การรวมใจกับองค์พระทำได้ด้วยการสวมความรู้สึกเป็นองค์พระ เมื่อทำซ้ำๆ กายเวทนาจิตธรรมของท่านจะซ้อนขึ้นในใจเราโดยอัตโนมัติ จนสามารถรับรู้และสื่อสารกับท่านได้Uniting the heart with the Buddha image is done by putting on that feeling the way an actor takes on a role. With repeated practice, the Buddha's body-feeling-mind-dhamma overlays our own automatically, until we can perceive and even converse with the Buddha within.
Someone asked: during the teacher's guided meditation, he spoke of uniting our heart with the Buddha image — how is that union actually done?
Uniting the heart means we become the Buddha image, and the Buddha image becomes us, by putting on that feeling — the way an actor takes on a role. When performing any character, the actor puts on the feeling of that character. While wearing that feeling, we must call to mind that type of person. For example, to portray a beggar, we call to mind the image of a beggar; to portray a powerful figure, we call to mind that type of person. Whenever we call a particular type of person to mind, the s belonging to that type appear within our heart. Once those mental factors appear, that person's thoughts and feelings appear in our heart too — the whole set of body, feeling, mind, and mental objects appears, expressed through our gestures, our feelings of pleasure or pain or neutrality, and our thoughts. Whatever the heart knows, that is what we come to know.
This happens automatically. Whenever we put on someone's feeling, their body-feeling-mind- appears within us. In truth it isn't literally their body-feeling-mind-dhamma — rather, we already carry a kind of program within ourselves, and that program causes the whole set to appear, producing our behavior and our thoughts and feelings simultaneously. We use this same principle to put on the feeling of the Buddha image: the Buddha's body-feeling-mind-dhamma appears, overlaid onto our own. With repeated practice, we merge and unite with the Buddha automatically.
From there, we become able to communicate with the Buddha within — to converse, to ask questions, and to receive answers that feel almost like our own thoughts. For instance, when asked how the Buddha image would lie down to rest, the answer comes as an awareness of posture — how to lie, with the gesture and manner appearing spontaneously. Or while eating, if we put on the feeling of the Buddha image and ask how the Buddha would take a meal, the answer comes as an instruction to eat with restraint — that thought and feeling simply arises in our heart. Though it may feel as though we're just imagining it, it feels genuinely real, because the Buddha's body-feeling-mind-dhamma is truly overlaid upon our own. We can therefore ask and receive answers — even without yet seeing the Buddha directly, the heart is still able to perceive.