Every Moment We Must Choose Which System to Abide In

The teacher opens by explaining that in every present moment, we need to abide in wholesomeness. Abiding in wholesomeness requires mindfulness, which must be trained with every breath. Whenever we manage to bring mindfulness inward, an internal process of purification begins. But this process is not something we ourselves carry out — we are simply the one who chooses the system, the one who permits wholesomeness, or Nibbana, to come in and correct us. We are the owner with the right to accept or refuse, but we have no power to command the process itself. The one who actually performs the work is the one possessed of power — Nibbana, the Triple Gem within — it does the work. If we don't associate with it, our life suffers, because if we don't align with wholesomeness, the unwholesome and the neutral will step in and take control instead. Every single second, we cannot avoid belonging to one system or another. Once we understand this, we must choose to accept the right system and train ourselves so life develops by staying within it.

"The Clear Path Circles to Hell, the Overgrown Path Winds to Heaven"

He points out that following unwholesomeness is easy — simply indulge yourself and it's done. It's like a tree whose fruit tastes sweet, but the bitterness comes later: we must eventually face the kammic result, suffering in body and mind afterward. Staying in wholesomeness, by contrast, feels like forcing yourself, difficult, requiring effort — but the fragrant, sweet result waits afterward. There's an old saying: "the clear path circles to hell, the overgrown path winds to heaven." The clear path is easy walking but loops back to hell; the overgrown path requires real effort in training, in abiding, in using mindfulness — like having to blaze your own trail — but it eventually winds its way to heaven. This is exactly our training. We need to understand why this is so: it is the work of ignorance. The demeritorious side must obscure and conceal, keeping us from knowing, robbing us of motivation and morale.

The Symptom of "Falling Merit" and Why We Need External Teachers

He explains that a person whose merit or fortune is coarsely declining can be recognized: their motivation goes first. Energy fades, and the will to do good fades along with it — that is the symptom of "merit falling." When this happens, we need to replenish merit. Some people go to perform rituals to ward off misfortune, but the real thing that restores motivation is wholesomeness itself — we must find a way to stay within it. But if staying within wholesomeness becomes too difficult on our own, we need to rely on teachers — external sources of knowledge. Every human being needs teachers to guide them; we cannot reach the knower within without first being guided by a knower outside. Once we recognize we can't manage alone, we must seek out someone with enough wholesome power to pull us up out of discouragement or exhaustion of spirit — because that exhaustion is really the ebbing of our merit-power. We go to replenish our morale from someone who has it, asking them to fill ours back up — this is the external knower. Once freed from unwholesomeness's grip, we can then reconnect with the wholesomeness already within us. During the time we can't connect, don't force yourself to fight it alone — that's genuinely hard, requiring enormous unnecessary endurance and pressure.

The "Easy Practice, Swift Realization" Principle

He notes that we already possess a sphere of wisdom. Seeking out someone with wisdom to guide us for a few minutes and gain liberation is far better than enduring days of suffering alone. This principle in Pali is called "sukhāpaṭipadā khippābhiññā" — those who practice comfortably and awaken quickly. We should find someone knowledgeable enough to lead us out of suffering; a few words of conversation can bring calm. But if we suffer and try to manage entirely on our own, escaping becomes difficult, because we lack the power — so we should seek out someone with that power instead of wasting time enduring needless suffering. Every human needs both an external and an internal knower; if we cannot connect with the internal one, we must find an external one — but it must be a genuinely correct guide. We should evaluate first whether that guide carries enough of a wholesome proportion; if their proportion leans toward the neutral nature, they'll lead us down a different path, and if toward the unwholesome, down yet another path. So we must consider the proportion of wholesomeness in whoever we seek guidance from.

Walking the Seven Bases of Luang Pu: Purifying the Sense Fields

He introduces the method Luang Pu used: walking through the seven bases of the mind. The importance of walking the seven bases lies in perceiving both the external and internal sense fields. To enter the internal state requires purity — bodily purity, meaning the internal sphere or internal state must be pure, and the sense fields themselves must be pure. This is why, when paying homage to the Buddha, we invoke the eye-door, ear-door, nose-door, tongue-door, body-door, and mind-door — the channels for receiving forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch — asking that they be purified. We invite the Buddha to govern these sense fields, both external and internal, to keep them pure, protecting against unwholesomeness that constantly tries to seize control of our lives, because unwholesomeness works through conditioned proliferation drawing on external perception. The eye sees and proliferates — "look at that person, judging me again"; the ear hears and proliferates — sounding like gossip; the nose smells and proliferates — liking or disliking; the body touches and proliferates the same way. If all the sense fields are pure — and each base is a junction point of the nervous system linking body and mind — this subtle level of conditioned proliferation simply doesn't arise.

