พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าอารมณ์แกว่งไปมาหลังนั่งสมาธิมักเกิดจากวิบากกรรม ต้องยอมรับความจริงก่อนจึงจะแก้ไขได้ ส่วนการเช็กว่านั่งถูกหรือไม่ ให้สังเกตว่าหลังนั่งรู้สึกดีขึ้นกว่าก่อนนั่งหรือไม่The teacher explains that mood swings after meditation are usually the fruit of past kamma — accepting that reality is the first step to resolving it. As for checking whether one is sitting correctly, notice whether you feel better after sitting than before.
Someone shared a case: a student found that the built up in meditation could only shield the mind for an hour or two, and being someone easily unsettled, once that protective merit ran out, unwholesome states would slip in. This caused their mood to swing between the of meditation and the turmoil of daily life, requiring several hours of sitting just to pull themselves back — yet they didn't want to meditate all day, since they wanted a life beyond it too. They asked what causes this.
Mood Swings Come from the Fruits of Past Kamma
The teacher explained that every irregular case is, without exception, the fruit of past kamma — the only difference is degree. Heavy kamma produces a strong effect; light kamma, a small one, which can prevent the practice from bearing its proper fruit. It may stem from wrong views held in the past, or something connected to alcohol, which affects meditation and keeps wholesome states from helping fully. Unwholesome states are always looking for an opening, but under normal circumstances wholesome states manage to help — except when kamma is strong enough that side temporarily outweighs . Still, while sitting with a genuinely wholesome intention, the wholesome mind remains dominant during that time; unwholesome states can only intrude as passing hindrances, not deep, lasting change — that requires kamma heavy enough to actually build such a pattern.
Resolving this kind of kamma begins with accepting the reality that it exists. Without accepting it, there's nothing to fix. Once accepted, one examines what kind of kamma it is and lets wholesome practice address it. For someone whose meditation isn't yielding results, focusing on keeping precepts pure may help instead; for someone whose precepts alone aren't working, cultivating wisdom can help — using liberation through wisdom in place of liberation through concentrated mind while the kammic obstruction remains.
How to Know You're Meditating Correctly
When asked further how to be confident that someone is meditating correctly — since, unlike a tangible piece of work, it can't simply be inspected — the teacher offered a simple check: notice whether you feel better after sitting than before. If you feel better, you're in the right system, because when wholesome states are at work, the feeling improves moment by moment. If drowsiness or distraction arises during the sit, that's fine too — it's simply the release of accumulated impurity (malathin), which cannot be forced to stop. What matters is whether, after that drowsiness or distraction passes, you can keep sitting, and whether you feel better once you finish. If you can continue and end up feeling refreshed, you're doing it correctly. Once the released impurity is spent, wholesome states take over the same frequency and draw in pure energy instead, allowing the sitting to continue more smoothly. He also advised checking a practitioner's understanding directly — having them describe their experience, then pointing out exactly where they're stuck so it can be resolved one point at a time.