grief, the gladness and sorrow of the world that pass through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, or gladness and sorrow over forms, tastes, smells, sounds, touches, and mental objects. Why can't we be glad or sorrowful? Because gladness and sorrow scatter the mind, preventing it from being balanced and neutral — the mind races about, agitated, uncontrollable.

Equanimity Differs From the Neutral State: A Balanced Mind, Neither Glad Nor Sorrowful

Whether cultivating with eyes open while working, or with eyes closed entering the inner dimension or settling concentration, we must dwell in a neutral state — a mind neither glad nor sorrowful, kept in balance. The moment gladness or sorrow arises, the mind scatters and becomes very hard to control, unable to find balance.

This balanced neutrality is not the same as the neutral nature (abyakata). The neutrality of the neutral nature is an indifference that serves no benefit — neither taking the good nor rejecting the bad. The neutral nature won't let us sit in meditation; the unwholesome won't let us sit either — both try to prevent the mind from being neutral, luring us instead toward indulgence in forms, tastes, smells, and sounds. So we must see the difference between the neutral nature and equanimity (upekkhā), which is wholesome. The neutral nature is an unbalanced indifference; equanimity keeps the mind genuinely neutral, not falling into gladness or sorrow, truly balanced.

Focus Like Threading a Needle: Reciting "Samma Arahang" Word by Word

He teaches that monks must determine; without determining, something else will step in to direct us instead. We must determine, because determining is the human role — whatever we do, we must determine mindfully, recollecting. Recollecting requires a meditation object; our teachers tell us "Samma Arahang," so we recite "Samma Arahang" with a focused mind — not reciting like a parrot, mouth moving while the mind wanders elsewhere. We must focus like threading a needle, where in that moment the mind fixes on nothing but the eye of the needle. Recitation is the same: we must actively do it — "bhāvanā" means "to make something come into being"; it cannot happen on its own. It requires seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing united as one.

Seeing is knowing that the system we dwell in is the wholesome system; remembering is recollecting the recitation "Samma Arahang"; thinking is the mind fashioning itself to stay fixed on the recitation; consciousness is perceiving, staying with the recitation — not letting this sound or that sound pull the mind away. We must stay fixed on each word of the recitation, giving it interest, attention, and focus, word by word, so that the sphere of knowing is established, knowing what it knows, staying with the recitation.

The Sphere of Knowing Draws In Merit to Purify Defilement: A Little Water Cannot Beat a Fire

What we want is the sphere of knowing to be established — the sphere of knowing is the sphere of mindfulness. Once established, it continuously draws the pure energy called merit to flow into the center of its brightness. This pure energy then purifies defilement. Purity and defilement are enemies; where they meet, they must contend. A little water cannot beat a fire — if purity is water, it is now up to us how much pure energy we draw in through determining and knowing, enough to purify the defilement present.

Stay continuously aware, never lapsing, staying with the recitation "Samma Arahang," with a relaxed, open, light, and easeful mind, never rushing, never pushing. We are not after quantity — we want quality: the quality of a focused mind, the nature of that focus. Every moment of focus carries us into the dimension of the recitation. Wanting to enter that dimension, we must stay focused on each subtle state, perceiving it directly.

"Samma Arahang": The Name of the Subtle Dhamma Body, and Merging With the Human Body

"Samma Arahang" is the designated name of the subtle arahant Dhamma body — the name we utter, invoking one who practices well and rightly, far from all defilements. When we speak his name, he appears at the center of our heart. Once he appears, he expands, overlaying and becoming one with our human body, merging his body with our coarse human body as one, so our body receives protection and care from the Dhamma body — a body that is clear, clean, and pure. As he merges into oneness with us, we merge into oneness too, until we are the noble image, the noble image is us, and our whole body becomes the clear, clean, pure, radiant crystal Dhamma body.

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

Even while things remain dim, murky, and dark, that is not the real issue. We can merge ourselves with the Dhamma body as one by wearing the feeling, the way an actor wears the feeling of whatever role he plays. When he recalls that character, its mental factors appear in his mind, and those mental factors display their qualities. The mind perceives those qualities; whatever the mind knows, we know — and so we can wear the feeling of being that thing.

