Why We Must Practice

Meditation practice is essential and vital to every life, because we live under the control of three natures. There is no escaping them — we dwell either with the wholesome, the unwholesome, or the neutral, cycling endlessly. Only the wholesome system gives us benefit — knowledge, understanding, what is right and good, peace, and the fulfillment of every good wish. The other natures give no benefit at all; if a nature is unwholesome it only brings us suffering. We must therefore learn to understand all these natures, especially the wholesome one that truly benefits us.

The Core Teaching: "Clearly Determine Body, Feeling, Mind, and Mental Objects"

The Buddha taught: "Monks, you should clearly determine and know body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, in order to eliminate covetousness and grief regarding the world." We must memorize this sentence, because it is capable of turning an ordinary person into a noble one. To "determine" means to mark, to specify, to point to something exactly — wherever we point and mark, the mind gets placed there, and then we go in to know it. When the sphere of knowing — the sphere of mindfulness — arises, it draws in pure energy, merit, to flow into the brightness at its center.

When the Three Natures Come to Possess the Mind

This pure energy comes to clear away the defilements that create problems and obstacles in life. As defilements lighten, our troubles lighten too, and once defilements are gone we become pure, liberated, moving from one dimension to the next. The Buddha taught us to determine and know body, feeling, mind, and mental objects because when one of the three natures possesses the mind, it brings its own body-feeling-mind-mental-objects in to take over as manager, as the one directing our life. Its thoughts and feelings appear in our mind — the mind is our instrument of knowing, and whatever it knows, we know. But no one tells us these thoughts aren't ours, so we assume they are. Yet notice: many feelings we dislike, we know we didn't think them up, and however hard we try to reject them, they don't go away. That's because these thoughts and feelings are the product of the background nature that has come to possess us — exactly like a possession.

Determining and Knowing the Body: The Breath as Example

For knowing the body, we can pick any part. For example, determine and know the breath — the mind gets placed at the nostrils. The mind, in its consciousness aspect, works together with the nervous system; as long as the nerves are intact, the consciousness element can perceive along with them. The breath touches the nostrils, the nerves register it, and the mind knows too — a short in-breath is known as short, a long out-breath known as long. As we keep determining and knowing, the sphere of mindfulness draws in pure energy that clears away the obscuring elements of ignorance, making them lighter and lighter. The lighter they get, the more subtle and deep the sensations we can perceive. Brightness becomes a sphere of light. At first the coarse suffering-defilements clear away, then the hindrances follow in due order. Beyond body-focus, mindfulness can also shift into full-body clear comprehension, aware of the whole body at once.

Determining and Knowing the Mind: The Three Feelings

Beyond the body, we must also know through feeling, mind, and mental objects. Feeling is of three kinds: pleasant, painful, neither-pleasant-nor-painful. When pleasure arises, it shows that a wholesome nature has taken possession and is displaying its quality of comfort in the mind. But when an unwholesome nature seizes possession, its quality appears as suffering — a state that must be endured, and endured with difficulty. When this state appears we simply need a bit of patience; endurance comes together with austerity, allowing us to bear it and press forward with effort. Endure a while, and merit flows in to purify the defilement causing the suffering, lightening it. Suffering is a coarse state — its advantage is that it's easy to determine and know, with a clear, continuous signal. The neutral nature, by contrast, shows itself as neither pleasure nor pain, along with a restlessness of mind that has no anchor, making us easily forgetful.

The Four-Part Structure of the Mind Seen Through the Dhamma Eye

Within the mind, beneath feeling lies the mind proper — hidden at the center of the sphere of formations, the sphere of thought. The Great Master Luang Pu, having attained the Dhammakaya, used the Dhamma eye and the insight-vision of the Dhammakaya to examine the mind directly. He saw that the structure of the mind consists of four parts: the sphere of seeing — which is the sphere of feeling; the sphere of remembering — the sphere of perception; the sphere of thinking, or the sphere of the mind itself; and the sphere of knowing, or the sphere of consciousness, which must go out and interact with the external world through eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. The mind fabricates all our thoughts and feelings. When the possessing background-mind's thoughts appear, they overlay our own thoughts at the center of the thinking sphere — so whatever it thinks becomes a voice in our mind, and we know it as our own.

Mental Factors and States Within the Sphere of Thought

Within the sphere of thought are mental factors — the feelings or moods of the mind — which appear as various states: greed, hatred, and delusion on the unwholesome side; mindfulness, faith, wisdom, concentration, and effort on the wholesome side. Learn to understand this, observe and discern it, and you will come to see it clearly for yourself.

