95. Basics of Meditation Practice
By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī
November 19, 1981
The basics of meditation practice—practicing the religion—are just like when we plant vegetables, annual crops, or rice. You already have the seeds, you already have the soil, but you don't plant. Instead, you keep buying from the market. It's easy to get to eat, but you never learn how to plant again. If you do that with religion, it won't work. You need to truly understand what religion really is—where it is. When others say something is merit, you just agree it's merit. When they say something is demerit, you just agree it's demerit. When they talk about precepts, concentration, and wisdom, you just repeat after them. So you become accustomed to that. But what is true merit? What is true demerit? What are true precepts, concentration, and wisdom? You don't understand. When you're asked about that, you're completely stumped. That's how it is.
Most people who follow a religion are like this. So we say: you already have the seeds, you already have the soil—your own self. The soil of our own being, for planting the fruits of Dhamma, is the finest there is; you can't find better anywhere. Just go ahead and plant. Human beings are called the highest of all creatures. You can do anything. You can practice meditation and contemplation. You can cause the Path, Fruition, and Nibbāna to arise within you. You can do any kind of merit and wholesomeness right here in this human body. And you can do evil even more easily. People don't understand this, don't know the value of being human. So they take this body—their own self—and use it to plant and grow all kinds of vile, evil things inside themselves. They take all kinds of demerit and unwholesomeness and put them into their own being. Some people, or sometimes, when you look inside yourself, you see nothing good at all. No five precepts, no eight precepts. Then where will you get the Dhamma to establish in your own heart? People are born into Buddhism, but there is no Buddhism in them.
The Buddha already taught the religion. The Dhamma that we can put into ourselves is already there. So it's like having all kinds of seeds—small seeds, big seeds, huge, enormous, every kind there is. The precepts, concentration, and wisdom are the big seeds, and there are countless smaller seeds to put in, to plant here. So just go ahead and plant. Establish yourself right here—that is, have faith and confidence. Establish it right in your own heart, in your own body. You don't establish it anywhere else. Have faith and confidence that kamma exists: doing good brings good, doing evil brings evil. That's it. Be confident right here. Others can't do it for you. You yourself will receive the results of what you do—that's certain. No one else can receive the results in your place, nor can you transfer them to anyone else.
Religion is our own mind. If you see your mind, that means you've obtained the good seed. That good seed exists within yourself, but you don't see it. No one can deny it. Do you have a mind? You can't deny that you don't. Everyone has to acknowledge they have one. But have you seen that mind? It's very hard to see our own mind. We have a mind but don't see it. It's like having all kinds of seeds but not knowing how to plant—meaning you don't see where to take hold and plant. So the teacher tells us first to establish faith and confidence that planting right here is the best. Planting in other animals isn't as good as in a human. The Buddha didn't teach this religion to other animals; he taught only human beings. So establish it right here. The Buddha's teaching is to establish it right here.
Once you have confidence, then use a meditation word. A meditation word means to bind the mind. The mind has no fixed self or substance, so we gradually bind it with a meditation word. Use mindfulness of breathing—in and out—or use "Buddho." Make it firm right there, right in that spot. This is where it's difficult. You have a mind but don't know it. You don't know where your thinking goes. You don't know where it wanders off to. From birth until now, you still haven't seen your own mind. In a single day, it goes to a thousand, eight thousand places. You can never catch hold of the mind. So establish the meditation word right in the heart. With mindfulness of breathing, you can focus on the breath as it goes in and out at the tip of the nose. Use that as something to hold onto. Don't let go of it just yet. First hold onto it. If you say "don't cling, don't grasp, let go of everything," you won't get anything. So hold onto this. Take the breath at the tip of the nose—the sensation of the breath touching the tip of the nose. That's where the in-breath and out-breath are. There are other meditation subjects, of course, but we don't take them. There are forty that the masters described, but we don't take them. We take only the breath. That way it's certain.
Contemplate the in-breath and out-breath. If you breathe in but don't breathe out, you die. If you breathe out but don't breathe in, you die. You're afraid of death, so you keep breathing. If you're afraid of death, then the mind becomes steady. Catch the mind right at the in-breath and out-breath. This is the beginning of meditation training. Catch the mind right here. Make it see the mind right there. No matter what anyone says, don't take it. There's so much that people have said. The teachers have spoken about many things, many topics. But if you want to be serious and genuine, you must take just one thing. That's why, when we want to catch the mind, we must catch it right there. When the mind stays in one place, is steady in one place, sees in one place—that is concentration meditation. It's called concentration meditation because it sees the mind itself. Seeing the mind is called being skilled in meditation. If you haven't yet seen the mind, you don't know how to meditate.