We use the same principle, recalling the noble image — the subtle arahant Dhamma body, one who practices well and rightly, far from all defilements. As we recall him, we wear the feeling of being him; the feeling of a being who practices well and rightly, far from defilement, appears in our heart. Our mind becomes clean and clear, perceiving his state. He guides perception through the whole body — head, face, cheeks, shoulders, arms, torso, down to the feet — all becoming the crystal Dhamma body, radiant, gentle, and soft.

Perceive as Much as You Can: From 1% to 100%

The Great Teacher used to say that reaching the noble image can be easy or hard — easy because we know and understand, hard because we don't. Reaching the Dhamma body only requires us to determine; the mind is an element that accomplishes whatever is determined. Once we determine, we perceive him, the noble image, to whatever degree — take that for now, from 1% to 100%, whatever we can perceive, and let it serve as capital to develop from 1% to 2%, from 2 to 5, to 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, gradually growing. The Dhamma body already exists within us; he is always ready to merge into oneness with us, because he is our true self. As we wander through the cycle of rebirth, changing bodies over and over, only he follows us everywhere, in every place.

Stopping Within Stopping, Stillness Within Stillness: The Seventh Base and the Path to Nibbana

Merging into oneness with him makes it easier for him to work and help us. We merge our body with his by wearing the feeling that we are the noble image, the noble image is us; then we merge our mind with his as one. Whatever he does, we do the same: he gathers, stops, and stills the mind, so do we, into the center of the body, the center of the noble image, at the seventh base, two finger-widths above the navel. The mind already knows this well, since it naturally arises and passes there. We are only the ones who determine.

Stop within stopping, still within stillness, into the center of the center. This seventh-base position is the imperial center, the center of every body — coarse and refined, celestial, Brahma, formless-Brahma, the Dhamma bodies of stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arahant, both coarse and refined, path and fruit — all complete within this seventh-base center. Every time we grow still, the sphere of stopping is established; once established, it displays its qualities, stopping every system — even the breath may pause briefly. We feel open, spacious, and at ease. This stopping and stillness into the center of the center is itself the journey toward nibbana. We appear as a radiant stream within nibbana; nibbana appears radiant within us, and our whole being becomes clear, radiant, and pure.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

Staying continuously aware, never lapsing, the sphere of knowing continuously draws in pure energy. The stream of merit flows richly through the center of our body and heart without pause. Within this sphere of merit lies sacred, pure dhamma-elements, potent and powerful in eliminating all defiling stains, suffering, and danger — along with treasures of form, wealth, virtue, retinue, fortune, fame, praise, happiness, the path and fruit of nibbana, and the knowledge of the Dhamma body, all complete within it.

As this stream of merit flows continuously through the center of our body and heart, we dedicate this merit to our relatives waiting in the next world, anxious about when their descendants will be born into the human realm to dedicate merit to them. Now that we have created the cause of this merit, we dedicate it to our ancestors — our relatives, 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 cultivate loving-kindness 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 toward all beings: may the people of the world and all beings 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.

Once we've made this aspiration, we expand this loving-kindness-filled heart to cover our home, those dear to us — parents, siblings, grandparents, our retinue — and spread it wider to neighbors, covering the whole village, subdistrict, district, province, country, and 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 boundless reaches of the cosmos, covering the countless stars and galaxies of the infinite universe.

The Triple Gem and nibbana will correct and help us so we can benefit the world and cosmos to the greatest extent possible. Whoever benefits the world and the cosmos may make use of its treasures, as the Bodhisatta of old did, practicing loving-kindness for the benefit of the world and all beings until reaching absorption. Upon closing his eyes to leave the world, he was born into the Brahma realm, enjoying long-lasting bliss, then returned to be born as a universal monarch, ruling the four continents so all people could live happily, established in good conduct, free from harm and war.

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 in life; 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 and healthy, 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.