พระอาจารย์สุรพงค์อธิบายหลักกำหนดรู้ชัดในกาย เวทนา จิต ธรรม แล้วชี้ให้เห็นว่าความทุกข์มีสองแหล่งที่แตกต่างกัน คือทุกข์กายซึ่งเกิดจากวิบากกรรมที่ฝากไว้ตั้งแต่วันแรกในครรภ์มารดาดุจ DNA และทุกข์ใจซึ่งเกิดจากทัศนคติผิดและตัณหา พร้อมวิธีเผชิญหน้าทุกข์ด้วยขันติธรรมและกำหนดรู้จนถึงบทอธิษฐานปิดท้ายPhra Ajarn Suraphong teaches the practice of clearly determining and knowing the body, feelings, mind, and mental objects, then distinguishes two separate sources of suffering: bodily suffering, arising from karmic residue laid down since our very first day in the womb like inherited \"DNA,\" and mental suffering, arising from wrong attitude and craving — closing with how to face suffering with patience and determined knowing.
Practicing Dhamma Means Living With the Wholesome Nature
Practicing is necessary and vitally important for every life, because we live under the control of three natures. Only () nature ever gives us benefit — , understanding, , and success in everything right and good. The other natures give us no benefit at all; instead they bring a great deal of harm if we fall under an unwholesome system. So we need to learn, understand, and train ourselves to remain within the wholesome system.
The Buddha taught that to abide within the wholesome system we must practice "determined knowing" (kamnod-roo). As he taught: "Monks, you should clearly determine and know the body, feelings, mind, and mental objects, in order to remove covetousness (abhijjhā) and grief (domanassa) toward the world." We need to memorize this sentence — it is one we will use for the rest of our lives. This single sentence alone can transform an ordinary person into a noble one (ariya). Short, but profoundly deep. It divides into three parts we need to understand.
Part One: Determined, Clear Knowing — How Mindfulness Works
In the first part, the Buddha teaches us to "determine and know clearly." Determining is one thing, knowing is another, and clarity is another. To determine means to aim, to mark, to specify — wherever you specify, wherever you aim, the mind gets placed there, and awareness arises because () is established at that point. Once sati arises it draws in the power of knowing what we are knowing. For example, if we aim at the feet, we know the feet — cold, hot, soft, hard — in the present moment, through the senses. Sati relies on consciousness, the part of the mind that leads and gives rise to knowing wherever we aim. This drawing-in of energy through mindfulness begins to purify defilements; recollection and awareness appear and gradually deepen.
This orb of mindfulness draws in pure merit-energy that clears away the veiling elements of (avijjā). As we keep determining, recollecting, staying with mindfulness, sati becomes the one that draws in pure energy. Once the veiling defilement clears, we can enter into knowledge, free from what avijjā had been covering. Besides the veiling elements, there are also the five hindrances () that create confusion — restlessness, drowsiness, irritation, doubt, and delight in sights and sounds. It takes some time to clear both and the veiling elements. Once cleared, we can enter a new inner dimension — even if it still feels dim and dark at first, that's fine; we simply know we have entered within. Sati then transforms into (), continuing to perceive whatever state appears inside.
Cultivating the Willingness to Practice
To reach this point requires chanda — delight and willingness in practicing meditation. We must cultivate this fondness until it becomes familiar, until we love the practice, until it becomes second nature. Once familiar, things become easier: as the hindrances and veiling elements lighten and clear, we enter the inner dimension more easily, with fewer disturbances. But before reaching the inner dimension, we usually must pass through a stretch of difficult-to-bear suffering first. Once we get through it, a genuine liking gradually arises. So we must cultivate love and delight in the practice — don't force it, stay relaxed. Sitting in meditation should feel like sitting to play, not like a serious, high-stakes task; sit comfortably.
Learning according to the principles of meditation involves noticing signals. It requires lifting the object of meditation into mind, reflecting and contemplating it. If we remain aware of ourselves, the signal of the meditation object becomes felt — for instance, the breath touching the nostril wall on the in-breath produces a signal, and again on the out-breath. We can perceive these signals through the nerve cells reacting within the nervous system, giving sati something to latch onto. That is the bodily signal. As for the mental signal, feeling (vedanā) has only three kinds: pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. We ask ourselves: am I happy, comfortable, right now? If not, we ask: am I suffering — is there a state that is hard to bear? If neither is present, then it is simply a neutral state.
Wholesome or Unwholesome as "Master of the House" — Known Through Feeling
Suffering is a property of ; the unwholesome shows its true nature by manifesting as , a state that is hard to endure. The wholesome, by contrast, has the quality of happiness and comfort. Whichever comfort or happiness we feel shows us that the wholesome is currently the "master of the house." Whatever occupies the mind must show its own qualities, because the mind can only know what it currently holds. When the wholesome enters, we feel comfortable and happy, and it's easy to keep our attention there — but if the signal isn't clear, those with wisdom can help guide us. When the unwholesome possesses the mind as master of the house, there is no doubt about it, because its signal is unmistakable: a state of suffering, hard to bear — but at least it is clear for the purpose of determined knowing.
The Buddha taught that suffering is a state that must be endured, and when it arises, we should simply determine and know it, without becoming distraught. Suffering exists to be known. When we recognize that a hard-to-bear state has appeared in the mind, it shows that the unwholesome is currently master of the house — we must bear it a little, must face it. Ordinary people tend to turn away from suffering, but the noble ones do not flee when suffering appears; we too must learn to face it, because facing it is what brings us to the truth. Suffering is the fruit of the karmic results we ourselves once created, ripening in the present. So we must face what results from what we once did. Even though we must endure a difficult state, () comes to help, together with austerity (tapa) — a kind of frame that keeps the suffering from overwhelming us. At the same time, patience builds a new, more effective armor for us.
