Why We Must Practice

First, let us recognize that meditation practice is essential and vital to every life, because we live under the control of three natures, which operate through the law of kamma and the law of the three characteristics (tilakkhaṇa). We live under these two laws. The only path that can help us is meditation practice itself — through it we learn, understand, and train ourselves to dwell with the wholesome nature. Only the wholesome nature gives us benefit: knowledge, understanding, what is right and good, peace, and the fulfillment of every wish. The more we dwell with the wholesome system, the more peace arises for us — as with an arahant, who dwells 100% in the present, so the unwholesome and the neutral can never intrude.

The Law of Kamma and the Law of the Three Characteristics: Two Laws Working Together

The law of kamma has us create causes, then delivers their results. The act of creating a cause possesses the mind, shaping our thoughts, speech, and actions into results — that result is called vipāka — which then produces delight or aversion. That delight or aversion is then used to steer us into creating new causes, again and again: receiving a result while creating a cause, simultaneously. The law of the three characteristics, on the other hand, is what has us create the cause in the first place. This is the key difference: the law of kamma we cannot resist at all, because it is the result of causes we created in the past — we must receive the results of our own actions, unavoidably. But the law of the three characteristics is something we CAN choose — we can choose which system to dwell in: the wholesome, the unwholesome, or the neutral.

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. This sentence is life-changing — it can turn an ordinary person into a noble one. We must memorize it and use it in full, never half-heartedly. The teaching begins with determining — to dwell in the wholesome system we must first determine to know. Determining means paying attention; wherever we determine, the mind is placed there. Determining means marking, specifying exactly — then we go in to receive and know, because all phenomena can only arise in one place: the mind. Nowhere else. When we go in to know, we recollect and are aware — mindfulness, the faculty of recollection and awareness, arises. Once mindfulness arises, it continuously draws in pure energy, merit, flowing into the brightness at the center of the sphere of knowing, the sphere of mindfulness.

Merit Purifies Defilement, and Life Grows Lighter

This pure energy is what drives the wholesome system, refining and correcting the elements within us, making them clear, clean, and pure, clearing away the defilements that cause problems and obstacles, that create difficulty in our life and our practice. Merit — purity itself — comes in to cleanse away defilement completely. As defilement disappears, we are liberated from one dimension to the next, dimension by dimension. The proportion of the wholesome within us increases, while the strength of the unwholesome and the neutral diminishes. Life becomes easier, freer, more comfortable, more vibrant.

When the Three Natures Compete to Possess the Mind

The Buddha taught us to determine and know body, feeling, mind, and mental objects because when the three natures compete for possession, whichever is faster and subtler wins the position of "house owner" of the mind. It brings down its own body-feeling-mind-mental-objects to take over as manager, controller, and guide of the human body-feeling-mind-mental-objects. Its thoughts and feelings appear in our mind, making it seem as though we thought them ourselves. When we determine and know body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, we come to understand the truth: the bodily behavior that appears is being altered under compulsion by something else. When the wholesome possesses us, it brings down a body-feeling-mind-mental-objects nobler than the human one — the refined human body, the celestial body, the refined celestial body, the brahma body, and so on. But when the unwholesome takes possession, it brings down something lower than the human body, because it wants to induce demerit, pressing the elements down — such as the wandering-spirit body, the animal body, the hungry-ghost body, or the hell-being body.

The Purpose: Eliminating Covetousness and Grief

The third part of the teaching concerns the result. The Buddha taught that determining and knowing body, feeling, mind, and mental objects aims to eliminate covetousness and grief in the world. Covetousness is the delight that gives rise to greed; grief is the vexation, the anger that arises from aversion. Covetousness produces craving for existence; aversion produces craving for non-existence — both give rise to the intention to create new causes. So in living and practicing, keep the mind balanced, seeing things exactly as they are without distortion — beautiful, know it's beautiful; handsome, know it's handsome; tasty, know it's tasty; not tasty, know that too. When the mind rests balanced, unmoved by whatever stimulates it, the mental factor of equanimity arises, drawing in merit to adjust our feelings toward what is right and balanced, clearing away wrong views.

