Someone asked the teacher to expand on the great teacher's teaching about "stopping" versus "wanting."

Stopping Is What Succeeds; Wanting Pulls the Mind Away From Center The great teacher taught that everything else is a small matter — the one great matter is how the mind comes to stop. Nibbana has already accomplished everything needed, giving us a body with a seventh base through which to connect with it. All we need to do is bring the mind to rest there, still and simple; the rest — refining and correcting our underlying elements — is Nibbana's own work. As we grow purer, we see more and more clearly, because the human body is, in a sense, its outpost.

But wanting — wanting to see, to hear, to know any sensation — pulls the mind away from that center every time. "Wanting" is our own doing, and so is "stopping." There is no method to search for: simply stop, remain still, and it will do its own work of refining us. Stopping is what succeeds. The seventh base is what holds the Dhammakaya, the ultimate refuge, the true goal. Simply stopping is enough — there's no need to worry about how to stop, how to refine it, or whether our answer will please our teacher. Such fears only arise because we haven't yet seen clearly. Once we truly stop, we see clearly and can answer with ease. The more we stop, the more the stopping deepens, like a magnet drawing in iron filings — the finer it becomes, the happier, purer, more joyful, and more illuminating it grows.

The great teacher said that studying the Dhammakaya path is the easiest form of study there is — no reading, no memorizing, no textbooks or equipment required. All it takes is a steady body, speech, and mind, together with a firm resolve, and simply letting the mind come to stillness. He compared it to how even the world's wealthiest people and greatest scholars, coming to him with genuine humility, have said they would trade everything they own just to glimpse the Dhammakaya, even briefly. This shows that everything the world searches for holds no comparable value next to this stillness.

The Human Role Within the Wholesome-Dhamma System Is Simply to Determine Awareness The teacher added that because the human body, once interfered with, cannot know very much, the wholesome side offers the simplest possible task: "determining awareness." Note wherever you place your attention, and know it there — note the center of the body, and know it at the center of the body. Simple, neutral knowing establishes a sphere of neutrality, a wholesome state appearing as a clear, bright sphere. The sphere of knowing — the sphere of mindfulness — then draws merit in to purify our own underlying elements, without the human being needing to do anything more. Our role is only to determine awareness and keep it constant, never lapsing. We should go no further than this, since doing more means overstepping into work that belongs to the wholesome side to correct on our behalf. Everything unfolds according to its own process and its own time — like rushing a doctor or a repairman to finish quickly, which only gets in the way.

He emphasized that the one thing that lets us cooperate continuously with the wholesome side is dwelling in ease, or simple neutrality, as the great teacher taught — a form of equanimity. Once the mental factor of even-mindedness becomes established, balance follows. Simply determining awareness and keeping it constant lets the sphere of knowing draw in pure energy continuously, abiding in morality, allowing moral shame and moral dread to function, leaving non-greed and non-aversion undisturbed. The more we understand these mental factors, the easier life becomes — all of it simply the wholesome side's own mechanism working for us, systematically.