Suffering Exists to Be Known — Two Things We Gain From Facing It
We gain two things from facing suffering. First, we come face to face with the truth — the wholesome will teach us (dukkha-sacca). Facing a hard-to-bear state is how the wise within us teaches us this truth; we can only learn it by actually facing it in each present moment. Each time we face it, the wise part of us teaches us to understand the truth of suffering more deeply, so that we won't repeat the same causes again. We also clear away defilement each time suffering appears, because the unwholesome must expend energy — and as it expends that energy it gradually depletes, like a phone battery running down. Meanwhile patience uses this very period to forge an even more effective armor to protect us for the next, tougher stage — because we must eventually travel all the way to the end of the mass of suffering, facing progressively fiercer trials along the way. Understanding suffering in this way allows us to become free from defilement without fear.
Bodily Suffering: Karmic Residue Carried Since the Very First Day in the Womb
Some suffering comes from a mistaken attitude — this is especially true of mental suffering. Bodily suffering (dukkha-kāya), however, arises from karmic results (vipāka) together with the dark residue deposited in us from the very first day we were in our mother's womb. This karmic residue takes shape rather like "DNA," embedded in various parts of the body, and it ripens according to each person's own timing. This is the nature of bodily suffering — the direct fruit of the karma we ourselves created in the past.
Mental Suffering: Rooted in Attitude and Craving
Mental suffering (dukkha-jai), on the other hand, is mostly a matter of attitude — feelings around dignity, being insulted or belittled are simply the ripening of karmic results. If our attitude is correct, that hurt need not arise at all. Another portion of mental suffering comes from craving — sensual craving, craving to become, and craving not to become (kāma-taṇhā, -taṇhā, vibhava-taṇhā): wanting something and not getting it hurts; it is simply a bruised heart. We must determine and know this — let the orb of knowing, the orb of mindfulness, arise, and it will draw in pure energy to drive the wholesome system, refining our inner elements, which are the fruit of karmic result and the current proportion of unwholesome within us.
We live under two laws of kamma at once — the one that ripens as bodily suffering (from the dark residue), and the one that ripens as mental suffering (from the current proportion of unwholesomeness). Living under both, we must learn to understand them. Once we understand and hold the correct attitude, we need not suffer more than what the karmic result actually delivers.
Thoughts That Arise Are Not Always Ours
When any of the three natures enters as master of the house, its thoughts and feelings appear within our own mind. We must then examine whether a thought appearing in the mind belongs to the unwholesome or the wholesome. We used to think every thought was simply "our own" — but why is it, so often, that when we try to reject a wrong thought, it refuses to go away, nagging at us like a child whining for a toy? Sometimes it is lust, sometimes anger — this is bhava-taṇhā, vibhava-taṇhā, and kāma-taṇhā: wanting to become this or that, wanting to have this or that, wanting to go here or there; or vibhava-taṇhā, not wanting to be, not wanting to do. Mental suffering, then, is largely a matter of right view (sammā-diṭṭhi) still being weak, because the proportion of wholesome within us is small and the proportion of unwholesome is large. We must therefore keep building the wholesome — keeping precepts, cultivating Dhamma, giving, and accumulating merit — to increase the proportion of the wholesome. Every time we perform a good deed, a stream of merit pours in to purify our inner elements.
Perfecting Every Pāramī
We need to cultivate every one of the pāramīs — however many there are, all must be developed. Whichever one we've neglected becomes a weak point; that pāramī remains small, and we must go back and repair it, turning what has been running in reverse back the right way. If we don't drive this process, the unwholesome will move back in and the wholesome cannot reclaim its place. When we try to turn it back, there is friction — an inner "war." Every such war brings suffering, but once we reach the light, once we enter the , that war transforms into one that moves forward together with happiness. In the meantime, though, while the unwholesome still dominates, we must be patient and keep determining and knowing steadily. The moment the orb of knowing, the orb of mindfulness, arises, the orb of ignorance falls away, and mindfulness draws in pure energy to clear the hindrances and veiling elements. As these lighten, we enter progressively subtler dimensions, layer by layer. There's no need to rush — our only role is simply to keep determining and knowing, without forgetting. Everything else is the work of mindfulness and the merit-energy that drives the wholesome system forward.
Recollecting the Triple Gem and Setting the Mind to Stillness
Having understood bodily suffering, mental suffering, and determined knowing, bring the mind to rest still at , gathered in the center of the Triple Gem — the center of the Buddha-jewel, the Dhamma-jewel, and the Sangha-jewel. Pay respect to the subtle Dhamma-body at the center of our revered teachers, merging ourselves with them as one in every moment. We appear radiant in the center of nibbāna, the center of the all-knowing one of boundless power.
Radiating Loving-Kindness and Dedicating Merit
Once the mind's appears, extend () to all beings. Set the intention: may all beings be free from suffering and find happiness. May those with much suffering suffer less; may those with much happiness have even more. The stream of merit continues pouring forth in the center of the brightness of loving-kindness. Then dedicate this merit to parents, grandparents, teachers and all benefactors, as well as the devas who protect and help us, and to all beings, so that everyone may equally receive a share of this merit.
Closing Aspiration
The sit closes with paying respect to the Triple Gem and to our teachers, asking that all the merit accumulated from past lives up to the present converge into sacred merit — freeing us from calamity, sin, and karmic obstacles; granting us the eye of Dhamma, good health, long life, and unflagging resolve to build pāramī toward nibbāna. May our work and affairs flourish; may we be born into a family of right view; and when we pass from this world, may we be born into a fortunate realm, continuing to correctly study the Dhammakāya knowledge. The sit ends with a chanted aspiration that old wrongs be forgiven and all merit accumulated bear fruit for everyone going forward.