47. Practice Must Have Principles
By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī
January 4, 1988
In practice, you must know the principle—grasp the principle firmly. Practice has a principle. Listening should have a principle. Study and learning should have a principle. Without a principle, there’s nothing to hold onto; you don’t know what to do. If you grasp at the branches, you won’t reach the root. At the beginning, you need to find the foundation—you must find the real essence first.
Where does the original essence arise from? Where do human beings come from? They come from the heart. If there were no heart, there would be no person. Think about that.
All the Dhamma that has been taught so abundantly—it all springs from a single source, then branches out. Every Dhamma teaching is like a vine or like a gourd plant: first it grows from a single stem, then it sends out branches. When we build a house, if we want it to be stable and lasting, we must first set the main post. Once it’s secure, we can add extensions. As for the human heart, we must rely on the heart as the mainstay. We train the heart—we don’t train anything else.
Where is the heart? Before seeing the heart, you must investigate from external results. First find the result, then trace back to the cause, which is the heart. Alternatively, find the heart first, then look for the result. There are two approaches. Finding the heart means finding the original source. Find the cause first, then later find the result. It is said that everything arises from the heart alone, not from anywhere else. Because what goes out as the mind (citta) in its turmoil—that is merely the expression of the mind. The mind’s expression manifests through six channels; it branches out through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. It comes out from the heart. Nature has already perfectly fashioned everything. It is a matter of the mind using all these things—using the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and heart—these are called the internal sense-bases.
The six external sense-bases—forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, and mental objects—these are the spreading out, the extension. Nature has given us all these to use. The eye sees forms, the ear hears sounds, the nose smells odors, the tongue tastes flavors, the body feels touch, and the heart thinks and ponders, concocts and fashions. Nature provides just enough of everything. Now, all these things—since they are natural, they simply exist that way. Their function is fixed. Keep the heart separate; don’t let the heart go thinking about those things. If you think, investigate, and concoct, believing it’s all just natural phenomena, where would any harm or danger come from? If you know the heart, that is called finding the cause and the result. Finding the result that arises—the cause is the heart itself. That’s why it’s said: first find the cause, then find the result.
If you abandon everything, let go of everything, to reach the heart, you will see the heart. Once you can let go, there is nothing else; you reach the original essence. Finding the result and finding the cause—the heart is the beginning. Once you can grasp the heart, that’s the end of the matter. You don’t need to worry about those other things. When the heart does not think or ponder, it simply is. When the heart does not think or ponder, everything is at ease. But first, trace the result back to its source. Whatever arises from the heart—the results are what arise from the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and heart. Everything arises from the heart. Reaching the heart—that is called tracing the result back to the cause.
Then, tracing from the cause to the result—simply put, once you grasp the heart, remain still and neutral. Don’t get involved with the eye, ear, nose, tongue, or body. Find the cause before its results, and that’s the end of it. All those many, many things arise from the six sense-bases. If we don’t get involved with the six sense-bases, it all ends, stops right there. Even if there is thinking, pondering, concocting, or fashioning—it is just that. It’s impossible for it not to arise at all. Nature has already set it up that way. The eye sees forms—just seeing; no lust, attachment, affection, no satisfaction, delight, or sorrow arises. That’s the nature of things, they are just that way. As for anger, love, hatred, liking, delight, displeasure, and so on—they arise from the heart. The mind goes out and fabricates them separately.
What do you get from all that concocting and fashioning? Nothing but that. What you get is right there in the heart itself. It sticks and sinks into the heart. Whenever you think and ponder, it arises right there in the heart. That’s why the heart is the one that stores things. The mind (citta in its active mode) is the one that thinks and ponders. But ultimately, there is nothing. Let go, and it’s gone. Think and ponder again, and it arises again, appears again. It’s utterly pointless. Whatever you fabricate disappears; whatever you concoct ends.
The heart itself is the one that takes things and buries them in the heart. It sticks fast in the heart. When you think or ponder, that’s a matter of the mind. The mind takes those things and uses them in various ways—love, liking, anger, hatred, satisfaction, dissatisfaction. The mind is what fabricates them. Once fabricated, it ends, disappears. That thing remains in the heart, then it gets fabricated again. The heart is the fabricator. Heart and mind are the same thing, but they perform different functions. If there were no heart, there would be no mind. That which functions to think, ponder, and fabricate is called the mind. The heart remains neutral, without any feeling at all—just neutral. Everything is let go. But there is “the one who knows” that letting go exists. That is the heart.
If you don’t know that there is a “letting-go one,” a neutral one, that is delusion (moha). That is the characteristic of jhāna that requires fixed focusing—focusing on something, focusing on any object, such as forms, sounds, smells, tastes—focusing externally or internally. Focusing externally means focusing on earth, water, fire, wind. Focusing on just that one thing while the mind wanders elsewhere—that is jhāna. Or focusing internally on earth, water, fire, wind—just staying with that one thing without thinking—that is jhāna, the characteristic of jhāna, but you don’t know who is focusing. You don’t know who is focusing.
The one who knows that “I am the knower, I am the neutral one, the one who remains equanimous, uninvolved, who can let go”—once you have let go, you feel at ease. That’s enough. No matter what anyone says—whether they call it the Path, its Fruition, Nibbāna, or jhāna-samāpatti—whatever they say, that’s fine. That is how nature truly is. If you can reach that, you are called one who has reached the correct principle. Reaching the heart is called reaching the correct principle.
Therefore, it is said: strive to investigate so that you truly know, see the matter of the heart, then see the matter of the mind. Separate the heart from the mind so that you can distinguish them. When they are together, distinguish them so that you see each as separate. Everyone wants happiness and ease.