พระอาจารย์สุรพงค์อธิบายว่าการที่คนเรานั่งสมาธิได้นานหรือสั้นนั้น แท้จริงแล้วขึ้นอยู่กับการกำหนดเจตนาไว้ล่วงหน้าเพียงอย่างเดียว หากไม่เคยกำหนดว่าจะนั่งกี่ชั่วโมงก็จะนั่งไม่ได้นานเลย แต่หากกำหนดไว้ล่วงหน้าและให้เวลาแก่กุศลธรรมชาติค่อยๆ พัฒนา ก็สามารถนั่งได้นานขึ้นเรื่อยๆ แม้กระทั่งข้ามวันข้ามคืน ก่อนนำเข้าสู่การกำหนดรู้กายเวทนาจิตธรรม ภาวนา แผ่เมตตา และอธิษฐานจิตPhra Ajarn Suraphong explains that how long a person can sit in meditation is purely a matter of prior deliberate goal-setting: if you never determine to sit for a given number of hours, you simply won't be able to sit that long — but if you set the intention in advance and give the wholesome nature time to develop it, you can extend your sitting further and further, even across days and nights. He then leads into determining and knowing body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, meditation, radiating loving-kindness, and the closing resolve.
Meditation practice is essential and vital to every life, because we live under the control of three natures. Only system gives us , understanding, what is right and good, , and the fulfillment of every wish — including peace, seclusion, dispassion, liberation, , and ultimately Nibbāna itself. Every advance of human civilization — education, business, infrastructure, all forms of progress — is the result of the wholesome nature alone. The other natures give no benefit whatsoever; if a nature is unwholesome it only brings great suffering. We must therefore learn, understand, and train ourselves to dwell continuously with the wholesome nature.
The Automatic System of Body and Mind: What You Feed It Is What You Get
When we dwell in the wholesome system, it draws in pure energy — merit — to drive the wholesome system, refining and correcting our elements to be clean and pure, liberating us continuously from one dimension to the next, even without our conscious awareness. It's like eating good food, drinking clean water, breathing clean air — the body's systems take what we feed it and digest it to nourish the body. But if we feed it harmful resources — toxic food, drugs, alcohol, polluted air — the body must digest those too, and it deteriorates. The subtle nature of the inner world works the same way. If we feed the mind good, right, wholesome thoughts and feelings, the mind draws in good energy to drive the wholesome system, elevating us. But if we feed it negative feelings — boredom, gloom, tedium, stress, despair, hopelessness, restlessness — the mind's system draws in negative energy that drives system, pressing our elements progressively lower.
The Core Teaching: Three Parts of "Determine and Know Body, Feeling, Mind, and Mental Objects"
To dwell continuously in the correct system until we can establish firm concentration, 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. Every word the Buddha spoke carries great significance. This single sentence is capable of turning an ordinary person into a noble one. It divides into three parts: the first teaches us to determine; the middle teaches determining and knowing at body, feeling, mind, and mental objects; and the last is the purpose.
The First Part: Wherever You Determine, the Mind Rests There
The first part teaches that dwelling with the wholesome nature requires determining — there is no way around it; without determining, persists. For example: right now, do we know that our feet are touching the floor — cool, warm, soft, or hard? Before being told to notice, we didn't know, even though the sense faculties were functioning the whole time — simply because the mind hadn't been placed there. When we determine and know the breath instead, the mind moves to the nostrils and we immediately forget the senon in our feet. This shows that wherever the mind is placed, that is what gets perceived. Once the mind is placed, we go in to know, and arises — a clear, radiant sphere. Once mindfulness arises, it continuously draws in pure energy, merit, flowing into the brightness at the center of this sphere of knowing.
Spheres of Merit and Demerit, and Energy That Never Runs Out
All phenomena — wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral — can arise only in the mind. The wholesome is a clear bright sphere; the unwholesome, all 84,000 sections of it, is a dark sphere. What differs is the quality contained within. The sphere itself is merely packaging, called "form"; the quality is "name" — form and quality are inseparable. When we determine and know, the sphere of knowing, mindfulness, arises, and the sphere of not-knowing, ignorance, falls away. Purity and defilement are natural opposites, but demeritorious energy — sin — is limited within each dimension, like a phone battery that depletes with use. Merit, by contrast, is unlimited, like waves in the sea endlessly rolling toward shore. So long as we bring diligence and , we can purify the defilement fixed within each dimension, and then be liberated into progressively subtler dimensions. A life dwelling with the wholesome nature is therefore a life of purity and liberation.
Signals for Mindfulness: Natural Ones and Ones We Fashion Ourselves
Mindfulness needs a clear, continuous signal to anchor to. Natural signals include the in-and-out breath, the pulse, bodily self-awareness, or the vibration of cells. We can also fashion our own signal, such as the recitation Sammā-Arahaṃ — how fast or slow we recite is up to us. We may picture a clear crystal Buddha image or a clear sphere, as large as fits inside our body, whether as a sphere or as a figure — whichever feels easiest, use that.
The Middle Part: Determining and Knowing Body, Feeling, Mind, and Mental Objects to Know Who Has Possession
The second part teaches us to determine and know at body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, because whichever of the three natures is faster and subtler in the competition for possession becomes the house owner of the mind. We can tell from feeling: if the outer layer of the mind perceives lightness and happiness, the possessing nature is wholesome; if the opposite quality — suffering, a state to be endured with difficulty — appears, it is unwholesome. The neutral nature perceives neither pleasure nor pain — an odd, flat blankness. Whichever nature takes possession brings its own mind and s to overlay those of the human body — called "mind within mind," " within Dhamma." The wholesome brings mind and mental factors nobler than the human ones — the refined human body, the celestial body, the brahma body. The unwholesome brings ones lower, in order to press the elements down.
