31. Establishing a Foundation for Meditation
By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī
August 2, 1985
You must establish your foundation well. Make it firm. Grasp the principle correctly. Only then will your meditation progress. Consider all the things people do in the outside world – they must first establish a foundation and a base. For trade, you set up a factory. For government work, you need an office. Everything you do requires an office. You need a place to operate from in order to do it correctly. The ancient word speaks of principle and foundation. The principle is like driving in a stake. The foundation refers to the matter of cattle and buffalo – they need a stake and a tether. You must tie a rope to the stake and then tie the rope around the animal's neck. That is called a foundation. Once there is a stake and a foundation, it can't go anywhere. It stays in place. Then the word "foundation" truly fits its meaning. Now, just saying the words "principle" and "foundation" without understanding their meaning is pointless.
In Buddhism, it's the same. Establish the principle, then set the foundation correctly. The principle is the body and mind. Go ahead – whoever practices, wherever, do it. The precepts, concentration, wisdom – all one hundred eight thousand varieties – arise from body, speech, and mind. Body and mind are the principle.
The foundation is using mindfulness to restrain it, not letting it escape from the body. Mindfulness controls the mind that sends out its threads, making it revolve right there, not letting it go anywhere. That is called the foundation. If you have no principle and no foundation, you cannot do it correctly. If you try to practice, you won't succeed. Without principle and foundation, it's utterly impossible. Once you've established the principle, you control it with the foundation, tying it to that very principle.
Contemplation is the same. If you contemplate anything other than this, it won't work. You must contemplate the body – see it as unattractive (asubha), or see it as elements, as mere phenomena, as something called elements. Try contemplating this – there is nothing else. Even if you contemplate the entire world, it never escapes the four elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. These are Dhamma. Wherever you go beyond the horizon or the edge of the universe, you're still within this boundary. All physical phenomena must consist of a mixture of earth, water, fire, and wind. If you go outside of that, you're scattered and lost. That's not a practitioner, not meditation.
Contemplate within yourself: there are the four elements – earth, water, fire, wind – mixed together as a lump. Separate this lump into its parts. Whatever part is earth, use the mind itself to control it. Mindfulness controls the mind. The mind thinks, "This is earth" – solid things called earth. Start from within ourselves and go outward. External things surrounding us – clothing, robes, lodgings, medicines – are all earth. Earth mixes with earth to nourish this lump of earth. The mind is the one that contemplates. Use mindfulness as the foundation to restrain it so it doesn't stray from that. Apart from earth, there is no other physical phenomenon.
Earth must have water. If there were only earth, it couldn't exist. Take external things, for example. What we see that has no water – dry, hard wood – still must have water. Try it: without water, it can't survive. If you burn it, water will spurt out. Take our bones: they are extremely hard and dry. But if there were no water inside them, they would disintegrate completely and become air. However, because they have earth and water inside, they can endure.
And where there is water, there is also wind and fire within. It's not like the wind blowing outside; that's called the air element. But there is wind inside. The air element is mixed into those solid things – that's called wind. Fire, or warmth, exists within them. Water, fire, and wind must come from earth. Earth must have water. Where there is water, there must also be wind and fire.
Whatever you contemplate, go ahead – contemplate the body along with all four elements. Then extend your contemplation outward: trees, mountains, people, animals, all external phenomena – they are exactly like our own body. Whatever exists within us exists outside as well. Everything in this world must be the same.
If you don't take the foundation here – meaning, if you don't have mindfulness controlling the mind – it's called having no foundation. The foundation is mindfulness that ties things down. You won't see clearly. You'll contemplate superficially and not understand anything.
Now, let's summarize and examine this: The four elements – earth, water, fire, wind – everything is contained within our body. There is no mind in those things. Bring them all together – there is no mind, no consciousness. They are mere elements. As it is said: nissatto nijjīvo suñño – not a being, not a person, not a self, not 'us' or 'them'. Just elements (dhātumattako), just that thing. Now it becomes one thing. It is no longer 'our mind'.
Where has our mind gone? Our mind is the knower. Feelings arise from those things – from the sense bases, from contact. They arise from elements altogether. External elements and internal elements. The internal elements are our body. The external elements are outside things. When they impinge on the internal elements, there is feeling. The knower has no self, no substance. When you contemplate and see them as elements, the story ends – there is no self. Then there is that knower, separate, approaching the knower once again – that is the mind itself in the middle. This is called contemplating to see them as elements, to see them as Dhamma. When you contemplate everything in this way, it all becomes Dhamma. Where can it go? It just stays right there.
All delight and infatuation with various objects – it all comes from this. From those four elements themselves. When you contemplate, fabricate, and label them, they are no longer just the four elements. They become a being, a person, a self, 'us' or 'them' – conventional designations. But once you reduce them to elements, there is nothing. Human beings, persons, animals – they are merely elements. When the mind gathers, it settles right there. When it fabricates and has perceptions and emotions, labeling this and that as a person, a self, 'us' or 'them' – as woman, man, animals, and so on – then it gets stuck in conventions and goes far astray. That is not Dhamma. What is Dhamma must be elements. It must gather in. Contemplate as explained above, and then the whole matter is finished.
The Buddha's teaching goes to the ultimate. That's the ultimate – it ends with the elements. Then it's finished, at the ultimate. Whatever you contemplate, wherever you contemplate, it all reduces to elements, and then becomes Dhamma. When you see them as elements, they are Dhamma. Thus the teaching says: Sabbe dhammā – all things are Dhamma. Everything is Dhamma. Wholesome states are Dhamma, unwholesome states are Dhamma, indeterminate states are Dhamma. Everything is Dhamma. When you reach that point, everything is Dhamma – not a self, person, 'us' or 'them'. When you go to conventions, you have departed from Dhamma.
From this, we can see whether our contemplation has Dhamma as its dwelling place. That point is clearly evident. If you do not contemplate with Dhamma as your dwelling place as described, then it's all worldly matters, endless conventions, countless things and stories without end. But if you contemplate Dhamma until you reach the elements, you reach Dhamma. It ends right there. Nothing more. The Buddha's teaching, when gathered together, is all Dhamma. And that's that.