Two Halves of Practice: Eyes Open and Eyes Closed

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by stressing that practicing the Dharma is of the utmost importance and necessity for every life, because we all live under the control of three natures, each with its own agenda for controlling every being, including us. Apart from the wholesome, every other nature brings no benefit at all — it brings only harm. If the unwholesome system takes hold as master of the house, it steers us into wrongdoing in body, speech, and mind, bringing suffering and hardship into our lives.

He explains that practice has two halves: the part done with eyes open and the part done with eyes closed. We must train both. With eyes open — during our daily activities, our livelihood, our duties with family and society — we must stand firmly within the wholesome system, because only the wholesome system can guide us to think, speak, and act rightly. Without that understanding, mistakes happen; we've all lived through a life of alternating right and wrong without quite knowing why, because when the unwholesome takes hold of the mind, it steers us wrongly while we believe every thought is entirely our own.

Resting the Right Way: A Rest That Still Draws In Merit

He teaches that after completing our duties, we must rest body and mind — but our resting has often been mistaken, resting the body alone without resting the mind correctly, gaining nothing from it beyond recovering enough energy to get back to work.

Correct resting is different: while resting, we can still draw in the pure energy called merit, along with its subtle treasure, purifying the heart and lifting us into ever subtler dimensions. That means our inner standing changes from within — the root cause of our outer standing — letting us reach a knower who knows more, with greater power, who guides us with sound reasoning toward what is right and good. When we do good and stand within the wholesome system, we can draw in energy that is even purer, more sacred, more powerful in purifying defilement, and the subtle treasure carried within that stream of merit becomes finer and more valuable still — doing little yields much, and doing much yields even more.

The Principle from the Tipitaka: Determining Awareness of Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dharma

In practice, we must learn what the Buddha himself taught, even when our teachers have already taught us, because it is 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." Phra Ajarn says he must repeat this sentence every time, because it is the sentence capable of turning an ordinary person into a virtuous one, and a virtuous person into a noble one worthy of reverence.

Its essence: the Buddha taught monks to be conscious of determining, because if we don't determine our own awareness, some other nature will step in to determine it for us — for its own benefit, not ours.

Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension: The Difference That Decides Whether the Heart Governs Itself

The Buddha taught us to determine awareness, because knowing is mindfulness and knowing clearly is clear comprehension. Both are states of knowing, but they differ in role and depth. Mindfulness comes first, the crucial factor that lets the heart merge with the body, giving us self-awareness.

He points out the utter difference between being self-aware and not. While self-aware, the heart is balanced and can stand firm; sustained over time, this steadiness gives rise to stability — the heart stays neutral, neither elated nor upset by whatever happens in life, which in turn gives rise to self-mastery.

But when we lack mindfulness, without self-awareness, the nature called ignorance (avijjā) takes hold of the mind, and we fall under its control. We can still talk, drive, carry out our activities as usual — but we lose the mastery to do what is right and proper, and pure energy cannot flow through us, because beyond ignorance taking hold, wrongly conditioned mental formations also steer us astray. In this state of lacking self-awareness, only the unwholesome system or the neutral nature (avyakata) can take hold as master of the house — and neither can draw in the pure energy called merit at all. Only the wholesome system, once it takes hold as master, guides us rightly and well while continuously drawing pure energy — merit — into the brightness at the center of the sphere of mindfulness.

Merit and Subtle Treasure Purify Defilement, Turning Hard into Easy

When merit flows through us, the subtle treasure carried within the brightness of the sphere of knowing flows through as well. Pure energy purifies the defilement that gives rise to the many forms of hindrance and difficulty; the subtle treasure, in turn, draws worldly, tangible wealth toward us. Whether we're practicing meditation, pursuing our livelihood, or doing any activity at all, if we stay self-aware, the stream of merit flows in together with subtle treasure to dissolve the defilement behind our many hindrances. As defilement lightens, our difficulties lighten with it — what was hard becomes easy, what was hard to bear becomes comfortable.

Once mindfulness draws pure energy in, it purifies ignorance, which relies on a deep-buried darkness impossible to trace directly — only merit can lighten it, until the subtle states can appear: lightness of body and mind, a fine, soft, tender quality, clear, cool, open, spacious, at ease. When these subtle states appear, mindfulness automatically shifts into clear comprehension, which perceives them fully and carries us into ever subtler inner dimensions, layer by layer, without our even noticing. What we do notice, afterward, is a growing sense of ease and openness following practice — a sign that we've done it correctly, sustaining ourselves continuously within the wholesome system.

Our Role Is Only to Determine Awareness — Not to Purify the Defilement Ourselves

He stresses that in practice, our role is only to determine our awareness and stay continuously aware without lapsing. The role of the sphere of knowing we establish is to draw pure energy into the brightness at its center; the role of that pure energy is to purify the defilement — not us. We don't even know what defilement looks like or where it is, so we simply keep to our own role and never intrude on another's.

