The teacher read a passage from a Dhamma broadcast: "When wise people hear the Dhamma, their minds become clear, like a deep pool of water, pure, calm, and undisturbed." Someone then asked why listening to and studying Dhamma is necessary, when some teachers emphasize sitting practice alone.

Two Kinds of Defilement, Three Levels of Wisdom

There are two main kinds of defilement: 1) impurity of mind, which calm-meditation (samatha) can cleanse, reaching at most the formless Brahma realms, and 2) ignorance and lack of understanding, which requires a basic level of insight (vipassana) before reaching the insight that sees through the Dhamma eye of the Dhamma body. This basic level of insight is exactly what brightens our wisdom -- beginning with the wisdom born of learning (hearing and remembering), developing into the wisdom born of reflection (contemplating what we've remembered). As the sphere of mindfulness arises and draws in merit to cleanse ignorance, the inner knower of that subject guides us toward clear knowing and understanding.

The wisdom born of meditation, meanwhile, is knowledge that doesn't exist anywhere in the world -- knowledge that the inner knower must transmit to us systematically, much like profound scientific knowledge of microbes, viruses, or atoms, which took many generations of sustained focus and contemplation to discover. But through meditation, that profound knowledge can be reached through direct insight within a single lifetime. This still requires a foundation of basic knowledge -- the wisdom of learning and reflection. Calm alone, without that foundation, makes it difficult to develop into deep understanding.

Why Knowledge and Understanding Matter

Without knowing and understanding the three natural forces that govern our lives, all we can do is sit with closed eyes, letting ourselves be guided along without being able to argue back at all, for lack of information. But once we know and understand, whichever force tries to mislead us, we will recognize it. Developing a connection with the inner knower always requires the outer knower -- listening to Dhamma -- as its foundation first.

Why Listening to Dhamma Brightens the Mind

When we hear wholesome Dhamma, that wholesomeness draws in pure energy -- merit -- to flow through us. The mind is like an energy-drawing device: if its "software" is wholesome, it draws in merit; if unwholesome, it draws in demerit. The energy of merit, being an energy of brightness, brightens the mind and settles it, as latent tendencies settle like sediment -- like a deep pool of water, clear and undisturbed.

Ignorance is the key tool of unwholesomeness, keeping beings from knowing the truth. Listening to Dhamma therefore has two benefits: 1) it draws in pure energy, and 2) it cleanses the defilement of ignorance and wrong view, in both worldly and spiritual matters. This is why we send our children to study at trustworthy schools, and why we go to hear Dhamma from those who have realized the truth, so that we too can become free of defilements.

Listening to Dhamma Is a Blessing Even for Celestial Beings

The Buddha praised listening to Dhamma as a duty befitting celestial beings. Even though a celestial being enjoys the fruits of past merit, it remains diligent in accumulating further merit, knowing that its celestial birth arose purely from merit, not by chance. Yet the opportunity to create merit in the celestial realm is limited, unlike the human realm, where one has full opportunity to build the perfections. Being born human, with the chance to hear Dhamma, is therefore a golden opportunity not to be let slip by. There are only two paths to knowing and understanding: hearing from an outer knower, or hearing from an inner knower -- and each requires learning the method; without knowing how, it cannot be done.

Does Neglecting Cleanliness Affect One's Practice?

Someone asked: if a practitioner neglects cleanliness (such as ignoring a sign the founding teacher once put up asking everyone to keep the restroom clean and dry), does this worsen their meditation results? The teacher explained that if one is coarse, becoming refined instantly is simply not possible, because someone who doesn't attend to cleanliness cannot reach the voice of the inner wholesome knower, which is exceptionally pure. Our behavior in each moment reflects which natural force we are connected to at that time. If we enter a place and neglect its cleanliness, the mind carries that lingering impurity out with it -- it must be cleansed first before the mind itself can be clean. Once we act with a clean mind, whatever we do carries that cleanliness along with it.