บทนำนั่งสมาธิที่พระอาจารย์สุรพงค์สอนหลักการกำหนดนามสภาวะ วิตกวิจารณ์ และดวงสติ พร้อมอุปมาการนั่งรถที่ค่อยๆ เร่งความเร็วจนเครื่องสั่น แต่เมื่อใจนิ่งพอ การเคลื่อนที่ก็ราบเรียบและเร็วขึ้นได้ ปิดท้ายด้วยการแผ่เมตตาและอุทิศส่วนบุญA guided meditation in which Phra Ajarn Suraphong teaches naming the inner state, initial thought and reflection, and the sphere of mindfulness, illustrated with a vivid simile of a car gradually picking up speed — vibrating out of control until the mind grows still, at which point the ride becomes smooth and fast. The session closes with loving-kindness and merit dedication.
Practicing the is essential to every life, because we all live under the control of three kinds of nature. Only nature can give us , understanding, love and goodwill, and the , success, and fulfillment that are right and good. The other natures give us nothing beneficial — if a nature is unwholesome, it only brings suffering and danger. This is why we must learn, understand, and train ourselves to dwell with wholesome nature.
The Heart of Right Mindfulness
To dwell with wholesome nature, the Lord Buddha taught us to develop . He taught: "Monks, you should clearly know the body, feelings, mind, and mental objects, in order to remove covetousness and grief in the world." This sentence is extremely important — it can transform an ordinary person into a noble one. We need to memorize it and deeply understand its meaning for how we live our lives.
Developing right aims at attaining both () and liberation through wisdom (paññāvimutti). Liberation of mind begins with developing calm (); liberation through wisdom requires understanding wisdom from listening, from reflection, and from meditation — the last of which leads toward (vipassanā). Both kinds of liberation require energy to drive the wholesome system. For liberation through wisdom, simply understanding wisdom from listening and reflection can already free us at a basic level and help guard against unwholesomeness. Today we will practice toward liberation of mind.
Grandfather Master's Teaching: Do the Cause, Observe the Result
Our great teacher, Luang Pu, taught an essential point: once we perform the cause, we must observe the result. He repeated it three times over: "Perform the cause, observe the result — attend to this, for it is truly excellent." If we observe the result, we will reach the inner state, because that state is a subtle matter requiring subtlety of observation. If we don't observe, we cannot perceive that subtle state at all.
The Method: Naming the State, Reflection, and the Sphere of Mindfulness
Once the mind is settled at , we recite "Samma-araham" — this is naming the inner state. The name is what we call the quality of Dhamma we are attending to. We raise it up as our meditation subject — this is initial thought (vitakka). Having raised it, we must then reflect and contemplate it (vicāra). Initial thought and sustained reflection go together; as we keep reflecting, the sphere of knowing — the sphere of mindfulness — arises and continuously draws in pure energy, merit, into the brightness at its center.
This pure energy, merit, refines the mind and heart, removing the defilements that cause problems and obstacles. Refining is like separating elements — the dark, coarse elements evaporate away, while the heavy ones settle and sink. As the sphere of knowing keeps drawing merit in, the defilements grow lighter and lighter until they vanish. Nothing remains to bind us to the coarse dimension, and we are freed from the coarse dimension into a subtler one — something we must observe carefully to notice the difference. Before (pīti) arises, there must be enough purification and cleansing; once it enters the automatic system, the result shows itself as rapture — the heart perceiving the that has arisen.
The Form Appears: The Clear Crystal Buddha Image at the Center of the Body
Our great teacher, Luang Pu, once said that form and name always go together — when we determine the name, the form-state appears. The form-state of "Samma-araham" is a clear, pure crystal Buddha image, alive, able to smile, speak, and converse, seated on a meditation dais within a sphere of Dhamma that fills the lap, radiant and luminous. When he appears, he does not appear for nothing — he appears together with boundless compassion. He takes the elements within us — seeing, memory, thought, earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness — and refines them to be clean and pure, like a parent caring for a child, because he is our true self. Everyone has their own Triple Gem within, and our Triple Gem deeply wishes for us to become one with it.
The Four Steps of Merging Body and Mind with the Buddha Image
Step one is determining the naming-state, reciting "Samma-araham" repeatedly, until the form-state emerges and rises through the center of our body. At first we simply visualize it, since the physical eye cannot see it — this requires the eye of the refined human body or the eye of layered within. When conditions align, the bright Buddha image becomes visible.
Step two is perceiving that form-state continuously rising through the center of our body, one image after another, layering onto our coarse human body — the knees overlapping our knees, the thighs and torso becoming one, the shoulders, arms, head, and face all merging as one.
Step three is merging our body with his body into a single unity — we are the Buddha image, the Buddha image is us. Our whole body, from head to toe, becomes the crystal Dhamma-body — brilliant, radiant, delicate, soft, cool, clean, and pure — head, face, shoulders, arms, chest, belly, back, hips, thighs, knees, shins, calves, and soles, all becoming the crystal Dhamma-body.
