Two Halves of Practice: Eyes Open and Eyes Closed

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by explaining that practice has two parts: one with eyes open, one with eyes closed. The eyes-open part happens while we carry out our work and duties, and care for our family and society — we need to dwell, and train ourselves to dwell, within the wholesome system, so it can draw in pure energy and guide and help us. Otherwise we fall under the direction of some other system.

Once our duties are done, we come to rest quietly within, entering a more refined dimension, letting the wholesome system carry us into ever more refined dimensions still. This lets us draw in purer, more refined, more sacred, more valuable pure energy together with subtle treasures and blueprints for success, and lets us reach knowers of greater knowledge and power who can help us more. This is the purpose of closing the eyes in meditation.

Refining the Elements: Three Natures Competing Within Us

Closing the eyes is meant to take us into deeper, more refined dimensions so these beings can refine our elemental nature. We call it "refining the elements" because nature has three sides. Refining means reducing the proportion of the unwholesome system, increasing the wholesome system, and also reducing the proportion of the neutral (abyakata) side while increasing the wholesome system's share. The greater that share, the more easily our life flourishes, the fewer problems and obstacles we face, and the more astonishingly — not gradually — our life improves.

Our life should not keep repeating the same stumbling, faltering pattern of mistakes. It isn't meant to be that way; something behind the scenes has been misdirecting us. We need to correct and change things so our life improves, and that improvement depends entirely on this three-sided system of nature.

The Turtle Simile: The Share of Wholesomeness Determines a Life's Length

He compares it to baby turtles directed by the three sides of nature — some die young, some die in middle age, some die old. What makes the difference is the proportion of the wholesome system within them. A turtle that dies young has a larger share of the unwholesome system, so its life can easily be cut short.

To live long, a turtle needs a large share of the wholesome system and little accumulated karmic result; the wholesome system then guides it toward what is correct and good, helping it survive problems and obstacles and live to old age. Our lives work the same way.

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

In cultivating meditation, even though our teachers guide us in various methods, we still need to understand what the Great Teacher himself taught about cultivating right mindfulness. 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."

To expand on this: he taught the monks that they must determine and know. If they do not determine, some other nature will step in to direct them instead — which brings them no benefit at all, and if that system is unwholesome, brings suffering and harm.

Knowing Is Mindfulness, Knowing Is Clear Comprehension: Where Every Dhamma Begins

What must we determine? We determine to know, because knowing is the sphere of mindfulness, and it is also clear comprehension. Knowing can be both mindfulness and clear comprehension. Mindfulness differs from clear comprehension in that mindfulness is the part that recollects first — when we recollect, the mind settles with the body. This is the sign that mindfulness has arisen: the mind is with the body.

"Stay Grounded": The Folk Wisdom and the Mechanics of the Healing System

When someone is about to faint, elders say, "stay grounded" — keep the mind with the body. Because once the mind is with the body, the wholesome system switches on and healing, the restorative system, begins. That is what our ancestors meant by telling us to stay grounded, to keep the mind with the body — because the wholesome system settles in and starts clearing away the stains of past wrongdoing.

Once mindfulness arises, ignorance — the sphere of not-knowing — falls away. Once mindfulness has arisen, it draws in the pure energy called merit, flowing continuously into the center of the bright sphere of knowing, of mindfulness, which appears as a round, clear, radiant sphere. Every dhamma can only arise in one place — the heart — nowhere else. When mindfulness, this bright wholesome sphere, arises in the heart, it makes the heart bright as well.

The Coffee-Straw Bubble Simile: The Stream of Merit Flowing Into the Sphere of Knowing

The sphere of knowing — mindfulness — continuously draws the pure energy called merit into the center of its brightness. He compares it to dipping a coffee straw into water and blowing, producing a continuous stream of bubbles. The spheres of merit bubbling up into the center of the sphere of knowing arise far more quickly and abundantly, beyond counting, than bubbles from a coffee straw.

Bright within each sphere of merit is pure, sacred dhamma-substance, potent and powerful, able to clear away the defiling stains that create hardship and obstacles — the many forms of hindrance that bring suffering to our life or our practice. Merit, this purity, purifies these stains until they thin. As they thin, problems and obstacles thin too, and hardship eases; ease gradually takes its place, gradually growing.

Patience and Fortitude: Enduring While We Still Must

So if, while sitting, we feel we must endure something difficult, that means defilement is abundant, since defilement is what creates the hardship that makes us have to endure. We must endure for a while — patience will bring fortitude to ease the suffering down to a bearable level.

Once we can bear it, pure energy keeps purifying the defilement, thinning the obscuring elements of ignorance enough for subtle dhamma states to appear. When they appear, we perceive them; the heart registers that subtle state, and mindfulness automatically shifts into clear comprehension, which fully perceives that subtle state. We are merely the watcher, the knower — but we must keep determining to know, without lapsing.

The Role of the Human Body: Do Not Interfere With the Wholesome System's Mechanism

This is the role of the human body — to determine and know, and to keep that knowing firmly established without lapsing. Once the sphere of knowing arises, it draws in pure energy on its own. This pure energy, called merit, has the job of clearing away defiling stains, because purity and defilement are enemies that cannot coexist — they purify each other out. Each has its own distinct role; we should not interfere. Maintain our own role and don't wish for defilement to vanish quickly — everything has its process, its own working mechanism.