The Seven Bases: From the Tip of the Nose to the Center of the Body

The first base is the breath — the maintenance of the breath that sustains life. The second base sits at the inner corner of the eye, the center for smell, since the in-breath passes through there. The third base sits mid-nostril, the center for sight — this is why enhanced purity there gives extended vision. The fourth base sits at the roof of the mouth, the point where we choke, and is the center for hearing. The fifth base sits at the Adam's apple, between the mouth and the throat, the center for taste, and also the junction connecting coarse and fine — linking body and mind. The sixth base sits at the navel — the intersection point, needle-thin, where a cord running front to back crosses one running left to right — the center for bodily touch. The seventh base sits two finger-widths above the sixth, the center of the mind itself — where seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing operate — the operating system of the mind.

Walking through these seven bases with Luang Pu's method aims to unite body and mind and purify our perception of the external sense fields. As purity increases, perception sharpens; both the physical eye and the divine eye grow brighter. Training at each base connects to a subtler dimension in this way. We can train base by base, or, for the overall approach, the seventh base — the center of the body — governs all six others; this is why Luang Por emphasizes bringing the mind to rest at the center of the body, the seventh base. But if the mind isn't ready for that, it can rest at any other base — try working through each one, or staying at one for a long while, to develop purity in perceiving through the sense fields.

The Supreme Purity of the Buddha

The most purified being of all is the body of the Great Man — the Buddha himself. His vision reached as far as one yojana — sixteen kilometers — able to see a needle lying out in the open sixteen kilometers away, because his eyes were pure. Ordinary people distinguish only a handful of tastes, but the Great Man's body could distinguish 6,000 flavors, because purity expands perceptive capacity. Through taste alone, he could discern where a food came from, what it was made of, and its subtle aromatic quality. His hearing wasn't limited to human sound — he could hear even the conversations of celestial beings. His complexion was so refined that scripture records dust could not settle on his skin at all — it was too fine even for dust to cling to — and his body carried a natural fragrance like flowers, spreading outward. Luang Pu brought us this method of walking the bases precisely to train the body toward this kind of purity, purifying perception through all the sense fields, both external and internal.

Once Pure, We Overlook the Bad — Our Outlook Itself Changes

Once the external is pure, our seeing becomes pure — we overlook what's bad because we're governed by wholesomeness, seeing only the good, no longer looking to find fault. Our outlook, our right view, shifts. Pure hearing means we no longer dwell on people who gossip or speak ill of us — once we're pure, we simply stop paying attention to what is impure. Pure smell means we're no longer bothered by unpleasant odors. Once body, speech, and mind are pure, we naturally lose interest in whatever is ugly, unrefined, or foul-smelling, and no longer suffer over it. Purity adjusts both coarse and subtle levels — the unpleasant things we used to encounter, drawn to us through our own inner kammic residue, diminish as purity of mind increases, because kammic residue lessens, and the pull toward unwanted circumstances weakens along with it.

Sense Fields Are Magnets: Change Yourself, Not Others

He explains that everything follows the sense fields, which function as a kind of magnetic pull. Whatever quality of sense fields we carry determines what we're drawn to — like fish schooling with fish. Someone who talks a lot draws in others who talk a lot; someone quiet draws quiet company; a calm person keeps company with calm people; a hot-tempered person keeps running into other hot-tempered people who inflame them further. As we train toward greater purity, our own magnetic pull — our sense fields — shifts, and the people, circumstances, and perceptions around us shift accordingly. The cause we need to change is exactly this training of the bases, keeping the mind inward. Once the inside is pure, the outer results follow: we start meeting only good people, purely as a consequence of the sense fields at work. So there's no need to focus on other people or try to change them — change yourself, purify yourself; don't try to change your personality directly, which is genuinely difficult. Once purity arises, personality changes on its own — you naturally want stillness, naturally lose interest in idle talk, not because you dislike it, but because your inner state is simply no longer suited to it.