Entering Meditation: The Seventh Base

Our teachers guide us to determine and know at the seventh base, the body's center — the position of the "universal monarch," a crucial point where the mind permanently resides. Whether asleep or awake, we must always come to rest here. Imagine two taut threads crossing in an X — one from the navel straight through to the back, one from the right waist to the left. Place the index and middle finger together over that crossing point; two finger-widths above is the seventh base. Once the mind is placed there, recite Sammā-Arahaṃ.

Sammā-Arahaṃ: Its Meaning and the Mission of the Crystal Buddha

Sammā-Arahaṃ is a "quality-name," given according to virtue. It means "the One who has practiced well, practiced rightly, on the path that leads far from all defilement." When we utter this name, the one possessing this quality appears at the center of our body and mind. He does not arrive empty-handed — his mission is to cleanse and help repair the human body, taking our elements of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing, our earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness elements, and refining them clean and pure, clearing away every defilement until it vanishes entirely. He also expands, merging as one with the human body, enveloping and protecting it, because he is our true self, and he wishes for us to become one with him.

Merging Body and Mind With the Dhammakaya

To merge, simply take on the feeling of being the crystal Buddha, the crystal Buddha being us — from the head, face, cheeks, shoulders, arms, torso down to the feet, merging into one. Check part by part, gradually perceiving, adjusting, feeling with the heart that the entire body is the clear, radiant crystal Dhammakaya. Once the body is merged, merge the mind too — whatever he does, we do the same. He attains cessation-attainment, stilling and settling the mind; we still and settle our mind the same way, resting at the center of the crystal Buddha, at our own center, our mind's center — soft, light, comfortable, clear, cool. Whatever we determine, so it becomes, because the mind is the element of accomplishment; that is why he teaches us to think positively. Then still and settle into the center of the center of the center — never left, never right, never forward, never back, never up, never down — sending mind and heart straight toward the path of Nibbāna.

Appearing Radiant at the Center of Nibbāna

Nibbāna is the dwelling of every Buddha, every solitary Buddha, and every arahant — three kinds of beings who have escaped the round of rebirth. Though liberated, they have not gone anywhere; they still dwell within the Nibbāna-realm, continuing to help and support all people and beings, holding them at their own center. Any being established in universal goodness has the stream of merit flowing continuously into the center of their being and mind. The same is true for us right now, dwelling within the Triple Gem — both we and they appear radiant at the center of Nibbāna, and the stream of merit flows continuously into the center of our body and mind.

Radiating Loving-Kindness to the World and Universe

Having done good for ourselves, we now do good for all people and beings by cultivating loving-kindness — a tool the wholesome nature gives to those with much merit, to benefit those with less, simply by determining loving-kindness. Once determined, loving-kindness appears radiant at our center, then expands to cover our home, our neighbors, the whole village, the district, province, country, and neighboring countries, until it covers the entire world, turning it into a crystal world, clear, cool, clean and pure. May the people of the world and all beings be free from suffering and find happiness — reaching heavenly beings of every realm, brahma, and even beings in hell, hungry ghosts, and animals. Then expand further into the atmosphere of the universe, covering countless stars, extending to ten thousand world-systems and a hundred thousand koṭi of universes.

Making the Resolve and Dedicating Merit

Having dwelt with the wholesome nature and cultivated loving-kindness, we dedicate this merit to our relatives — parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, our teachers and benefactors, the deities who help and support us, and every karmic counterparty we may have wronged — that we may forgive one another mutually and share in this merit together. Then still and settle the mind at the center of the stream of merit still flowing in continuously, still within the Triple Gem and the Great Teachers, using this auspicious moment to pay respects and make the resolve, fixing a completed blueprint within the sphere of merit, so that our whole path of building perfections from now until the end of the Dhamma may be filled with knowledge, happiness, and purity, and every good and right wish come to pass — closing with the traditional verse of merit dedication.