พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าฝ่ายอกุศลจะปกปิดข้อบกพร่องของเราไว้เพื่อใช้เป็นโปรแกรมซ้ำๆ การจะถอนออกได้ต้องอาศัยศีล สมาธิ ปัญญา จนเห็นทุกข์โทษภัยของมันอย่างแท้จริง ดวงวิมุตติจึงจะทำงานปลดปล่อยเราได้ พร้อมยกตัวอย่างคนขับแท็กซี่ที่เลิกบุหรี่ได้ด้วยการพิจารณาโทษภัยซ้ำๆThe teacher explains that the unwholesome side hides our flaws so it can reuse them as a repeating program. Uprooting a flaw requires virtue, concentration, and wisdom until we genuinely see its true danger — only then does the sphere of liberation set us free. He illustrates this with a taxi driver who quit smoking by repeatedly contemplating its harm.
A student asked why some people can identify their own flaws yet still be unable to reduce or quit them.
The Unwholesome Side Hides Our Flaws So It Can Reuse Them as a Repeating Program
The teacher explained, citing their late teacher's words, that discovering a flaw within ourselves that needs correcting is a discovery greater and more wondrous than any scientific discovery — and it becomes even more wondrous still if, having discovered it, we actually manage to reduce, quit, and improve ourselves. This is because whenever nature possesses our life, it conceals whatever is bad within us, keeping it hidden even from ourselves. If someone points out our flaw, the unwholesome side grows displeased and stirs up resistance so we refuse to accept it. Discovering our own flaw, then, means that we and nature have worked together to draw out the unwholesome side's central weakness.
Each flaw the unwholesome side creates gets reused like a program. Every time we act according to that flaw, tainted energy is drawn in along with a ruinous element and a completed unwholesome program, allowing it to manufacture an unlimited number of "time bombs." This becomes a repeated pattern — what we might call a "weak point" that keeps tripping us up.
Uprooting It Requires Virtue, Concentration, and Wisdom Until We Truly See Its Danger
Removing this programmed flaw is extremely difficult. It requires to lighten coarse behavior, concentration to clear away , and wisdom to genuinely see the flaw's true danger. Once we see that danger clearly, repeatedly, to the point of genuine resolve to quit, the sphere of liberation already present within us goes to work, setting us free. As long as we haven't truly seen the danger, freedom remains extremely difficult.
The teacher gave the example of a taxi driver addicted to smoking. Before lighting each cigarette, he would describe its harms to himself as thoroughly as possible; then, while smoking, he would stay aware of the suffering the act itself was causing. This made it impossible for him to finish a cigarette, because his own heart refused to accept it. Repeating this for just one week, he was able to quit smoking entirely, without medication or any program.
The Body's Built-In Tools: The Spheres of Virtue, Concentration, Wisdom, Liberation, and the Knowledge and Vision of Liberation
Within us are the spheres of virtue, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the and vision of liberation — tools built into each level of our being. The sphere of virtue protects the safety of our body and speech; the sphere of concentration clears defilement from the mind — wherever we direct our attention, pure energy enters to cleanse defilement at that very point. The sphere of wisdom lets us see the value of wholesome qualities and the danger of unwholesome ones, enabling the sphere of liberation to set us free; once freed, the sphere of the knowledge and vision of liberation carries us toward an ever more excellent life.
When asked about a friend who lies compulsively and cannot stop, the teacher explained that this happens because the person doesn't realize an unwholesome nature is compelling them to speak this way, even in situations where lying isn't necessary at all. The more they lie, the stronger the unwholesome force becomes, until nearly every word spoken becomes a lie — gradually destroying their credibility without their even realizing what is happening to them.