The Wholesome Turns the Hard Into the Easy

In practice, if the wholesome is the teacher, it teaches so as to make things easy — turning what is hard into what is convenient and comfortable. But if the unwholesome teaches, it makes things complicated and hard, because they follow opposite principles. Everything therefore depends on one's outlook — right view or wrong view. Wrong view turns the easy into the hard, while right view turns the hard into the easy, and the easy into something easier still.

Come to Rest Body and Mind at Ease

When we come to sit, tell the mind and self that we're coming to rest body and mind at ease — coming to train the mind to abide with ease, and to feel that ease.

The Same Principle as Going to a Doctor

The principle of practice is like taking ourselves to a doctor to be treated for illness. On arrival, the doctor tells us to make ourselves comfortable, then examines us according to our symptoms and gives an injection or a remedy — the doctor handling everything. Healing the mind is the same. We simply bring body and mind to sit and let the wholesome nature — the wholesome system — refine and correct us. Our only role is to note awareness so the sphere of knowing, the sphere of mindfulness, arises, and to keep knowing without lapse. If we lapse, that's fine — just return to knowing. What matters is that the spheres of knowing and mindfulness arise, because the sphere of mindfulness is a wholesome mental factor; once arisen, it draws the pure energy of merit to flow in continuously at the center of its brightness.

Radiating Loving-Kindness to All Beings

At the same time, the stream of merit flows in continuously at the center of the brightness of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness has the quality of clearing away the irritation present in the atmosphere, among people and beings, until it's gone. We and our mind grow radiant with the light of loving-kindness. Then expand this heart filled with loving-kindness to cover this place of practice; wherever the mind reaches, loving-kindness reaches, shining through every particle of the atmosphere — and expand it further across the district, province, country, other nations, and the whole world, making the world like a clear, pure crystal. May all beings be free from suffering and share in happiness — the earth-devas, tree-devas, sky-devas, the heavens of every level, and even beings in states of woe; may those with much suffering have less, and those with little happiness have more — and expand it on through the universe and the boundless multitude of world-systems.

Dedicating Merit to All Beings and Our Kin

Then dedicate this merit to all people and beings, that they may be free from suffering and share in happiness, and share in the merit we have made — including our parents, siblings, grandparents, revered teachers, the devas who help us, and all karmic counterparties — that they may forgive one another and all receive this merit.

Merging With the Triple Gem and the Great Revered Teachers

Having dedicated the merit, merge with the Triple Gem and the great revered teachers as one, resting still at the center of the Buddha Gem, the Dhamma Gem, and the Sangha Gem, and at the center of the subtle Dhamma bodies of the grandmaster, his teacher, and the great female teacher. Merged as one, we appear clear and radiant at their center, and they at the center of our body; the whole chain of bodies is clear and bright, and both we and they appear radiant at the center of nibbana.

The Closing Aspiration

In this most auspicious moment, make an aspiration and set the blueprint of success for our life. May the merit and power of nibbana, and the merit of the grandmaster, his teacher, and the great female teacher, combine with the merit we've accumulated, to purify body, speech, and mind to radiance; to free us from bondage to Māra, and from ruin and every obstacle; to extinguish greed, aversion, delusion, lust, covetousness, wrong view, craving, and clinging without remainder; to grant the Dhamma Eye, the Dhammakaya knowledge, good health, and firm resolve to build the perfections toward nibbana. The session closes with a traditional verse invoking the protective power of all Buddhas, Solitary Buddhas, and Arahants.