Step four is merging our mind with his mind into a single unity. What is he doing at the center of our body? He is dwelling in ceson-attainment, gathering the mind to stop, gathering the mind to be still. Whatever he does, we do the same — stop within stop, still within still, soft, light, at ease, clear, cool, clean, pure, radiant, with a relaxed heart.
These four steps are what we must practice again and again, to move us onto the inner middle path.
The Simile: A Car Gradually Picking Up Speed
As we move onto the inner middle path, we know we are sitting perfectly still, with no outward movement — yet we are moving forward, as though sitting in a car or a vehicle. As the car accelerates, we know the car is moving forward; when it moves fast, we know it is fast; when it slows, we know it is slow. At first the movement is slow, then it gradually speeds up. As our subtlety increases, the speed increases too — fast, until the engine begins to vibrate, and we notice that vibration.
This vibration is like riding in a car that is going too fast — at that point it becomes hard to control, and it shakes. But once we are truly still, the car can smoothly accelerate and glide along at speed. So at this stage we must keep repeating the four steps described above, observing — doing the cause and observing the result, attending to this, for it is excellent. It is exactly in that observing that we come to know cetovimutti, that liberation is happening continuously all the time. We are being freed from coarser dimensions into subtler ones — this minute differs from the minute before, these five minutes differ from the five minutes before. If we observe, we will perceive it.
Radiating Loving-Kindness for the World and All Beings
Once we have done good for ourselves, we go on to benefit other people and all beings. It is essential that we support one another, because we all come from the same source. When we are able to help, we must help — this is part of driving our perfection of ( bāramī) to circle clockwise, faster and faster.
Our great teacher, Luang Pu, taught us to draw on the heart of a mother filled with love and goodwill for her young child, and to raise that as the sphere of loving-kindness. This loving-kindness has the special quality of dissolving away resentment and irritation — in the atmosphere, in people, in all beings and things. May the people of the world and all beings be free from suffering and find happiness everywhere. May we not harm one another, may we bear no enmity toward one another; may we conduct ourselves so as to be free from bodily and mental suffering.
Having established this good wish, the loving-kindness appears bright and clear, and the stream of merit pours continuously into the brightness at its center. We then expand this heart of loving-kindness outward — covering our home, our village, our sub-district, district, province, country, and neighboring countries, until it covers the whole world, making this world a crystal world, radiant, clear, cool, clean, and pure. May the people of the world and all beings be free from suffering and find happiness everywhere — earthbound devas, celestial devas, heavenly beings of every heavenly realm, formless Brahmas, and also beings in hell, hungry ghosts, and animals. May those with much suffering have less; may those with little suffering be free of it entirely; may those with little happiness have more; and may those with much happiness have ever more.
We then expand this loving heart further into the atmosphere of the cosmos, covering countless stars — tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions — and continuing on to the ten-thousand-fold world system, the hundred-thousand-koti of infinite universes, so that our loving-kindness shines and benefits all people and beings without limit.
Dedicating Merit and Forgiving Our Karmic Counterparts
The stream of merit continues to pour into the brightness at the center of loving-kindness. We now dedicate this merit to arise for all beings and people. May the people of the world and all beings share in this merit that we have intentionally accumulated, and may they be free from suffering and find happiness everywhere. And also our ancestors, our parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, our whole circle of relatives, as well as our teachers and benefactors, the devas who assist and support us, and those who look after and protect all beings, and all beings whom we may have wronged — our karmic counterparts (คู่กรรมคู่เวร) — may we forgive one another, and may they too share fully in this merit.
Settling in the Center of the Triple Gem and the Great Teachers, Setting the Resolve
We gather the mind to stop, gather the mind to be still, in the middle of the stream of merit that continues to pour forth. We settle still at the center of the Triple Gem — the center of the Buddha jewel, the Dhamma jewel, the Sangha jewel — and also settle still at the center of the most refined Dhamma body of our great teacher Luang Pu, of Luang Phor, and of Khun Yai Ajarn. The mind is the element of accomplishment: however we determine it, so it becomes. When we think of them, we appear bright and clear within them, and they appear bright and clear within us; together we appear radiant at the center of Nibbāna, the center of the one who knows, of boundless power.
In this time we pay respects and set our resolve for success, so it becomes fixed within this bright sphere of merit, that our entire path of accumulating perfections may be filled with knowledge alongside happiness and purity, and success in everything right and good. We ask that all this merit and perfection combine into sacred, powerful merit, freeing us from calamity, sin, karmic results, and every obstacle in life, so that greed, hatred, delusion, lust, , wrong view, craving, and clinging are exhausted without a trace, so that we gain the Dhamma eye that sees and penetrates the teaching, achieving the three knowledges, the eight higher knowledges, the six kinds of analytical insight, the four discriminations, the eight liberations, and all fifteen conducts in full.
Closing Dedication
The session closes with a wish for strong health so we may continue building perfections throughout life, walking steadily toward Nibbāna. When we pass from this world, may we be reborn in the Tusita heaven in the realm of the great Bodhisattas of special merit, and when we return to build perfections in the human world, may we be born into a family of right view — a crystal family, a Dhammakāya family. The session ends with the closing chant of loving-kindness and merit dedication.