พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่ารูป เสียง และความรู้สึกเป็นมิติที่ธรรมชาติจัดสรรไว้หล่อหลอมใจสรรพสัตว์ และเมื่อความรู้สึกหรือเสียงหรือรูปใดตรึงใจได้ จึงเรียกว่า “อารมณ์” ซึ่งความชัดของรูป เสียง และอารมณ์ในใจนั้นขึ้นอยู่กับความสว่างภายในที่เกิดจากการฝึกสมาธิThe teacher explains that form, sound, and feeling are three dimensions nature composed to shape the minds of all beings, and that whichever of these can grip the mind is what we call “emotion” — with the clarity of these appearances in the mind depending on the inner brightness built through meditation.
A lay follower asked: why can the mind only perceive form, sound, and emotion or feeling?
The teacher answered that nature composed these as dimensions to shape the minds of all beings — three dimensions: form, sound, and feeling/emotion.
A feeling like sour, sweet, oily, or salty is different from an emotion like liking or disliking. A plain feeling alone cannot grip the mind, but an emotion can. For instance, we simply know something is sour, sweet, oily, or salty — but if that sour-sweet-oily-salty is so well-balanced that it grips the mind, that is a more refined level of the same feeling — refined enough to take hold of the mind.
Form, sound, smell, and taste work the same way. Some sounds can grip the mind. Some forms that merely pass before our eyes can also grip the mind. Whatever is able to grip the mind — that is what we call “emotion.”
Form appears in the mind as an image, sound as an inner sound, and feeling or emotion arises in the mind as well. Even across the sense bases — eye, ear, nose, tongue — there is this same variety. Smell, too, can appear in the mind as a kind of feeling; a smell can simply arise on its own. The teacher once asked someone, “Do you smell stewed pork?” and the person said no, they didn't smell anything — yet after eating, the smell did arise in the mind. Still, smell rarely appears in the mind this way; mostly it is images and sounds that appear. But for an image to appear in the mind at all, it needs brightness. If someone's mind hasn't been trained through meditation, the mind stays dim, and it becomes hard to recall or picture anything.
So mainly, sound and feeling/emotion are the two things that tend to appear first. When we train in meditation and light arises within the mind, the mind is no longer pitch dark, and we begin to be able to perceive images in the mind. As the mind grows brighter and brighter, the images become progressively clearer — as bright as one sun, then two suns, and it becomes as vivid as a film or video. With even more brightness, as if many suns were shining, not only do images become clear, but sound and thoughts and feelings all become clear too. But clarity alone isn't the whole story — the mind will also fabricate things. If we want to recall a past life, it will let us “recall” one — but who is really behind that fabrication, we cannot know. Whatever we want to see, wherever we want to go, it can sustain and produce the image we want, once we've generated that inner brightness. But that still isn't necessarily true — it's just composing according to what we want, similar to how AI can generate things according to what we ask for.
For most people, though, what tends to appear is mainly an inner voice along with an inner feeling or emotion. That's because for an inner voice to command us to do this or that, it needs an accompanying emotion — otherwise there's no pull to act. Whatever the inner voice tells us to do, it needs an emotion attached to make us want to do it — inviting us to watch a movie, listen to music, go for coffee, clean the bathroom, fold the laundry, or anything else — there always has to be an emotion involved, wanting to go and get it done.
If you observe this inner voice, you'll notice that no matter what possesses the mind, the voice sounds the same. When something wholesome () takes hold, the voice sounds like this; when something unwholesome () takes hold, it sounds the same way; and when something neutral (abyakata) takes hold, the voice sounds the same too. There are simply three forces of nature that send these voices to guide the mind toward doing this or that. The mind is our instrument of knowing — whatever it knows, it knows. Once it knows, if there's an emotion driving action, we act; if there's no emotion driving action, we don't. And that's really all there is to it.