The 38 Blessings of Life: The Worldly Side and the Dhamma Side

The teacher presents the 38 blessings of life, reorganized into a left side and a right side. The left side covers worldly living; the right side covers living the Dhamma path. The first five points, in green, are the basic foundation for how everyone should live: not associating with fools, keeping company with the wise, honoring those worthy of honor, living in a suitable place, and having made merit in past lives. All five form the foundation of the law of kamma and the three characteristics.

Next comes developing and training oneself to become a refuge for oneself and one's family: right self-establishment, broad learning, having a skill, discipline, wholesome speech, not leaving work unfinished, and living by Dhamma. The third section: once we've grown up, we have the duty to support our parents, raise our children, care for our spouse, support our relatives, and practice giving — becoming a refuge for the world. The fourth section is avoiding what is harmful: work that carries no fault, restraining the body from intoxicants, abstaining from wrongdoing, and not being heedless in Dhamma. These four points form the essence of worldly living; once life is fully complete on this side, we naturally wish to study Dhamma on the right side.

The Six Foundations for Studying Dhamma

The right side covers the six essential foundations for studying Dhamma. The first is respect — respect for the Dhamma and for one's teachers. The second is humility; without it, one wants to show off, becomes hardened, and doesn't listen to anyone. Both the sphere of respect and the sphere of humility are types of Dhamma, taking the shape of a clear, bright sphere.

The third is contentment — being satisfied with what one has and is. Happiness arises from a correct attitude built on contentment. The teacher gives the example of things we order from online shops because we want them badly, only to use them briefly and toss them aside — even though we once wanted them desperately. It's the same in practice: be satisfied with the small increments of progress we make.

The fourth is gratitude — recognizing value and benefit, connected to the mental factor of wisdom. It's like a bottle of paracetamol with a label listing its uses for headache, toothache, fever; knowing its properties lets us use it well. It's the same with plants outside — knowing their properties lets us use them as medicine or food.

The fifth is patience. Ordinary people rarely dare face suffering directly; only the noble ones dare confront the mass of suffering. Suffering is the result of our past mistakes, appearing as impurity. Facing it and truly understanding where we went wrong lets the inner knower explain it to us, so we won't repeat the mistake. With patience, we can push through the mass of suffering to its very end.

The sixth is being easy to teach. When the wholesome tells us to give, we give; when it calls for diligence in meditation or precepts, we apply it. The wholesome is the inner voice arising from the subconscious; when the wholesome nature seizes the chance to become the ruling force, it overlays the mental factor of the subtle body, which is wiser, and its thoughts appear as our own, urging us toward good deeds. If we're easy to teach, whatever the wholesome instructs, merit follows.

Seeking a Teacher: Seeing a Renunciant, Hearing Dhamma, Discussing It

With these six foundations in place, we must seek a teacher — starting with seeing a renunciant, since renunciants devote their whole lives to studying and understanding Dhamma, giving them far greater mastery than others. Having found one, we listen to their teaching to gauge their depth of understanding, then converse with them to test whether their knowledge is reliable enough to depend on. Once proven and accepted as our teacher, we keep listening for fresh insight that carries us forward. After listening, we must discuss Dhamma with our own students, or our old knowledge fades. Having students deepens our foundational understanding, since Dhamma holds ever-deeper layers of meaning; while teaching, the inner knower appears beside us, pointing out nuances we never knew.

Four Stages of Practice Toward the Inner Truth

The seventh point — studying to reach a subtler inner truth — requires practice across four stages. Where impurity is heavy, one must undertake austerity to burn away defilement, sitting through discomfort as the wholesome "operates" to remove the coarsest impurities. Once that austerity reaches a certain level, one lives the holy life, thinning the hindrances to reach inner purity layer by layer. Once calm reaches a certain depth, one studies the noble truths, gaining clear insight into suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path. Once the sphere of light appears and inner Dhamma is reached, one moves on to realizing Nibbāna through insight meditation, aiming for the noble mind unmoved by the eight worldly conditions — undisturbed even by loss of gain or status, free from sorrow because free from defilement, a peaceful mind far from the taints that cloud it.

Respect Versus Regard: The Power That Connects Us to the 84,000 Sections of Dhamma

The teacher circles back to expand on respect. Respect develops from acceptance — opening the mind, listening to others, keeping their good qualities in mind; this is regard. As regard deepens until someone's virtue can lift our mind higher, it becomes respect, which carries even greater power. We may regard our parents as caretakers, our teachers as sources of knowledge — but if their virtue is enough to lift our mind higher still, so that we dare not argue, staying quiet and courteous, that's the power of respect making us naturally well-mannered.

Living in Dhamma with respect connects us to the 84,000 sections of Dhamma, explaining things to us as though we thought of them ourselves — this is the power of respect. Without it, the slightest correction brings displeasure, and guidance becomes impossible. Studying Dhamma without any respect simply doesn't work.

The Buddha's Own Respect for Dhamma: Waiting for a Monk to Finish Chanting

Upon attaining supreme enlightenment, the first thing the Buddha reflected on was that living without respect for anything is not good. He looked for someone in the world worthy of his own respect, but found no one in the three realms whose virtue matched his own — everyone still carried some impurity. So he took the Dhamma itself as the object of his respect. Once, a monk was chanting scripture in the assembly hall; the Buddha waited for him to finish before entering, because entering mid-chant would have forced the monk to stop and pay homage to him. This is an example of the Buddha's own respect.

