พระอาจารย์สุรพงค์ชวนพิสูจน์ง่ายๆ ด้วยตัวเองว่า สัญญากับตัวเองว่าจะนั่งเฉยๆ ไม่ทำอะไรเลยภายใน 1 ชั่วโมง แล้วสังเกตว่าเราไม่อาจนั่งนิ่งได้จริง เป็นเครื่องพิสูจน์ว่าเสียงภายในต่างหากที่บงการพฤติกรรมประจำวันของเรา ไม่ใช่ตัวเราเองPhra Ajarn Suraphong offers a simple self-experiment: promise yourself to sit and do absolutely nothing for one hour, then observe that you cannot actually keep still. This proves that an inner voice — not our true self — is what drives our daily behavior.
Practicing the is critically necessary for every life, since we live under the control of three natures. Only nature gives benefit, , rightness and goodness, , success, and fulfillment of our wishes. The other natures give no benefit at all, and unwholesomeness especially brings suffering and harm. We must therefore learn to abide with the wholesome nature.
The Teaching: Clearly Know Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma
The Buddha taught: "Monks, you should clearly know body, feeling, mind, and , in order to remove craving and aversion toward the world." This sentence can turn an ordinary person into a noble one, and its content divides into three parts.
Part One: Establishing Awareness and Pure Energy
To "determine" means to designate or fix our attention; wherever we designate, the mind settles there. Because all phenomena — wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral — arise only in the mind, once attention is placed, , a wholesome , arises as a round, bright sphere. Once established, it draws pure energy — merit — to flow into its brightness, and this energy drives the wholesome system to refine and purify the elements within us. Only pure energy — merit — can dispel these stains of defilement; nothing else can do it.
Liberation, One Dimension at a Time
As pure energy lightens the stains, what bound us to coarse dimensions dissolves, and the mind is released into subtler dimensions — which still carry subtler stains requiring subtler merit-energy to purify. Every dimension carries stains until we attain arahantship. If we lapse in awareness, mindfulness disappears and takes its place, halting the flow of energy. The human role is simply to maintain constant, unlapsing awareness — this is the single most important duty of the human body.
Part Two: Body, Feeling, Mind, and Dhamma of the Ruling Nature
When any nature seizes the mind as its host, it overlays its own body-feeling-mind-dhamma onto ours to control our behavior. Wholesome possession lifts the mind higher and finer; unwholesome possession drives coarse, harsh behavior. In feeling: comfort indicates wholesome possession; suffering that must be endured with difficulty indicates unwholesome possession; a neutral feeling of neither pleasure nor pain indicates the neutral nature's possession.
The Inner Voice That Governs Our Life
When a nature becomes the ruling host, its mental factors appear as sound and feeling within our mind. If light appears, we get sound, image, and feeling together; if the light is very bright, we get sound, movie-like images, and feeling that draws us in completely — all of which is simply mental agitation. This inner voice and feeling is precisely what governs the lives and behavior of people and beings, pulling them along according to its own wishes. Without an inner voice, a human being could simply sit still. The reason we cannot stay still is that this inner voice is directing and commanding us to do this and that, never letting us rest in peace.
The Test: Sit Still for One Hour
We can prove this to ourselves quite simply: promise yourself that for one hour you will do absolutely nothing — just sit still — and whatever voice commands you, you will not obey it. If the inner voice had no power over us, we would be able to sit like that with ease. But because that inner voice does have the power to command us, we will find it impossible to keep the promise we made to ourselves. This proves that all our behavior and activity throughout the day are simply the result of this inner voice.
Part Three: Removing Attachment and Aversion Through Equanimity
In the third part, the Buddha taught us not to indulge in delight or aversion, since our lives unfold according to the law of karma, and what remains in the end is only delight and aversion — which the law of the Three Characteristics uses to drive us into creating new karma. Delight leads unwholesomeness to stir up greed, wanting more; aversion leads unwholesomeness to deceive and mislead us in order to harm us. The Buddha therefore taught us to remove worldly delight and aversion entirely, abiding in equanimity — content with what we have and holding the mind neutral. The wholesome mental factor of even-mindedness (tatramajjhattatā) then arises, drawing in pure energy that balances the mind, making body and mind light, unrestless, calm, refined, and fit for work.
Entering the First Jhāna Through Applied and Sustained Thought
With this foundation, entering the first is not difficult — it requires applied thought (vitakka, directing the mind) and sustained thought (vicāra, contemplating) on the chosen meditation object. Our Great Master and teachers advise anchoring the mind at , within the abdomen, and reciting there in contemplation: "Sammā-Arahaṃ" — the honorific name of the subtle Dhamma-body Arahat, meaning the One who has practiced well, practiced rightly, in a way that leads far from defilement.
The Crystal Buddha Appears and We Merge
When we speak his name, he appears at the center of our body as a crystal Buddha image, clear and pure, alive, able to smile and converse with us — seated on a plane of jhāna within a Dhamma-sphere filling his entire lap. Once the Dhamma-body appears, he refines earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness, along with our faculties of seeing, remembering, thinking, and knowing, until they are clear and pure, clearing stains and every karmic obstruction, while a stream of merit from the depths of nibbāna pours continuously into us. Our task is simply to maintain awareness on the recitation, speaking his name and merging into oneness with him, until our entire body becomes the crystal — radiant, clear, cool, and pure — from the crown of the head through the face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, abdomen, back, hips, thighs, knees, shins, down to the feet.
Settling in Stillness, Aimed Toward Nibbāna
Once our body has merged with his into one unity, we gather the mind to stop and be still at the center of the Buddha image, the center of ourselves. Stop within stop, still within still, soft and at ease; our mind opens into boundless spaciousness. We settle deeper into the center of the center of the center — not left, not right, not forward, not back, not up, not down — but into that very center, knowing the center, stopping the center, stilling the center — and send our heart and mind directly toward the path of nibbāna, the center of the Knower of boundless, incalculable power.
Radiating Loving-Kindness
Having cultivated goodness for ourselves, we then cultivate goodness for the world and all beings through — a tool for those with abundant merit to help those with less. We simply set our wish sincerely and purely: may all beings be free from suffering and share in happiness. The sphere of mettā appears bright at the center of our mind, and the stream of merit pours continuously into its brightness. Mettā can dissolve resentment and irritation in people's hearts, then expands outward, covering the place of practice, village, district, province, country, other nations, and the whole world — turning it into a crystal world, radiant, cool, and pure. May the people of the world and all beings be free from suffering and share happiness together, extending further out into the atmosphere of the cosmos, covering countless stars out to the boundless realms and universes.
Dedicating Merit and Making Our Resolve
The stream of merit continues pouring into the brightness of mettā, and we dedicate this merit to all people and beings, including our ancestors, parents, siblings, grandparents, relatives, our benefactor teachers, the devas who help us, and our karmic counterparts (คู่กรรมคู่เวร), asking mutual forgiveness and that all receive a share of this merit equally. We then settle the mind in stillness at the center of the Triple Gem and the subtle Dhamma-body of our Great Master, our Teacher, and our Grandmother-teacher, fixing our resolve at the center of this radiant sphere of merit, that our path of building perfections be transformed by knowledge, happiness, and , with the Dhamma-eye penetrating the , strong health, and long life — and when we pass from this world, rebirth in the Tusita heaven and, in future lives, birth into families of right view.