He warns that if we intrude on another's role — striving to get, to have, to become, competing and clashing with others — that shows a wrong nature is steering us from behind. We must hold the heart neutral: don't be elated, don't be upset, don't delight or despair over success or failure, because elation and disappointment are the very tools used to lure us out of the wholesome system. When the heart loses its balance, it scatters and sways with whatever another nature stirs up — which is exactly why the Buddha taught us to eliminate covetousness and grief, the world's elation and disappointment.

Body, Feeling, Mind, Dharma: The Only Four Channels Nature Offers Us

The Buddha taught us to bring the heart to rest within the body, in feeling, in mind, and in dharma. Knowing through the body means self-awareness, knowing the breath, or awareness of postures connected with the body. Knowing through the heart means knowing feeling — pleasant, painful, or neutral — only these three. When the unwholesome takes hold of the mind, we immediately feel suffering, a state we must endure and find hard to bear, and we know the unwholesome has taken hold, because whatever nature becomes master of the house shows its qualities at the heart. The heart is our instrument of knowing — whatever it knows, we know. If the wholesome takes hold as master, the heart feels happiness and ease.

But if the neutral nature (avyakata) takes hold, its quality appears at the heart as a kind of flatness — utterly different from the flatness of genuine equanimity (upekkhā). The flatness of the neutral nature is flat but strangely off; the flatness of equanimity is a balanced flatness, grounded in happiness, a heart that stands firm and steady, unshaken, self-governing. Knowing through the mind means knowing the thoughts and feelings of whatever nature has entered and conditioned the mind; knowing through dharma means knowing the mental factors that condition good and bad qualities alike — all these feelings appear at the heart, and the heart perceives them, because it is our instrument of knowing.

He concludes that the forty wholesome meditation methods recorded in the Tipitaka are all elaborations of the wholesome system, meant simply to give mindfulness something to hold onto, to make practice easier — but underneath, they are all just body, feeling, mind, dharma. This is exactly what the Buddha taught, nothing more. Nature offers us only these channels; we simply choose which one to enter — body, feeling, mind, or dharma. Nothing more than this. What looks like many different methods is only because each channel can be elaborated in many ways — but know that there are only four channels.

Reciting "Samma Arahang" Until It Becomes Automatic

Our teachers instruct us to begin with recitation and mental image as a foundation, training ourselves to become familiar with reciting "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang" until it is familiar to mouth, tongue, and heart — reciting day and night, even continuing unnoticed through sleep, waking still reciting, never a moment without it. If we can do this, we attain the fruit of recitation. To recite (bhāvanā) means to bring something into being — whatever we determine, that comes to be, and becomes automatic with it, until the recitation continues on its own without our needing to determine it at all — this is reaching the automatic system that lets us recite continuously, day and night, without break, even through sleep.

Beyond the recitation itself, we can also direct the heart to focus and contemplate within the words of recitation, repeating again and again until it becomes automatic. But before it becomes automatic, we must begin somewhere — our recitation may stop and need restarting, again and again, until the inner system begins reciting on its own. We then simply perceive the fine, gentle, beautiful sound of the words. We can refine this further still, for instance directing the recitation to be done with a relaxed heart, because whatever we determine appears automatically and shows its quality at the heart, which the heart then perceives. Refining these techniques further requires the guidance of a knower.

Samma Arahang, the Descriptive Name of the Arahat Dhamma Body

"Samma Arahang" is a nemittika-nama — a descriptive name — of the Arahat Dhamma body. When we utter his name, he appears together with both form and quality, an inseparable pair, because form is like a package that carries the quality within. If it is wholesome, that package is a clear, bright orb; if unwholesome, the package is a dark, black orb.

His form is the pure, radiant crystal Buddha image, able to smile, to speak, alive with heart and mind; his quality is that of one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement. When we utter his name and he appears at the center of our heart, he does not appear in vain — he expands and settles as one with our human body, perhaps without our even noticing. With every syllable of recitation, he continues layering into oneness with us, transforming our human body into a pure crystal Buddha image. We are the Buddha image; the Buddha image is us.

Merging Body and Mind as One with the Buddha Image

Once he appears layered as one with us, put on the feeling of merging into oneness with him, using the actor's technique: whoever plays a role thinks of that type of person, and that person's mental qualities appear layered at the heart, expressing themselves outwardly, which the heart then perceives. We use this same principle, putting on the feeling that we are the Buddha image, one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement, so that our whole body becomes a radiant crystal Dhamma body — clear, cool, clean, and pure — from the head, face, cheeks, shoulders, both arms, torso, down to the soles of the feet, all becoming the radiant crystal Dhamma body: fine, soft, tender, clear, cool, clean, pure.

