Why This Practice Matters for Every Life

Phra Ajarn opens by stressing that meditation practice is essential for every life, because our bodies stay upright, able to walk, sit, and move, only through an energy that sustains us. That energy is merit, and it can only be drawn in when we abide with wholesome nature. But our lives are not carried by merit alone — unwholesome and neutral energies are constantly competing to take the helm, whether we are awake or even asleep. This is why teachers advise us to fall asleep with a wholesome mind, so that merit continues to flow through us even while we rest.

The Buddha's Words: Clearly Determine Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma

The Buddha taught the way to abide with wholesome nature: "Monks, you should clearly determine the body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, in order to remove covetousness and grief regarding the world." He taught us to "determine" — to mark, specify, or point to — the body, feeling, mind, and dhamma in these four stations, because it is through these four that we come to recognize the three natures competing to express themselves through us.

Satipatthana 4 versus Mahasatipatthana 4

If we simply note body, feeling, mind, and mental objects at a basic level, this is **Satipatthana 4**. But if our knowing goes deeper and finer, all the way to seeing the three competing natures at work within the body-within-the-body, the feeling-within-the-feeling, the mind-within-the-mind, and the dhamma-within-the-dhamma, this is **Mahasatipatthana 4**. Satipatthana 4 is the surface-level noting; Mahasatipatthana 4 is entering into knowing at a subtler, deeper level. Even so, we must first train in the basic level until it is reliable. Only on that foundation can we gradually learn to observe our way into Mahasatipatthana 4.

How to Begin: Noting the Body

Noting the body can be done at any single point — the hand, the foot, or any part of the body — or as an awareness of the whole body at once. For example, note the abdomen: when it falls, know it falls; when it rises, know it rises. Or note the breath — mindfulness of breathing. What matters is simply that the "orb of knowing" arises. Determining is marking, specifying, pointing the mind to a spot — this is called "putting the mind in." Once we go in and know at that point, the orb of mindfulness establishes itself in the mind.

Mindfulness as a Generator of Energy

Mindfulness is a wholesome mental factor, appearing as a clear, radiant sphere, arising whenever wholesome states arise in the mind. Once mindfulness is established, it draws in the pure energy of merit to flow into the brightness at its center. Our mind functions like a generator, drawing in different currents depending on which nature has taken the helm: wholesome nature draws merit, unwholesome nature draws demerit, and the neutral nature draws neither. Wholesomeness brings happiness and progress; unwholesomeness brings suffering and distress.

Feeling: The First Layer That Reveals Who Is in Charge

When one of the three natures manages to seize the helm, feeling — the mind's first layer — registers it and displays its qualities. The quality of the wholesome is happiness and ease; the quality of the unwholesome is dukkha, a state that must be endured and is hard to bear; and the neutral nature shows itself as a strange kind of blankness — neither quite good nor quite bad.

Mind: Thoughts, and at a Deeper Level, "The Sound of Thinking"

Determining the mind means noting the thoughts that arise — recalling merit, recalling the meditation object, recalling the crystal sphere, recalling the chant. But at the deeper level of Mahasatipatthana, thinking is perceived as "the sound of thought" arising from whichever nature has superimposed its own mind onto ours. Feelings and thoughts then surface as an emotional tone belonging to that nature, for us to recognize.

The Goal: Removing Covetousness and Grief

The purpose of noting body, feeling, mind, and dhamma is to abandon covetousness and grief regarding the world. Covetousness is delight; grief is sorrow — and both relate to two worlds: the outer world of sights, tastes, smells, sounds, and touch, and the inner world of mental impressions, meaning delight or aversion itself. The Buddha taught us to hold the mind in balance, neither delighting nor resenting — because delight breeds greed, and aversion breeds anger, which leads to malice and endless mutual harm. To understand the nature working behind the scenes, we must develop insight, which reveals what is truly steering our lives.

The Path Inward Through the Dhamma Sphere

Teachers instruct us to note at the body, since dhamma is the gateway leading toward Nibbana — a path that passes through the inner dhamma sphere where everything of ours is stored. To travel the middle way, we rely on the spheres of morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and the knowledge-and-vision of liberation, each held within the dhamma sphere as tools for the journey — all converging at the seventh base at the center of the body, which lies hidden within.

The Seventh Base and Moving the Sphere of Light

Once we reach the sphere of light, we learn to make it expand, contract, and shift left or right at will, then guide it along the middle path — through the first, second, third, fourth base and onward, then back up again until we meet the dhamma sphere itself. But before reaching this light, we must first cultivate concentration until a clear, bright sphere appears, train it to move freely, and only then gently bring it to rest at the center of the body. As impurities are cleared away through this purification, "dropping into the void" occurs.

The Fineness of Determining: The Microscope Analogy

Phra Ajarn illustrates the increasing subtlety of going inward with the image of a pen-tip magnified a hundred, then a thousand times under a microscope — the central point keeps expanding further inward. The finer the level we enter, the finer the contest among the three natures becomes. The more refined our practice grows, the greater the proportion of wholesomeness we carry with us.

The Automatic Workings of the Wholesome System

Phra Ajarn stresses that our only job as human beings is to keep determining and knowing without lapsing. Everything else belongs to the wholesome system, which handles the rest automatically. Once mindfulness is established, it draws in merit to cleanse impurities, and brightness naturally follows. This unfolds automatically through the successive stages of morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and knowledge-and-vision-of-liberation, each purifying and passing to the next — supported by the four bases of success (aspiration, effort, mind, and investigation) that keep the process moving continuously.

Cultivating Loving-Kindness

Once the mind has settled through noting, Phra Ajarn leads loving-kindness meditation for the benefit of the world and all beings. He instructs us to draw upon the heart of a mother who loves and wishes well for her young child, because loving-kindness needs truthfulness and resolve as its foundation — and a mother's sincerity toward her child runs deep enough to trade her own life for it. As this loving-kindness expands, we extend it through our home, community, country, the whole world, and finally the boundless universe: may the world and all beings be free from suffering and find happiness everywhere. Whoever benefits the world and the universe may in turn draw upon the resources of the world and the universe.

Dedication of Merit and the Closing Chant

The session closes by resting the mind in the stream of merit, in the Triple Gem, and in the utterly refined dhamma bodies of the revered teachers — Luang Pu, Luang Phor, and Khun Yai Ajarn — followed by a resolve to request their blessing and power from Nibbana. May we attain the knowledge of the Dhammakaya, enjoy good health, and be able to build merit and perfections throughout this life. May all karmic counterparts forgive one another, and the session closes with the traditional Pali chant of dedication.