What Is Purity? The Less Defilement, the More Purity

When asked directly what purity means, the teacher answers: we become pure only as defilement or impurity diminishes. Less defilement means more purity; more defilement means less purity. If we're consumed by greed, we aren't pure — greed is all we have as a foundation. Purity comes from removing defilement from ourselves, removing craving and wanting from the body; once removed, purity arises on its own. How do we make ourselves pure? Train mindfulness. Train stopping, stillness — train calm (samatha). Bring body, mind, and mindfulness together into a single point, as explained the day before. Do this and purity arises — more practice, more purity; less practice, less purity. Whether body and mind can stay merged for long depends on the strength of mindfulness: strong mindfulness sustains the union longer; weak mindfulness lets it slip apart quickly into distraction. Mindfulness is the connector between body and mind; without it linking them, they separate, and calm — stillness — cannot arise. When body, mind, and mindfulness come together, the current of merit from Nibbana descends to cleanse defilement and impurity on its own — this is a self-operating process. As defilement is progressively cleared away, purity grows correspondingly, like water finding its level: when one side is low, the other must be high.

Merit and Demerit Are Energy; Purity Decides Which One Gets to Work

He explains that the energies of merit and demerit are always present. If greed and defilement are strong, demerit gets to work; if purity is strong, merit gets to work. Merit and demerit are the energy itself, but what determines which one actually operates is our level of defilement or purity. If we've given a lot in charity, sat in meditation a lot, made a lot of merit, but nothing seems to bear fruit yet, it may be because purity is still too low to open the system for merit to take effect. It's not necessarily that we're sitting incorrectly — sometimes we simply aren't sitting at all, and worse, we're adding more defilement, more craving, in the meantime. If we at least sit, defilement at least isn't compounding further. But if we sit incorrectly, results come slowly — genuine experience is hard to gain. The single most important factor in meditation is simply bringing the body to sit; without bringing the body, there's no sitting at all.

The Energy of a Place: Why Sitting at Home Is Hard

Asked what to do if sitting alone at home doesn't work, the teacher explains that every location carries its own accumulated energy. If we regularly work at home, the home accumulates the energy of work-oriented emotion. Sitting somewhere carrying that "working" wavelength disturbs us, because the space isn't peaceful, isn't conducive (sappaya) to sitting. The instant we try to close our eyes, memory-driven proliferation arises first — an inner voice urging us to handle this or that task, before we even settle. A place has no mouth, no hands, yet it can communicate "this needs doing, that needs doing" — pulling us up and issuing commands, because the energy of work is embedded there. This is exactly why "not sitting properly" at home is so common — the moment we arrive at a place already carrying meditative energy, our mood shifts naturally toward wanting to close our eyes and sit; try noticing this yourself. That's why Luang Por Dattajeevo made the "five rooms of life" concept explicit: a place for work, a place for Dhamma practice, a place for sleeping, a place for eating — kept separate, so each carries its own distinct energy. If we truly can't relocate, we should at least zone our home — this area for the Buddha room, that area for work — so the energies don't bleed into each other. Even Khun Yay Acharn, who maintained continuous stillness no matter what she was doing — whether eating, working, or speaking with someone — always kept her mind centered within, regardless of activity or location. We can't simply say "let's do it like Khun Yay" when our own mind is still constantly projecting outward; that stillness has to be built.

Daily Routine: The Tool That Trains Austerity to Overcome Unwholesomeness

He concludes that as humans, we can determine the energy of a place ourselves. If we don't consciously determine it, our activities will be shaped by the unwholesome instead — our own home ends up usable only for work, because unwholesomeness or neutrality has already claimed operating rights there without our noticing. If we want to change this, we must readjust, zoning the space deliberately, which takes time — bringing ourselves in to do the right activity in the right place. At first it may feel uncomfortable, but persisting for about a month lets it settle naturally. Those living near a temple, stupa, or ordination hall, where the wavelength is already established, have it easier — no adjustment needed, simply bring the body there and chant or sit.

Coming to a retreat program like this one is precisely about building good routines. Once a good routine is established, the wholesome system can actually function. Going home without building a routine means falling back under the control of other systems, which siphon away our time, giving us excuses we happily accept for staying out of wholesomeness — excuses of the unwholesome and the neutral, excuses we're all too willing to embrace. So we must go back and build new routines if we want to sustain wholesomeness. Within a single day, choose when to sit, when to chant, when to listen to Dhamma, and push yourself a little to follow through. Endurance and restraint are the supreme austerity — overcoming unwholesomeness requires endurance as austerity; without austerity, we cannot win. Unwholesomeness has nothing but defilement to lure us with — craving, greed, anger, delusion, pressure designed to pull us loose — while the neutral nature has nothing at all, only invitations to watch a movie, waste time, listen to music, or go find a good restaurant and settle for that. This is why we chant every day: "khanti paramaṃ tapo titikkhā" — patience and forbearance are the supreme austerity. We must train that austerity; little austerity wins little against unwholesomeness, but great austerity wins greatly. There is nothing in this world that allows us to abide in wholesomeness without requiring endurance — we endure today for the sake of the future ahead.