Reaching the Buddha image can be as easy or as hard as we make it — hard through not knowing or understanding, easy through knowing that the heart is an accomplishing element, becoming whatever we determine. When we determine the Buddha image, he arises with both form and quality, layering into oneness with us; we simply need to perceive his existing presence, because he is our true self, and he wishes to merge with us into a single unity, so that helping us becomes easier. He warns that refusing to acknowledge his presence is a great pity, because it makes reaching him harder still, as the unwholesome will tell us we are only imagining it. Understand that the unwholesome's role is to make easy things hard and comfortable things difficult, and stand instead within the correct system, not the system of the unwholesome.

Gathering the Mind to Stop and Be Still at the Body's Seventh Base: The Imperial Center

Once we have merged our body with his into a single unity, we merge our heart with his as well. He enters cessation attainment (nirodha samāpatti), gathering the mind to stop and be still; even without understanding what that attainment is, simply gathering the mind to stop and be still is enough. Gather the mind to stop and be still at the body's seventh base — even if unfamiliar with this position, that's fine, because our role is only to determine it. Once we command the mind to stop and be still at the seventh base, it settles there automatically.

This seventh base matters because it is the imperial center, where the Dhamma sphere of every body converges — the subtle human body, the celestial body, the Brahma and formless-Brahma bodies, the Gotrabhu, Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anagami, and Arahat Dhamma bodies, coarse and subtle, path and fruit alike, all converging here. The universal monarch who nurtures and protects us, managing all our resources, resides right here. As we gather the mind to stop and be still, this becomes the imperial center across all eighteen bodies; a stream of merit appears bright, old merit and new merit pouring in continuously.

Sinking Deeper into the Sphere of Nibbana

He leads us to gather the mind to stop and be still, soft, light, at ease, clear, cool, clean, pure — not a forced stillness that feels cramped, but a stopping that opens the heart, expanding, releasing layer by layer; the lighter it feels, the less cramped it becomes. Stop within stopping, still within stillness, into the center of the center — not left, not right, not forward, not back, not up, not down — into the center of knowing, of stopping, of stillness, ever finer, until the finest point of all: the sphere of Nibbana, the abode of those free from every defilement — the Buddha, the Solitary Buddhas, and all the Arahats.

Whoever holds the mind bent toward the path of Nibbana will find Nibbana appearing bright at their center. He teaches that Nibbana ordinarily holds all beings at its center already. When the Buddha still walked this earth, his loving-kindness was boundless, equipped with pure wisdom and great compassion, ever helping and supporting all beings. But once he attained full enlightenment, his abode changed — he could no longer remain within the three realms of existence and had to dwell in the sphere of Nibbana. Yet his compassion for all beings remains. So, freed from the task of purifying his own defilement, he holds all beings at his center, protecting and guarding them from the forces of Māra that seek to destroy them. Whichever beings stand within the wholesome will appear bright at his center, and a stream of merit from the deepest, subtlest part of Nibbana flows continuously to refine their bodies for their own benefit.

When we gather the mind within his center, he appears bright within us, and we appear bright within him. When he appears bright within us, he refines our elements of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing, making them clear, clean, and pure, lightening our defilement, and helping resolve our karmic results, suffering, grief, and misfortune. He also smooths the path ahead so our livelihood succeeds, and links us to a stream of merit and treasure as well.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparts

Simply by gathering the mind to stop and be still, continuously aware without lapsing, the stream of merit pours through, both merit and treasure together, and we need only sit and receive that stream of treasure continuously. 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, 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 merit is dedicated, we cultivate loving-kindness to benefit people and all beings, asking that all who share in birth, aging, sickness, and death find happiness together. Phra Dej Phra Khun Luang Pu advised drawing on the heart of a mother's love for her own child: 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 then expand this heart, brimming with loving-kindness, to cover our home, then village, subdistrict, district, province, all of Thailand and its neighbors, until it becomes a radiant, clean, pure crystal sphere covering the whole world — further still 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: born into this world, he practiced loving-kindness continuously until he attained meditative absorption, and sustained it until the end of his life, being reborn in the Brahma realm to enjoy immense happiness for an age. When that life ended, he was reborn once more as a human, this time attaining the status of a universal monarch, ruling the four continents with the world's treasures, so that his people lived by virtue, free from harming one another, at peace.

Closing Aspiration

In closing, Phra Ajarn leads an aspiration for success now and in all lives to come. May the merit, radiance, power, and absolute authority of Nibbana across every element and every dharma, together with the merit of our teachers and our own accumulated goodness across countless past lives, 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.