Precepts also come from that mind, not from anywhere else. That very mind itself abstains from killing living beings, stealing, committing sexual misconduct, lying, and drinking alcohol. That mind itself abstains. Precepts are just one thing: the intention to abstain, just that one thing. You don't need to chase after all the different forms. If you count the forms, there are too many—five precepts, eight precepts, oh so hard to keep! Ten precepts, 227 precepts—so hard to keep. But we keep just one thing: the intention to abstain. Then the whole matter is settled. Intention is the mind itself, nothing else. When you see the mind, that mind itself abstains, and then it's all settled. That is precepts.
When the mind is firmly established in just mindfulness of breathing, that is concentration. The mind that contemplates and sees, the mindfulness that thoroughly investigates and knows, that mind itself—the one that wanders and thinks, that gets entangled in various things—what does it want? What is its purpose? Understand the story of that mind as it wanders and gets stuck on various things. Know it, see its story. Then it will stop and settle back into its original concentration. That is called wisdom.
So precepts, concentration, and wisdom are all in the same place, not elsewhere. Just restrain your mind to stay still. Use mindfulness of breathing as the binder, the tie. When the mind is firmly established in one thing, the whole matter is settled.
People want to eat the fruit, but they don't plant the original tree. Like someone growing cabbage—we don't plant any cabbage at all, but we go and prepare the dressing. That's difficult. But if we plant it and see it come up as seedlings, as leaves, gradually growing, and we keep watering and weeding it all the time, then it slowly grows. Then there's some hope. But here, we've never seen anything at all—no seedlings, nothing. The seeds aren't even visible. Yet we want the dressing, we want to eat.
It's the same for all those who practice. They want the Path, they want Fruition, they want Nibbāna, they want jhāna, concentration, attainment. But the real, genuine root—they don't do that. How could they get it? If you plant this root and grow it, just as I've described, it all comes from a single root: a single intention, a single mind. Catch the mind, and all those things—everything—you can have whatever you want.
(Luang Pu instructs during sitting meditation)
I have explained that religion is the heart. Only that one heart. The mind and the heart are together. Mindfulness is also in the same place. The mind and mental factors are in the same place. That is, mindfulness also arises from the heart. Mindfulness is what guards the mind, controls the mind—it also arises from the heart. The mind that thinks, that remembers, that wanders and recalls this and that—that also arises from that same heart. As for obtaining expansive wisdom, it's because of that mind—knowing this, knowing that, seeing this, seeing that, all kinds of things—that's also that mind. Now, when the mind knows a great deal but lacks mindfulness to control it, it scatters wildly and enormously. But when mindfulness controls it, you know what is right, what is good, what is bad, what is merit, what is demerit, and so on. Mindfulness keeps it within bounds. You don't do wrong; you preserve what is good. You don't do evil; you intend to do wholesome deeds, to stay in the wholesome. That's mindfulness controlling. And that is called the arising of wisdom. Wisdom arises from that, not from anywhere else. Mindfulness, mind, heart, mental factors—all the many things I've spoken of—arise from that one heart.
The heart is the one that abides. The heart is the one that is neutral. The heart is the one that is peaceful, not agitated. The heart does not wander—it is still, but it has awareness. That is the heart itself. Now we try to reach the heart, but we never get there. So we must strive to reach the heart. To reach the heart, you must establish mindfulness. This very thing—mindfulness—controls the mind that thinks, remembers, feels, wanders, and all perceptions and objects. When we can control the mind, it will converge into the heart. All the pains, aches, hunger, thirst, everything—all defilements disappear. There is just equanimity, a neutral feeling. That is reaching the heart. If you cannot control the mind, then it scatters here and there, all kinds of things. You can't control it, so it goes wild beyond bounds. We are under its power. The mind is not under our power. Our power must come from mindfulness. So we say that the mind leads us to do all kinds of vile, evil things. Evil doesn't need training; it comes naturally. Evil is the fastest.
Mindfulness is what can control the mind. Whenever you are heedless, that's when you do evil. So guard the mind right there. Control the mind right there. Make it still, firm, as concentration meditation. Reach the heart—peaceful, still, equanimous. Train right here. The Buddha's teaching does not train anywhere else. Practicing the religion is practicing right here. Reaching precepts, concentration, and wisdom is right there.