The Final Part: The Purpose Is to Eliminate Covetousness and Grief
The third part teaches that the purpose is to eliminate covetousness and grief in the world. Delight arises from the net result of delivering its outcome in each present moment. The law of kamma draws in elements, constructs circumstances, and delivers a result. We feel delight or aversion according to the results of causes we created in the past — good causes bring delightful results, bad causes bring sorrow. Once the law of kamma's result appears as delight or aversion, steers the three natures to compete for possession, continuing to use that delight or aversion to steer us into creating further causes. Getting what we want breeds craving for existence; not getting it breeds craving for non-existence — blaming others, never ourselves. Both give rise to clinging, becoming, birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, and grief, trapping the mind in the suffering realm of craving.
Balancing the Mind Like a Pendulum
The Buddha therefore taught us to eliminate both delight and sorrow entirely, keeping the mind balanced. Good, know it's good; tasty, know it's tasty — without becoming attached. Beautiful, know it's beautiful; pleasant-sounding, know that too; foul-smelling, know it's foul; fragrant, know it's fragrant. It's like a pendulum: swing it far to one side and it swings back equally far the other way — delighted, we laugh; grieved, we weep. But if we keep the mind balanced, both delight and grief stay small. We can control this only by clearly determining and knowing body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, keeping the mind balanced, unmoved by external stimuli.
How Long You Can Sit Depends Entirely on What You Determined in Advance
At first we come to know this through calm, , clearing away . The reason people cannot sit in meditation for long stretches — going from one hour to two, two to three, three to four, and onward to sitting across days and nights — comes down to two things: first, the state of suffering that must be endured with difficulty, and second, the inner voice of the neutral and unwholesome natures nagging us to quit — "that's enough, I'm tired, I'm sleepy." But once we understand this, we don't need to fight that inner voice at all. We simply determine in advance how many hours we intend to sit, and we will be able to sit that long — then gradually develop from one hour to two, three, four, five, and onward. Before this we might have sat five minutes, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty minutes — all of it entirely a matter of what we determined to sit for. But if we never determine to sit for three hours, we simply cannot sit that long, because everything depends on determining. We could sit for nine days and nights straight if we chose — and experience helps make it possible; the experience gained by gradually giving more time lets the wholesome nature refine and develop us further and further.
Our Role Is Simply to Determine and Know — the Rest Belongs to the Wholesome
As long as we give time to the wholesome nature, it will clear away the hindrances for us. Our role is only to determine and know, staying continuously aware without forgetting — the rest, the wholesome will handle. From suffering, the wholesome clears suffering; from darkness comes light; from discomfort comes happiness and ease; from brightness a sphere of light arises. Given time, the wholesome develops it into a clear, radiant sphere, and we can sit longer and longer. Once we have a clear bright sphere, we can control it, moving it forward, back, left, or right, and settle it at , . Even if it hasn't yet settled fully at center, that's fine — keep determining and knowing, and the wholesome will continue purifying the defilement until it's gone, at which point will rise from the sixth base to the seventh and draw us automatically into the inner middle way.
Give It More Time — No Pressure, No Rushing
Understand that the human body's role is simply to determine and know, staying continuously aware without forgetting — nothing more. We may know through any of the forty methods of meditation object; whichever is easiest, use that, doing it comfortably, without pressure or tension. Sleepy, sleep; restless, open your eyes — then keep determining and knowing, giving it time, and the wholesome will handle the rest. Don't crave speed — everything must happen on its own: light, coarse defilement, the hindrances must clear away by themselves, as the wholesome nature purifies moderate and then subtle defilement in due course, and brightness arises naturally. We cannot dictate how it happens — we simply manage our own role, staying continuously aware, unhurried, giving it time continuously, training again and again, until it becomes familiar — and once familiar, it becomes easy.
Radiating Loving-Kindness to the World and Universe
After finishing each day's tasks and bathing, we purify the mind by cultivating , determining and knowing, staying continuously aware. The sphere of mindfulness draws in the energy of merit to purify and refine our elements, liberating us continuously from one dimension to the next. In living our lives, we must benefit both ourselves and all people and beings. The wholesome system provides a tool for those with much merit to benefit those with less, by drawing on the heart of a mother filled with love and goodwill for her young child. May the people of the world and all beings be free from suffering and find happiness. Then expand this heart of to cover our home, the village, district, province, country, and neighboring countries, until it covers the whole world, turning it into a crystal world, clear, cool, clean, and pure. Unlike moonlight and sunlight, which still cast shadows, the light of loving-kindness illuminates both inside and outside, so it casts no shadow at all — reaching heavenly beings, brahma of every realm, 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
Finally, dedicate this merit to all people and beings, to our relatives, parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers and benefactors, the deities who help and support us, and every 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 continuously into the brightness of the mind, 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. Our mind is the element of accomplishment — determine, and so it becomes, even if things still seem dim or unclear; simply keep determining. It is necessary that we merge ourselves as one with the Triple Gem and the Great Teachers, who never cease, for even a single instant, helping to refine and correct our elements to be clear and pure. Both we and they appear radiant at the center of Nibbāna, and the stream of merit from the deepest, subtlest part of Nibbāna flows continuously into the center of our body and mind. Using this auspicious moment to pay respects and make the resolve, fixing a completed blueprint within this radiant sphere of merit, so that our whole 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.