พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าความรู้ทางโลกนำไปสู่ความสุขที่ตื่นเต้นเร้าใจ แต่ขาดองค์ประกอบเรื่องความบริสุทธิ์ ส่วนพระพุทธศาสนาสอนความรู้ที่นำสู่ความบริสุทธิ์ผ่านศีล สมาธิ ปัญญา เมื่อกำหนดถึงความบริสุทธิ์ ความบริสุทธิ์จะก่อตัวเป็นบุญญธาตุและขยายจนห้อมล้อมตัว จนอุทานได้ว่า 'แต่ก่อนเรารักษาศีล บัดนี้ศีลรักษาเรา'Pra Ajarn explains that worldly knowledge leads to an excited, stimulating happiness but lacks the component of purity, whereas Buddhism teaches knowledge leading to purity through morality, concentration, and wisdom. When one focuses on purity, it forms into the merit-element and expands to surround one — until one exclaims, 'Once I kept the precepts; now the precepts keep me.'
Someone asked about the phrase ' together with and .'
Worldly Knowledge Leads to an Excited, Stimulating Happiness
In the world, we send children to school and teachers give knowledge so they'll be happy in the future. Those with more knowledge have more chance of happiness, because when misguides them, the knowledgeable can argue back and are hard to fool. But happiness without purity is a happiness that scatters and excites the mind — seen in films and songs that need stirring music to thrill. Ask a child what knowledge the teacher taught today, and they can answer; but ask what purity they received, and they're baffled, because school doesn't teach purity.
Buddhism Teaches Knowledge Leading to Purity: Morality, Concentration, Wisdom
The mind can sense purity — as when Pra Ajarn went to establish a temple in New Zealand, where the air is very pure: Westerners called it 'fresh,' the Chinese 'cheng,' Thais 'pure air.' The mind senses pure air; but how is the mind's own purity, arising from mental states, created? Buddhism teaches the knowledge that leads to purity: morality, concentration, and wisdom. As purity forms into a denser mass, happiness gradually appears, because purity clears the impurity that causes suffering until it's gone. The forming mass of purity is the merit-element; within the sphere of merit are purity and happiness — purity to cleanse impurity, and happiness to support us in standing, walking, sitting, lying, speaking, and working at ease.
The Three Trainings: Morality, Concentration, Wisdom — All for Purity
Happiness from purity is a happiness of peace, calm, seclusion, dispassion, liberation, and cleansing, tending toward nibbana — unlike happiness lacking purity, which scatters the mind. The Tipitaka says that a son or daughter of good family who enters the Teacher's dispenon should train in the training of morality, of concentration, and of wisdom, because these lead to purity.
Once I Kept the Precepts; Now the Precepts Keep Me
Keeping precepts, beyond giving safety to oneself and others, is for purity. When one focuses on purity, it appears the size of a needle-tip; abiding with precepts for the sake of purity, merit flows through and expands that tiny clear point ever wider, out to the fingertips and all around, and this purity surrounds, guards, and cares for us wherever we go — until we exclaim, 'Once I kept ; now the precepts keep me.' Whether keeping precepts, meditating, or even giving, all is for purity; giving, too, is to relinquish , a dark quality, until it's gone.