Our Role: To Keep Determining, Continuously Aware

In this practice, our role is simply to determine, staying continuously aware without lapsing. When we are always aware, the "knowing orb" — mindfulness — arises and draws in energy. For meditation we need to fix on some part of the body, or some sensation, as an anchor.

Mind and the Consciousness Element: Wherever We Fix, the Mind Goes

The mind has four aspects: feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. Wherever we fix our attention, the consciousness element goes there. Take the nostrils as an example: as breath moves in and out, the nerve cells register it, but the consciousness aspect of mind needs both the nerve cells and the mind's actual presence there to register anything at all. We could equally choose another clear signal — a heartbeat, or two fingertips touching. Wherever body and mind unite as one, the stream of merit flows through that point.

Pure Energy Purifies Defilement, Carrying Us Through the Dimensions

Once mindfulness arises, it continuously draws pure, meritorious energy into the brightness at its center. This energy drives the wholesome system to refine and cleanse the elements within us, removing the defilement that causes problems and obstacles. As defilement lightens, problems lighten too, and once defilement is gone we move on, continuously, from one dimension to a subtler one — each new dimension's defilement finer than the last.

The Hospital Simile: Surrendering the Mind to Wholesomeness

Phra Ajarn Suraphong compares this to a sick person going to the hospital. The doctor simply tells the patient to lie down, relax, and do nothing — the doctor will take care of everything. Healing the mind works the same way: we surrender ourselves to wholesomeness, and wholesome nature does the refining. All we need to do is stay with mindfulness — whether resting on the recitation, the visualized image, or the breath, whatever suits us best — and simply keep going, continuously aware without lapsing. If we do lapse, that's fine too; we just re-establish awareness.

Mindfulness Is a Mental Factor That Must Be Trained

Mindfulness is one kind of mental factor (cetasika) that arises together with wholesomeness, but an untrained mental factor is not yet of high quality — it must be trained so that it can draw in more merit. Simply by staying continuously aware, we earn the name "one who holds wise reflection," and merit flows through us continuously. Within this stream of merit lies a sacred, pure dhamma-element, along with every kind of treasure — form, wealth, virtue, retinue, honor, and the path toward Nibbana itself.

Resting the Mind in Equanimity: The Orbs of Stopping and Stillness

Once mindfulness arises, rest the mind in equanimity, neither pleased nor displeased by any stimulus, inner or outer. This is why Luang Pho used the phrase "stop, still, indifferent." When we fix on "stop," a bright round orb of stopping arises, letting the mind sense that state of stopping, which momentarily halts other forces — both unwholesome and neutral — leaving only the wholesome. Then, fixing further on "stop within stop, still within still," a small point of brightness appears and expands, and a sense of spaciousness opens up.

Observing the Result Gradually, Without Rushing

There is no need to press, force, or hurry — do this with a relaxed, easy mind, enjoying it as if simply sitting for pleasure. When we fix on any state and observe the result, we notice it grows finer and lighter, bit by bit, giving us confidence that every passing moment brings some progress, however small. Everything follows an automatic inner mechanism; our task is only to keep determining, staying aware without lapsing, and cultivating a genuine liking for this practice.

Reciting "Samma-arahang" and the Crystal Buddha Image

We may use the recitation "Samma-arahang" to give mindfulness something to hold onto, reciting with a deep, subtle awareness. The word is the name describing the quality of the Arahant dhamma-body: one who practices well, rightly, in a way that leads far from defilement. When we utter this name, its form appears — a crystal, pure Buddha image seated within an orb of dhamma. It comes with a mission: to refine the elements of our being, making them clear and pure, dissolving every defilement.

Merging Body and Mind Into One With the Crystal Image

Take on the feeling that you are the crystal image, and it is you — radiant, clear, cool, clean, and pure through the whole body. Once body has become one with the image, merge the mind too, resting and stilling it together, exactly as the image does — stop within stop, still within still, heading straight along the middle path within toward Nibbana.

Cultivating Loving-Kindness From a Mother's Heart

Having done good for ourselves, we now do good for others by cultivating loving-kindness. There are 84,000 sections of dhamma, and we must determine which one to bring forth. Luang Pu taught us to draw on the heart of a mother's love toward her young child, since this is a pure and sincere form of loving-kindness.

Radiating Loving-Kindness Across the Universe

Having wished that all beings be free from suffering and find happiness, we expand this heart of loving-kindness to fill the meditation hall, the surrounding area, the village, the district, the province, the whole country, and neighboring countries, until it covers the entire world — then further still, across the countless stars of the boundless universe.

Dedicating Merit and Closing Resolve

We then dedicate this merit to all people and beings, as well as to parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers, guardian devas, and every karmic counterparty (khu-kam khu-wen) we may have wronged, asking that we forgive one another. We rest still within the stream of merit, within the Triple Gem, and within the refined dhamma-body of our teachers, closing with a resolution that the entire path of building perfections be filled with knowledge, happiness, and purity, followed by a chant of appreciation.