The Purpose: Eliminating Covetousness and Grief Through Equanimity

The purpose of determining and knowing is to eliminate covetousness and grief. Covetousness is the delight that gives rise to greed — a form of craving for existence. Grief is sorrow, a form of craving for non-existence. Both are natural to the world of form, taste, smell, sound, touch, and mental objects. The unwholesome uses these as tools to steer us into greed, anger, and delusion. We must eliminate both delight and aversion and dwell instead in equanimity — not getting excited by whatever stimulates us. Beautiful, we know it's beautiful; plain, we know it's plain; tasty, we know it's tasty; not tasty, we know that too — keeping the mind balanced between the two. When the mind rests in balance, the mental factor of equanimity arises, drawing merit in to purify the mind, producing tranquility of body and mind. The heavy grows light, the coarse grows refined, gradually softening and becoming gentle — until the first jhāna can arise.

Entering Meditation: The Seventh Base at the Body's Center

Our teachers direct us to determine and know at the seventh base, the body's center. Imagine two taut threads: one running from the navel straight through to the back, the other from the right side of the waist to the left, crossing in an X. Two finger-widths above that crossing point is the seventh base. At first, simply place the mind in the middle of the abdomen. Compare closing the eyes fully versus letting the eyelashes touch lightly with a little light passing through — whichever feels more comfortable, use that. Then recite Sammā-Arahaṃ from deep, subtle awareness, continuously and pleasantly, staying aware of every syllable.

Sammā-Arahaṃ: Its Meaning and the Crystal Buddha Image

Sammā-Arahaṃ is a "quality-name" — a name given according to virtue. It means "the One who has practiced well, practiced rightly, practiced the path leading far from all defilements." When we utter this name, form and quality — which always come as a pair — appear together. He takes the form of a clear crystal Buddha image, pure and radiant, dwelling within the sphere of Dhamma, seated in meditation with eyes gently closed, face softly smiling, brilliant and luminous. He does not appear empty-handed — he arrives with a mission: to take our elements of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing, our earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements, and refine them clear, clean, and pure, clearing away every defilement until it vanishes. Not only that — he expands, overlays, merges with, and envelops our human body in protection, because he is our true self, and his wish is for us and him to become one.

Merging Body and Mind With the Dhammakaya

Take on the feeling that we are the crystal Buddha, and the crystal Buddha is us — our whole body, from the head, face, cheeks, shoulders, arms, torso down to the feet, all becoming the radiant crystal Dhammakaya, clear, cool, clean and pure. Once the body is merged, merge the mind too — whatever he does, we do the same. He attains cessation-attainment, stopping the mind, stilling the mind; we still and settle our mind likewise at the center of the crystal Buddha, at the center of ourselves, at the center of our mind — soft, light, comfortable, clear, and cool. The crystal Buddha expands and overlays continuously, Buddha image after Buddha image emerging and settling still at his own center — still within still, calm within calm — never left, never right, never forward, never back, never up, never down, but inward into the center of the center, the center of knowing, the center of stillness, along the inner middle way that points straight toward Nibbāna.

Radiating Loving-Kindness to the World and Universe

Once we appear radiant at the center of Nibbāna — at the center of every Buddha, every solitary Buddha, and every arahant — we cultivate loving-kindness for the benefit of all people and beings, drawing on the heart of a mother filled with love and goodwill for her young child. May all beings be free from suffering and find happiness; may those with much suffering have less, those with little suffering be free of it entirely; may those with little happiness have more, and those with much happiness have even more. Then expand this heart of loving-kindness outward — covering our home, the neighborhood, the village, the district, the province, the country — until it covers the whole world and universe, turning the world into a crystal world, clear, cool, clean, and pure, reaching heavenly beings, brahma of every realm, and even beings in hell, hungry ghosts, and animals.

Making the Resolve and Dedicating Merit

Finally, dedicate this merit to all people and beings, to our parents, grandparents, teachers, benefactors, the deities who help and support us, and to every karmic counterparty, that we may forgive one another mutually. Then still and settle the mind at the center of the stream of merit flowing in continuously, still within the Triple Gem, at the center of the utterly refined Dhamma-body of the Great Master Luang Pu, Luang Phor, and Khun Yai Achan, making the resolve to fix a "completed blueprint" within this radiant sphere of merit — so that our entire path of building perfections may be filled with knowledge, happiness, and purity, and every good and right wish may come to pass — closing with the traditional verse of merit dedication.