Why We Must Practice: The Three Natures Compete to Be Master of the House

Phra Ajarn Suraphong opens by stressing that practicing the Dharma is of the utmost necessity and importance for every life, because we live under the control of three natures, each competing to become master of the house, pressuring and steering us into various acts. Apart from the wholesome, every other nature brings no benefit at all — it brings only harm — especially when the system that takes hold and steers us is the unwholesome one. We therefore need to learn how to make ourselves compatible with the wholesome system, so that it may take hold as master of our heart, watching over our life and mind.

Two Halves of Cultivating Right Mindfulness: Eyes Open and Eyes Closed

The Buddha taught about cultivating right mindfulness (samma-sati), which has both an eyes-open and an eyes-closed component. The eyes-open cultivation lets the wholesome system guide our thoughts, words, and deeds toward what is right and good, bringing benefit and keeping us from error. It also draws in pure energy, subtle treasure, and a blueprint for success, bringing benefit both now and in the near and distant future.

The other half is the eyes-closed cultivation — resting after our duties, sitting to rest body and mind the correct way, which can draw in the pure energy called merit, together with subtle treasure and a blueprint for success, developing and lifting us into inner dimensions, connecting us with ever more powerful knowers.

Developing from Right Mindfulness, to Right Concentration, to Right Liberation

In cultivating right mindfulness, we develop from right mindfulness (samma-sati) into right concentration (samma-samadhi), and from right concentration we develop further into right liberation (samma-vimutti). This is the sequence of development Phra Ajarn points to in this teaching.

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

In cultivating right mindfulness, the Buddha taught the monastic community, as 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." To expand on this: the Buddha taught monks to determine their awareness, because determining is the essential role of being human. If we train ourselves in determining, we come to know that we can determine with ever greater refinement, at many levels — and it is necessary that we adjust our focus correctly. The more right view we hold, the more effective and fruitful our determining becomes.

The Sphere of Knowing Draws In Pure Energy to Purify Defilement

The Buddha taught us to determine awareness, because knowing is mindfulness and knowing clearly is clear comprehension. When we determine our awareness, the sphere of knowing — mindfulness — arises, a clear, bright orb, a wholesome sphere that can appear only in one place: the heart, nowhere else. Once the sphere of knowing arises, the sphere of not-knowing — ignorance — falls away. This sphere of knowing continuously draws pure energy, called merit, to flow through the center of its brightness. This pure energy purifies the defilement that gives rise to the many forms of hindrance and difficulty in life, and in our practice as well.

As we keep determining our awareness, the sphere of knowing continuously draws this pure energy in, which gradually lightens the defilement. The lighter the defilement, the fewer the obstacles; difficulty lessens and ease appears; hardship lessens and comfort arises; suffering — a state that must be endured and is hard to bear — lessens, and happiness arises. Good experiences gradually appear as defilement diminishes.

Our Role Is Only to Determine Awareness

In determining our awareness, our role is simply to determine. Once the sphere of knowing — mindfulness — arises, it draws pure energy in to purify the defilement, ignorance, which lightens. Ignorance relies on a tool that conceals the subtle states: a dimming, blinding element. As we determine our awareness, the sphere of knowing flowing in purifies ignorance, lightening that dimming element. Once it lightens to a certain degree, the subtle states — lightness of body and mind, a fine, soft, tender quality — arise. When these subtle states appear, mindfulness automatically shifts into clear comprehension, which comes to fully perceive this subtle dharma, carrying us into inner dimensions layer by layer, sphere by sphere, even without our seeing it directly.

Self-Awareness Versus Its Absence: The Difference That Decides Whether the Heart Stands Firm

In determining our awareness, the heart merges with the body, and self-awareness arises. Once self-awareness arises, we need to see clearly how utterly different it is from its absence. While self-aware, the heart is balanced, unshaken by whatever stimulates it. Unshaken and balanced, it can stand firm; sustained continuously, stability arises, giving rise to self-mastery.

But if we had not been determining our awareness before this, mindfulness arises only in scattered moments, discontinuous, and self-mastery does not arise. We can still talk and carry out activities, but a lack of self-awareness comes in patches too, making us forgetful and easily led into right and wrong actions, scattered thoughts, going to extremes, shaken by whatever stimulates us — the heart loses its balance and cannot stand firm. This is the difference we need to recognize between having mindfulness and lacking it.

Reciting "Samma Arahang" to Sustain the Continuity of Mindfulness

Once we determine mindfulness, recollection arises — the heart merges with the body. Once we can recollect, the next step is recollecting what we wish to know — for instance, wishing to know a meditation object so that mindfulness has something to hold onto, sustaining its continuity. Here, our teachers recommend reciting "Samma Arahang, Samma Arahang."

