Yet before He departed, He entrusted us with a charge. In the language of the ordinary person, it may be expressed thus: “My children, be not heedless. Your father shall no longer be here. Strive with sincere intention to improve and refine yourselves.”

Before taking His final leave, He gave this instruction: Be not heedless — for human life is not long. Before one reaches a hundred years, one dies. Even now, to find a person of a hundred years is no common thing. And even should one surpass a hundred — if asked whether one must still die, the answer remains: yes, one must die all the same. Be not heedless.

Therefore, there are two things that must be done:

The first is to correct oneself — and this is a matter of great importance. What is to be corrected? One’s own habits and dispositions.

The second, beyond correcting one’s habits and faults, is to accumulate goodness with wholehearted dedication — giving it one’s utmost. This may be called the building of pāramī — the cultivation of merit and spiritual perfection. This, too, is a matter of the greatest importance.

May 12^th, 2014

Notes on the translation:

• “อย่าประมาท” — appamāda in Pāli — is rendered as “be not heedless,” the canonical English translation of one of the Buddha’s most foundational and final instructions. The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta records the Buddha’s very last words as: “Vayadhammā saṅkhārā, appamādena sampādethā” — “All conditioned things are impermanent; work out your salvation with diligence.” Heedfulness is thus not merely a moral virtue but the culminating charge of the Blessed One’s entire ministry.
• “เสด็จดับขันธปรินิพพาน” — the passing into Final Nibbāna — is rendered using the standard Pāli term Parinibbāna, the complete and irreversible cessation of the five aggregates (khandha) at the death of a fully enlightened being, distinguished from the Nibbāna attained during life.
• “ลูกเอ้ย” — a tender, familial address meaning “my dear children” — captures the Buddha’s role as the spiritual father of humanity, consistent with the epithet Lokavidū (Knower of the World) and Satthā devamanussānaṃ (Teacher of Gods and Humans).
• “บารมี” — pāramī or pāramitā — refers to the ten spiritual perfections cultivated over many lifetimes as the foundation for liberation: generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness, and equanimity. Rendered as “spiritual perfection” with the Pāli term preserved for precision.
• “สั่งสมความดี” — the accumulation of goodness — reflects the gradual path (anupubbasikkhā) of Theravāda practice: merit and virtue are not acquired in a single moment but built steadily, layer upon layer, across time and lifetimes, like water filling a vessel drop by drop.
• The simile of the father departing and entrusting his children with responsibility echoes the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta‘s account of the Buddha’s final days, in which He repeatedly urged the assembled Sangha toward self-reliance, self-correction, and the Dhamma as their sole refuge and guiding light.

Why is this so? Because the very moment we open our eyes each morning, our physical body compels us to look outward. No one instinctively turns their gaze back upon themselves.

Having grown so accustomed to looking outward, we see only others and not ourselves. We therefore have little inclination to critique ourselves, yet are very much inclined to criticize those around us — for we can see their faces clearly. And in criticizing one person after another, the whole world begins to appear lacking in virtue, with only one person seeming to be good: oneself.

However, if one practices meditation sufficiently to bring some calm to the mind — even without yet being able to see one’s own face — one will begin to see one’s own behavior more clearly with each passing day. When one has acted wrongly, one will know it; when one has acted rightly, one will know it. The rightness and wrongness, the good and evil of one’s own conduct, will grow clearer day by day through having practiced meditation to a reasonable degree.

This, indeed, is the very purpose of meditation. As for the fact that deeper and deeper practice leads to progressively higher attainments of the Dhamma — as in the case of the Lord Buddha and the Arahants — that is another matter entirely. But at the very least, meditation will calm the mind, and through that calm, one will come to know oneself ever more clearly.

February 19^th, 2014

But bear this in mind: before the age of thirty, if one does not yet have a home, a place of one’s own, or a means of livelihood — then one must work. There is no shame in that whatsoever — simply get on with it.

May 1^st, 2020

In the matter of self-correction, I myself am well aware of each of my own less wholesome habits, and have been working to correct them one by one in due order. Yet they have not been fully overcome. It is no easy matter at all.

One day, I raised this concern with the Master Nun Khun Yay Ajarn. She smiled gently and offered these most encouraging words: “If in one lifetime you can correct even a single unwholesome habit, that is already a remarkable achievement.”

What the Master Nun meant was this: be aware of which habits are unwholesome and strive to correct all of them — but to eradicate any one of them completely and decisively is no simple thing. Let this be borne in mind.

Therefore, if over the course of an entire lifetime one manages to eradicate even a single unwholesome habit completely and decisively, one should rejoice — for it requires great and sustained effort. Some habits we believe we have fully overcome, yet they still surface in our dreams. This shows that the root has not yet been fully extinguished.

Hence there is a saying of the Great Master: all unwholesome habits and all defilements must be subdued and eradicated down to the very root, leaving not the slightest trace. We may believe the root has been extinguished — yet a remnant still remains.

May 12^th, 2014

Therefore, maintaining cleanliness in whatever place one inhabits becomes a duty for which one must rise and take responsibility. This is something that must be clearly understood from the very outset.

October 30^th, 2015

The Lord Buddha Himself gave warning: whoever is easily agitated will find that creative thought and clear understanding in accordance with reality cannot arise.

He taught thus: when water is murky and clouded, even though shrimps, shellfish, crabs, and fish fill the sea, none of them can be seen. In the same way, when the mind is clouded — when one is in a state of agitation and ill temper — one loses the ability to distinguish one’s own benefit from that of others. One can no longer discern what is good from what is evil, nor what is right from what is wrong.

When such discernment is lost, one becomes ready to commit wrongdoing, ready to seize the benefit belonging to others for oneself. Conflict then inevitably arises, and the world is thrown into disorder — all stemming from those who lack responsibility and whose minds remain perpetually clouded.

October 30^th, 2015

And the risk is not merely for a single day, a single month, or a single year — but throughout the entirety of one’s life, one remains susceptible to unwholesome thinking, unwholesome speech, and unwholesome action for as long as one lives.

Moreover, such lapses accumulate as demerit within oneself. And if one lapses so repeatedly that unwholesome habits become deeply entrenched, they become exceedingly difficult to correct. This is a matter that must be guarded against with the utmost care.

January 12^th, 2015

In particular, make haste to study the Dhamma, so that it may be used to cultivate and refine your own character. Every teaching of the Dhamma that you have studied and come to know — if it has not yet been put into practice to the point of becoming habit — cannot be put to any useful purpose whatsoever.

Every teaching of the Dhamma must be trained into habit through consistent practice. And this period of being a student is the most fitting time of all to train the Dhamma into habit with the greatest ease — for you are not yet burdened with the demands of earning a living. Once this period has passed, finding the time to cultivate and refine one’s own character becomes exceedingly difficult, for one will be pressed on all sides by the relentless demands of work.

Record of a Dhamma Teaching to Faculty Members and Students of the Buddhist Society February 6^th, 2016

Uncleanliness is directly proportional to suffering — the greater the uncleanliness, the greater the suffering that follows.

Therefore, wherever carelessness prevails, suffering alone is found.

Record of a Dhamma Teaching, Dhamma Missionary Training Programme, Group 8 At Wat Ratchaorasaram, Bangkok March 10^th, 2016