The Two Sides of the Blessings of Life: The Worldly Path and the Inner Path

The teacher opens with his own version of the Buddha's diagram of the blessings of life, divided into a left side and a right side. The left side is the foundation for how ordinary people live in the world; once we've lived that way and gained enough success — enough to grow weary of the worldly, or to feel a full sense of life's accomplishment — we move to the right side, which concerns entering into learning that leads toward the inner world, from the very start through to success in that inner world.

Why the Blessings of Life Begin with "Not Associating with Fools"

The blessings of life begin with not keeping company with fools, because the single most important factor in the pull of the law of the three characteristics, or the law of kamma, is our environment. When we keep company with a fool, that fool draws up our own past karmic residue — a drunkard, a gambler, and other unwholesome types will draw in our karmic residue, increasing the proportion of the unwholesome in us. But when our environment is instead made of good, wise companions who support the wholesome, the proportion of the wholesome increases — drawing on the merit we accumulated in the past alongside our teachers, such as our connection with the elder teacher, and however long we've built up perfections together with him; that draws forth the causes for us to perform good and virtuous deeds.

The Six Foundations for Studying Dhamma

The right side of the diagram is the foundation for studying Dhamma, and it has six essential points.

The First: Respect — Connecting to the Automatic System of Wholesome Dhamma

Why is respect needed? Because respect connects us to the automatic system, both internal and external, of wholesome Dhamma. For example, respect makes us naturally polite and composed — when the elder teacher walks in, we automatically raise our hands in a wai, entirely on the strength of respect. When we listen to a teaching with respect, the wholesome Dhamma's internal automatic system connects us to the 84,000 sections of inner Dhamma, allowing us to understand. If we have respect, we can accept guidance, correction, and instruction; without it, we have only regard — recognizing someone as a teacher without truly believing what they say — and correction and instruction can't take hold, because the sphere of respect can't be established, only the sphere of regard, which doesn't produce much benefit.

Wandering Spirits and the Light: When a Practitioner Enters Spiritual "Adolescence"

When light appears during practice, it's like a child entering adolescence — starting to feel grown up. The unwholesome and the neutral want to seize the chance to use this. Before, as a young child, still under a parent's control, the unwholesome didn't have much room; but at adolescence, the struggle for control begins. It's the same for a meditator: once light appears, it's like entering adolescence, and the unwholesome and neutral will steer us. When we see a vision while sitting, how could we say it's wrong? Do we believe what we ourselves saw, or believe someone who says it's not so? The real question is: who produced that vision? It depends on the information we've absorbed, because the unwholesome's automatic system processes our stored memories and builds them into a story. The brighter the light, the more elaborate and fabricated a story it can weave, because it's processed from the thinking of the wandering spirit that has taken hold as the ruling force — it can only fabricate as much as the information it has. Its thoughts and feelings then appear as our own thoughts and feelings.

The Telltale Difference: The Wholesome Follows a Clear Pattern; the Wandering Spirit Is a Jumble

One key observation: the wholesome has a clear, consistent pattern, sound principles, never haphazard — everything follows cause and effect. Explain it to anyone and they nod in understanding. But when a wandering spirit mixes and fabricates information into a jumbled image, anyone listening can tell it's disordered, impossible to follow from start to finish. The wandering spirit's mind has no respect — it doesn't believe anything anyone tells it, and because it doesn't believe, it wanders from person to person seeking someone who will accept it, moving on from one to the next until someone finally does.

The Second: Humility

This mental factor keeps a hardened mind from staying hardened — it doesn't want to boast; whatever good it has, it keeps quietly. The wandering spirit's mind is the opposite: whatever good it thinks it has, it wants to show off. This is why, in Buddhism, these first two qualities — respect and humility — must come before everything else. Without them, the moment we encounter the light, that's the end — we close the door and go home, even though we've fought through the hindrances to reach that light, which is really only the very first taste of the wholesome. The wandering spirit's mind will drag us straight back, refusing to believe anyone, because it trusts only its own inner body's feelings and thoughts, which have no order or substance whatsoever, running wild. These first two qualities are therefore essential first steps in studying the truth — even in the Brahmanical path, the first jhāna requires them; without them, we haven't even reached the threshold of the first absorption.

The Third: Contentment — Being Satisfied with What We Have, Step by Step

Contentment means being satisfied with what we have and what we are — not delighting in gain, status, or praise. It keeps us from being deceived by the unwholesome into setting ourselves up as the head of our own sect, the way so many "special-power" groups are founded today, pulling followers away from their teachers. Once someone sets up their own school and gathers students, contentment disappears, replaced by gain, status, praise, and comfort. Reaching liberation of mind and liberation through wisdom requires contentment in every single moment — seeing the progress that appears, being satisfied with the small increments of knowledge, happiness, and purity that arise, one step at a time, rather than craving more and more. Contentment produces happiness — a happiness born of the wholesome, which teaches us to be satisfied with what we have and are, however small, seeing each clear step of progress: knowledge, happiness, and purity growing bit by bit.

The Fourth: Gratitude — Knowing the Value of Things

Gratitude connects with the mental factor of wisdom — it means recognizing value and benefit. It's like picking up a bottle of paracetamol: the label tells you its properties. Knowing its properties, you can use it to your benefit. If we look at all the trees and plants outside and know the properties of each one, we can put them to use as herbal medicine, food, or materials for other benefits, even crafts. This is why knowing the value of things — gratitude in this deeper sense — is necessary.