Beware False Visions: A Wandering Spirit's Mind Can Fabricate Convincing Images

The teacher explains that along the path of practice, encountering light is a normal part of progress. But as long as we haven't attained arahantship, impurity remains, and impurity carries out its function. With light present, our distraction takes the form of clear images rather than the merely irritating vague distraction of darkness. The brighter the light, the more convincingly a wandering spirit's mind can fabricate images — conjuring anything we wish to see. Want to bow before the Buddha? It's arranged. Want to visit heaven? You're taken there — and it feels so real we get emotionally absorbed. Some even bow before what they believe is the very source of Dhamma, treating it as entirely ordinary.

Once someone has something impressive to show, without humility they want to boast, even though none of it is real — pure fabrication. But genuine wholesomeness never disturbs meditation; it only deepens stillness and subtlety, the way the teacher describes: a point the size of a needle's tip expanding vastly larger, the mind expanding millions of times over, growing subtler and subtler. Even without seeing any image at all, that's fine — we simply keep stilling further. Ignorance merely veils what we haven't yet uncovered.

Mindfulness Versus Clear Comprehension: The Difference

The teacher expands on the teaching: "Monks, you should be clearly aware — awareness is mindfulness, clarity is comprehension." Mindfulness knows the essential point of where we're fixing our attention — for example, on the breath. Clear comprehension is thorough awareness of the details; as we keep watching, subtle, delicate details appear, and perceiving those details is what's meant by clear comprehension. This thorough awareness of detail is exactly what refines the mind, letting us perceive the finer qualities of whatever state arises.

Testing What's Real: A Question a Wandering Spirit Can't Answer

Someone asked how to know whether a vision is real or a deception. The teacher explains: during meditation, when brightness appears, three forces may seize the chance to take over — the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the neutral. If the wholesome takes hold, there's no problem at all. But if the unwholesome takes hold, it overlays the mind of a wandering spirit, whose thoughts and feelings appear as our own — fabricating images from whatever we've heard or seen before. It knows we want to bow before the Buddha, so it conjures that image; sometimes it appears as an elder teacher or a beloved grandmother figure instructing us to do this or that — none of it real, yet convincing because of the brightness present.

A fellow student of the elder teacher once claimed to have visited the very source of Dhamma and conversed with the Buddha and arahants. The teacher tested him by asking him to state his own name and surname — he got it completely wrong, proving everything he "knew" was false, though he had no idea. He still believed images of the Buddha were flowing in from every direction, packing knowledge into him, while our own teachers followed a single, consistent path: the spheres of Dhamma, precepts, concentration, wisdom, and liberation, moving through body within body in a systematic, patterned way. Any wholesome system must follow a clear, trustworthy pattern, in correct and orderly sequence — never haphazard. If something can't be explained coherently, we must trace it back to its source: the three natures that govern all beings.

The teacher recalls his own experience as a teenager who loved action movies and comedies; once he gained some light, a wandering spirit combined the two into a vision to show him, which he found funny and shared with a friend — only to be expelled from the training program because what he'd seen wasn't real.

Someone then asked: what if the deceiving spirit copies the entire system, including concentration and wisdom? The teacher suggests testing it by asking it to produce a specific dream — for example, asking it to reveal where one's late grandmother is now, or what work she did before — and then checking whether the answer is correct. Everything can be tested. Once tested, we no longer need to pay attention to whatever images appear; we simply keep stilling, following the teaching to be clearly aware in body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, removing covetousness and grief. Even if an elder teacher appears, we stay still, listen to whatever is said, and once it's over, return to our own task — never letting anything dictate our practice.

A True Story: The Elder Teacher Appears in a Dream Only When There's Real Reason

The teacher explains that if a vision is genuine, there must be a real reason for it to appear — without reason, it won't come. He gives the example of a woman whose family called her home to work near them instead of staying at the temple. Uncertain what to do, she asked the elder teacher for guidance. That very night, he appeared in her dream, radiant as crystal, telling her this path was the right one for her — even though she had never before reached the light or seen anything at all; she was simply an ordinary staff member. That night's dream was unlike an ordinary, disjointed dream — it was clear and coherent, and the moment it ended she sat straight up, the image of his crystal-clear robes still vivid in her mind. This shows that genuine visitations happen only when there's real cause — never idly or at random.

Dhamma Performs Its Own Function: The Analogy of Sugar Sweetening Water

The teacher concludes that we need respect, because it connects us to the automatic system, establishing us in right conduct, courteous in body, speech, and mind — for instance, when the elder teacher walks in, we automatically raise our hands in a wai and kneel. This is the power of respect, a wholesome virtue that operates automatically. Once we hold respect for the Dhamma, the wholesome connects us to the 84,000 sections of Dhamma. Even if we haven't yet reached the sphere of light, there's no need to worry, because Dhamma itself takes the form of a bright, clear sphere; once we establish it, it performs its own function. We only need to intend it and hold it in mind.

The teacher offers an analogy: what makes water sweet? Adding sugar. Who makes it sweet — the sugar, or the teacher? The sugar itself displays its own property. Dhamma works the same way — we simply hold the intention, and it displays its own quality. We must become the one who holds Dhamma, deciding which quality we want: wanting relaxation, we set the intention for relaxation, and relaxation gradually appears; wanting clarity, we set clarity, and clarity appears. But set the intention for stress, and stress will follow just as surely — Dhamma always performs its function.

Afterward, the teacher leads the group in paying homage to the Buddha, reminding everyone that every time we do, 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 flows continuously through the center of our body and mind, driving the system of wholesome Dhamma to refine and correct the elements of our being, freeing us from coarser dimensions into subtler ones — increasing the proportion of the wholesome, giving our lives more substance, more happiness, more clarity, lightness, and vitality.