การกำหนดทำให้สติตั้งขึ้น เปิดทางให้บุญเก่าไหลเข้ามาช่วยชำระมลทินและนำสิ่งดีงามมาสู่ชีวิต ต่างจากการปล่อยใจเลื่อนลอยโดยไม่มีสติ ซึ่งจะเปิดช่องให้บาปเก่าไหลเข้าแทนDeliberately settling the mind is what makes mindfulness arise, opening the channel for stored-up merit to flow in and purify us and bring good things into life — unlike drifting without mindfulness, which instead opens the door to old demerit.
Someone asked why we need to deliberately settle the mind on something, when in the end everything gets arranged for us appropriately anyway. Here is the teacher's answer.
Determining the Mind Is What Makes Mindfulness Arise, Opening the Channel for Merit
Without deliberately settling the mind on something, we may have no at all in that moment. But the instant we settle it on something, mindfulness arises, and merit begins flowing through — drawing in the old merit already stored up. Merit not yet spent on our life's timeline exists in vast quantity, like a mountain range; the same is true of unspent demerit. Both wait for an opening. When we create wholesome causes, merit is drawn in; when we create unwholesome causes, old demerit is drawn in instead.
Settling the mind this way opens the channel for merit to flow through, letting do its work — refined qualities appear, becomes available to dissolve impurity, and arises, keeping the mood pleasant and at ease rather than irritable. Drawing in demerit instead makes everything harder and more strained.
Like Making a Vow
He compared this to the difference between making a vow (adhiṭhāna) and not making one — a longer vow draws in merit for a longer span, a shorter one draws in less. Whether it's determining to give, to keep precepts, to cultivate renunciation, wisdom, effort, , truthfulness, resolve, , or equanimity — every one of these depends on deliberately settling the mind on it.
To Determine Is to Point Precisely — Good Arises, and So Does Bad
To determine the mind is to point to something specific. Settle it on what is good, and good arises; settle it on what is not, and that appears instead. Everything unwholesome becomes a condition that draws in misfortune and demerit.
Why the Buddha Taught Mindfulness of Body, Feeling, Mind, and Mental Objects
The Buddha taught monks to clearly determine and know body, feeling, mind, and mental objects, so as to see the truth of life — because both wholesome and unwholesome natural forces contend to take hold of us, overlaying their own body-feeling-mind-mental state onto ours to compel the human body to act according to whichever side has taken over. The wholesome side overlays something finer, elevating the mind, making purity and liberation easier to reach, and drawing merit in. The unwholesome side overlays something lower, filling the mind with hindrances, greed, aversion, and delusion, drawing in demerit and pulling one's whole constitution downward.
All of this, though, depends on determining correctly — only then does real of body, feeling, mind, and mental objects arise. Determine wrongly, and nothing is known; determine rightly, and it is known. This is why deliberately settling the mind matters so much.
How This Differs From Having No Mindfulness at All
Without mindfulness, the mind scatters — we don't even know where it is. But with mindfulness and deliberate settling, the mind is placed exactly where we direct it, and we know where it is. From there we can perceive things clearly — merit flows through that very point, purification happens there, and the bright sphere appears there. This is why deliberately settling the mind carries such great importance.