Wanting is itself a form of interference. When we interfere, we abandon our duty to determine and know; when we abandon that duty, the sphere of knowing cannot arise, pure energy stops being drawn in, and refining the elements halts — meaning some other system takes over instead, effectively imprisoning us within that dimension. So we should not feel pleased or displeased about anything: pleasure imprisons, displeasure imprisons.

This is why the Great Teacher said cultivating right mindfulness eliminates the world's covetousness and grief — eliminating pleasure and displeasure toward form, taste, smell, and sound. Let mindfulness stay focused and absorbed in the recitation "Samma Arahang" as our teachers advise, word by word, bringing us into the dimension of the sound of the recitation, with a relaxed, open, light mind.

"Samma Arahang": The Name of the Dhamma Body, and Wearing the Feeling of the Noble Image

"Samma Arahang" is the designated name of the arahant Dhamma body. When we utter his name, he appears — both in form and designation. The form is the body seated within the sphere of dhamma that fills the lap, bright and clear. The designation is his quality: Samma Arahang means the knower, one who practices well and rightly, far from all defilements.

When we utter this name, this body appears with his qualities. When he appears in the center of our heart, he does not appear in vain — he expands, overlaying and becoming one with our human body, making our whole being clear, clean, and pure, a radiant Dhamma body. When his body expands to overlay ours, we merge with him as one. Even while things remain dim and murky, that is not the real issue.

Do as an actor does: whoever plays a role thinks of that type of person, and their mental factors appear in the heart; once they appear, they display their qualities there — the heart knows whatever it knows, and that is what we know. We use the same principle: wear the feeling of being one who practices well and rightly, far from all defilements. As we wear this feeling, his wisdom, purity, and great compassion flow through to us, and knowledge, happiness, and purity gradually take form. We are the noble image; the noble image is us.

Merging Body and Mind: Stopping Within Stopping, Stillness Within Stillness, at the Seventh Base

Once our bodies are merged as one with his, we merge our minds with his as well. Whatever he does, we do the same: he gathers, stops, and stills the mind within the noble image, at the center of the body, the seventh base. We may not be familiar with this position, but our mind is — it already arises and passes there constantly. So simply by determining that it is at the center of the body, the seventh base, the mind goes there automatically. As we determine, so it becomes.

The seventh base is the imperial center, shared by the coarse human body, the refined human body, the celestial body, the Brahma body, the formless-Brahma body, the Dhamma bodies of the lineage, stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arahant, both coarse and refined, both path and fruit — all converging at this same point. This is us gathering all eighteen bodies, our true selves, together, merging with our human body as one. The sphere of merit appears bright within the center of every body's sphere of dhamma. Before, we had only the human Dhamma body; now the merit of all bodies converges, bright within the center of the coarse human body — we gather all eighteen bodies, each our true self.

Then we gather the mind, stop, and still it — stopping within stopping, stillness within stillness, into the center of the center, not forward, not back, not left, not right, not up, not down, going ever deeper into refinement. Every time we stop and still, boundless openness appears, light and at ease. This deepest refinement, the center of the center, is nibbana itself — we are heading straight along the path within the body toward nibbana, the path of attainment leading to nibbana.

We then appear bright within nibbana, within the countless knowers of boundless power — every Buddha, every Pacceka Buddha, and every arahant. We appear bright within them; they appear bright within us. When they appear bright within us, they do not appear in vain — they take our elements of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing, our earth, water, wind, fire, and space and consciousness elements, and refine them clear, clean, and pure, clearing away defiling stains, karmic results, and demonic obstruction, correcting our path in advance so we can reap success in our work and everything good and right.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparties

As the stream of merit pours continuously through the center of our body and heart, we dedicate this merit to our ancestors — recalling 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 merit is dedicated, we make the aspiration that all beings and the world be free from suffering and find happiness — may those with much suffering have less, those with little suffering have none, those with little happiness have more, and those with much have ever more.

Once this aspiration is complete, we expand this heart filled with loving-kindness outward in every direction without limit, wishing goodness upon the world and cosmos. We gather, stop, and still the mind within loving-kindness; the stream of merit pours continuously into the center of the brightness of loving-kindness. We gather, stop, and still within the stream of merit, within the Triple Gem — the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha jewels — and the great teachers who have guided our merit and dhamma from the beginning. We gather and still the mind within the most refined Dhamma body of the Great Master Grandfather, the Great Master Father, and Khun Yai Acharn. The heart is an element that accomplishes whatever is determined.

Closing Aspiration

Once we appear bright within nibbana, within all the Buddhas, Pacceka Buddhas, and arahants, we use this auspicious moment to pay respect and make an aspiration for success to be established, now and in the future, throughout countless lifetimes along our path of building perfections — that our life be complete with knowledge, happiness, and purity, and every rightful wish fulfilled.

May the merit, radiance, power, and authority of nibbana throughout all elements and dhamma, together with the merit of our Great Master Grandfather, Great Master Father, and Khun Yai Acharn, combine with the merit we ourselves have diligently 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 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.

May old wrongdoing be forgiven and new merit bear fruit successfully. May we be born into a family of right view, a crystal family, a Dhamma-body family, complete with the finest form, wealth, virtue, fortune, fame, praise, the path and fruit of nibbana, and the knowledge of the Dhamma body — studying the Dhamma-body knowledge correctly and faithfully alongside our teachers from youth until the end of life. May all these good aspirations be fulfilled for us from this moment forward, through every lifetime, until the very end of the Dhamma.