พระอาจารย์ขยายความคำสอนที่ว่าการนึกถึงองค์พระในตัวคือ 'วิตามินรวมของใจ' เพราะใจรับรู้ได้ทีละอย่าง นึกถึงองค์พระแล้วนิวรณ์จะเข้าไม่ได้ พร้อมอธิบายกลไกความโกรธที่เกิดขึ้นทันทีเมื่อพบบางคน และแนะให้นึกถึงองค์พระเสมือนท่านมีชีวิตจิตใจจริงThe teacher expands on a teaching that recalling the Buddha image within is the "multivitamin of the heart" — since the mind can hold only one thing at a time, keeping the mind on the Buddha image crowds out every hindrance at once. He also explains the mechanism behind sudden anger toward certain people, and why one should relate to the inner Buddha image as truly alive.
Someone shared a teaching from an elder teacher: the best "multivitamin of the heart" for overcoming the five hindrances is recalling the Buddha image within. When the mind holds the clear Buddha image, lust or anger have no room to arise, because the mind can hold only one thing at a time. They asked the teacher to elaborate.
What Is "The Multivitamin of the Heart"
The teacher explained that the mind's nature is such that it can experience only one state at a time. Thinking of sensual desire produces sensual desire; thinking of someone disliked produces anger. But holding the clear Buddha image within — the most excellent object of all — keeps the mind pure and bright, free of all five hindrances, undisturbed. This is why it's called the multivitamin of the heart: simply holding the Buddha image in mind addresses every hindrance at once.
Why Some People Feel Instant Anger Toward Certain People, and How to Address It
Asked why encountering certain people can trigger instant anger, almost like an automatic reaction, the teacher explained that unwholesome nature possesses the mind, pulling data from memories of past conflict with that person and processing it within the mind — a process belonging to unwholesomeness itself, not our true nature. Unwholesomeness stirs the mind to fixate on the other person, accompanied by an inner voice of criticism and blame, until a demeritorious mind-state fully forms. He explained that although it seems state and our own awareness arise simultaneously, they actually alternate extremely rapidly, on the scale of fractions of a second — like the blades of a spinning fan, which appear to be everywhere at once.
The remedy is to steadily observe and examine this phenomenon as it happens, because in the moment of observing, wholesomeness steps in to guide and instruct. The more one practices meditation regularly, the more refined the mind becomes, able to catch this process at ever-finer intervals, weakening unwholesomeness's strength while strengthening wholesomeness's — gradually lessening anger and mental turbidity. He stressed that a human being's only task is to sustain awareness; purifying one's inner elements is the work of system of nature itself.
Why the Buddha Image Should Be Related to as Truly Alive
The teacher explained further that simply recalling the Buddha image within draws a flow of merit from the Triple Gem across countless Buddhas, cleansing the impurities that cloud the heart. But he advised against relating to the Buddha image as a lifeless object — instead, recognize it as the boundless Knower and Powerful One truly present within us, who wishes to relate to us — greeting, conversing with, and thanking that presence when we recall it, deepening familiarity and closeness over time until we merge into oneness with it, allowing it to help us far more effectively. The Buddha images we venerate outwardly are merely symbols pointing toward the true Buddha image within.