Samma Arahang, the Descriptive Name of the Arahat Dhamma Body: The Buddha Image Appears in the Heart

Samma Arahang is a nemittika-nama, the descriptive name of the Arahat Dhamma body. When we utter his name, he appears with both form and quality — the form being the clear crystal Buddha image, alive with heart and mind, able to smile and speak; the quality being the name we call him by, according to his qualities — Samma Arahang, meaning one who practices rightly and well, far from every defilement. When we utter his name, he appears at the center of our heart. Once he appears, he does not appear in vain — he expands and layers into oneness with our human body, then merges our human body into a pure crystal Buddha image. He does this because he is our true self.

Merging Body and Mind as One with the Buddha Image

Once he merges with our human body, he refines our elements, making them clear, clean, and pure. He also wishes for us to understand and merge into oneness with him — our body one with his body, our heart one with his heart — so that he can help and support us with full effectiveness. Let us merge with him into a single unity by putting on the feeling that we are the Buddha image, even if we cannot see him — just as an actor playing any role thinks of that type of person, and that person's mental qualities appear automatically.

Let us put on the feeling that we are 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, hips, thighs, down to the soles of the feet, all becoming the radiant crystal Dhamma body. Our head becomes the crystal Dhamma body crowned with a bright lotus-bud crest; our face becomes his countenance; our eyes become his eyes, closed gently with a serene, smiling expression; nose, cheeks, mouth, chin, neck, shoulders, both arms, chest, belly, lower belly, back, hips, thighs, knees, shins, calves, and soles of the feet all become the radiant crystal Dhamma body, clear, cool, clean, and pure.

Phra Dej Phra Khun Luang Phor always taught that reaching the Dhamma body 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 appears at our heart and merges us into a single unity — and he truly exists; we need only perceive him with a heart continuously contemplating both the recitation and the mental image. If we focus and contemplate part by part, starting from whichever part we can first perceive his presence in, and continue determining that part, clarity will gradually appear until we become certain of his presence — from 1%, 2%, or 5%, or 10% that we can perceive, gradually developing to 20, 30, 40, 50, until it finally reaches 100%.

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. Whatever he does, we do the same: he gathers his mind to stop and be still, so we gather ours to stop and be still, soft and at ease, at the body's seventh base. Even if we're unfamiliar with this base, that's fine — we simply determine it. Our role is only to determine; the heart already knows this position, since it passes through here every time we are born, die, sleep, and wake.

This seventh base is the position of the imperial center, because it is where the Dhamma sphere of every body converges — the subtle body, the celestial body, the Brahma and formless-Brahma bodies, the Gotrabhu, Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anagami, and Arahat Dhamma bodies — every body shares this same center of the Dhamma sphere, the abode of the universal monarch, of the sphere of merit; the universal monarch resides at the center of the sphere of merit, which is held within the Dhamma sphere. As we gather the mind to stop and be still at the body's seventh base, we appear bright at the center of the universal monarch of every body, converging into one shared center, and the stream of merit pours through 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. Stop within stopping, still within stillness, into the center of the center — not left, not right, not forward, not back, not up, not down — deeper and deeper into the center of the center. As we gather the mind to stop and be still in this center of centers, our heart opens and expands in every direction, spacious, light, at ease, clear, cool, clean, and pure. The finest point at the center of this spaciousness, the finest of the finest, is Nibbana — the sphere of Nibbana, the abode of every Buddha, every Solitary Buddha, and every Arahat.

As we gather the mind to stop and be still in this center of centers, our mind bends toward the path of Nibbana, and brightness appears at his center; he appears bright at ours. When he appears bright within us, he refines our elements of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing — earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness — making them clear, clean, and pure, clearing away every defilement that gives rise to suffering and misfortune, resolving them completely. He also smooths the path ahead for us, so that our livelihood and duties succeed smoothly, according to our wishes, and links us to a stream of merit and treasure.

Dedicating Merit to Ancestors and Karmic Counterparts

As we stay continuously aware without lapsing, the stream of merit pours through continuously together with the stream of treasure, and we need only sit, determining our awareness with a relaxed, easeful heart. As the stream of merit flows continuously through us, let us dedicate this merit to our ancestors — recalling our relatives, our parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and our teachers, 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 generate goodwill for the world and all beings. In cultivating loving-kindness, Phra Dej Phra Khun Luang Pu advised drawing on the heart of a mother's love for her own child, letting it rise at the center of our heart, then wishing: may all beings who share in birth, aging, sickness, and death be free from suffering and find happiness together — 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 — 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 — may all beings be free from suffering and find happiness together. We then expand further still, into the vastness of the cosmos, covering the countless stars and galaxies, small and great.

Closing Aspiration

While we abide at the center of the brightness and clarity of Nibbana, Phra Ajarn leads us to pay respects and ask for his blessing, setting a blueprint for success to stay fixed within our bright sphere of merit and perfection, throughout our path of building perfections across countless lives, complete with knowledge, happiness, and purity. May the merit, radiance, power, and absolute authority of Nibbana across every element and every dharma, together with the merit of our teachers, combine 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 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.