The Fifth: Patience — Daring to Face Suffering

Patience is one of the ten perfections, the force that drives us through the mass of suffering. To reach the very end of suffering requires patience, which builds spiritual heat (tapas). Someone without patience dares not face suffering at all — ordinary people generally don't dare face suffering; the moment they see it, they turn away. Some people, when asked to practice meditation, sit and close their eyes for a moment and can't bear it — facing discomfort, they can't cope, and say they'll do anything except sit in meditation, even though it's nothing more than sitting with eyes closed, simply being aware.

The Sixth: Being Easy to Teach

When the wholesome, or those who know, offer guidance in studying Dhamma, we do as instructed and refrain when told to refrain — restraining ourselves against the unwholesome, learning and training in the wholesome until we're fully equipped with the four bases of success (iddhipāda). These six qualities are the essential foundation for studying Dhamma — every one of them follows cause and effect, and each must be learned and understood in turn.

Respect and humility both operate through the mechanism of mental factors. The sphere of respect connects us to the internal and external systems; humility connects to the mental factor that produces a gentle body and gentle mind. If body and mind are hardened instead, the wandering spirit's mind cannot draw in pure energy usefully — the mind just grows more and more clouded. And without that, contentment can't arise either, because there's clinging and grasping instead — each of these qualities is therefore necessary and important.

Seeking a Teacher: Seeing a Renunciant, Listening to Dhamma, Discussing It

Once we have these six foundations, in the course of study we must also seek a teacher. The first step is to see a renunciant — because only renunciants, monastics, devote their entire lives, day and night, to studying the truth. They study while eating; while walking, they set their minds to learning; sitting, lying down — everything is for the sake of study, understanding this difficult subject through the gradual removal of ignorance, layer by layer. Gaining this experience requires passing through dimension after dimension — only by clearing impurity in one dimension can we move to the next. It isn't something we can force to happen all at once right now; it requires the accumulated age of one's elements and perfections built up over time.

Once we see a renunciant, we go listen to their teaching — to hear what they say and judge how substantial it is, whether it's worthy enough for us to take as our teacher. After listening, we must converse with them, examining and testing whether they truly understand things clearly. If they do, they can become our teacher. Once we accept someone as our teacher, we must diligently listen and follow their teaching, whatever time of day they give it. After listening, we must go teach it ourselves, discussing the Dhamma with our own students — otherwise the old knowledge fades away. We tell it to whomever we meet; at first it's just a story shared casually. Once someone is impressed, they want to learn from us, and gradually they become our student. Having a teacher increases our new knowledge; having students keeps our old knowledge from being lost, reinforcing our foundation, making it firmer and clearer — because Dhamma is about progressively removing ignorance layer by layer, with significance at different depths that we must reach ever more deeply. Listening to Dhamma, following a teacher, and discussing Dhamma must therefore happen continually, as part of daily life. New knowledge accumulates, old knowledge is preserved — without new knowledge entering our lives, we could never grow wiser.

Practice Means Putting It to Use

After studying the core of Dhamma, the real work is to put it into practice. Practice means using what we've learned. What we've absorbed is only information; once we use it, that's practice, and that's when benefit arises. If we never use it, no benefit arises — what we've heard remains mere information. It's like learning to cook: after the lesson, we go and actually prepare a meal for ourselves — that's putting it to use. If we study but never practice, never use what we've learned, the fruit of realization simply cannot appear; the benefit that should arise cannot arise, because we never put it to use.

Guarding Against False Visions, and the Blessings of Right Mindfulness

Before closing, the teacher warns that a wandering spirit can easily conjure images of the Buddha, of elder teachers, or their words, purely through its own thinking — knowing what information we want, it weaves and layers that into our own thoughts. But whether it's real or not is another matter entirely. He recalls that during his time at Wat Paknam, he once accompanied his teacher to examine novices, and found that those who genuinely reached the inner state all showed the exact same pattern, even when questioned separately, on different occasions — reaching the same spheres of precepts, concentration, wisdom, and liberation. Of over thirty novices who ordained, more than ten reached this state, all following the identical pattern — proof that everything follows the pattern of wholesome Dhamma, a pattern that existed even before the Buddha arose in the world.

In cultivating right mindfulness before right concentration, the Buddha taught: "Monks, you should be clearly aware in body, feeling, mind, and mental object, in order to remove liking and disliking" — because the inner world contains both what is pleasing and what is displeasing, both born from impurity, producing suffering, a state hard to bear; and the pleasing side, too, is simply the vision-crafting that appears once light arises. He taught us to remove covetousness and grief regarding the world entirely. If we don't remove it fully, the neutral mental factor of even-mindedness grows clouded, unable to remain balanced, tossed about like waves in the middle of the sea — unbalanced, unable to settle. And when it can't settle, there can be no progress at all.

Afterward, the teacher leads the group in paying homage to the Buddha, reminding everyone that every time we pay homage, we should recall the Triple Gem within. When we recall it, we appear bright and clear at its center, and it appears bright and clear at ours; both we and it appear radiant at the center of Nibbāna. The current of merit from the deep, subtle heart of Nibbāna pours through the center of our body, driving the system of wholesome Dhamma to refine and correct the elements of our being, purifying us and freeing us from one dimension into the next — increasing the proportion of the wholesome in us, giving our life more substance, more clarity, more lightness, and more vitality.