Our Goal

The most important thing, wherever you are, is not to neglect your meditation practice. Don’t let your purpose in life slip away. We made the decision to follow this path, out of a wish to learn editation and to attain the inner body of enlightenment. Thus, we should meditate with diligence and fulfill our chosen purpose. Don’t harbour expectations in your mind. It’s enough not to let your practice get worse. But when you see an improvement, know it has been the result of your consistent effort to maintain subtlety of mind all along.

Our Only Real Belongings

There are only two things that really belong to us. One is our mind and the other is the point inside us which is home to the mind. Mind consists of the functions of perception, memory, thought and ognition. The home for our mind is at the centre of our body, at a place called the ‘seventh base’, which is the trailhead of the Middle Way inside us. It is this inner path that all the Enlightened Ones have used to reach Nirvana, to attain the source of pure wisdom, and to break free of suffering while gaining knowledge of the reality of life and the world.

More than You can Chew

When it comes to the subject of ‘merit’, there’s no such thing as ‘biting off more than you can chew’. Rather you should consider it as ‘rising to the challenge’ because this is how perfections are pursued. We have to go against the fl ow, meeting resistance and hardship, to have our resolve tested. Just as the bodhisatta had to part with wealth, blood, and often his life, in order to earn perfections in return.

Merely in Transit

This human existence is nothing more than a transit lounge for those endowed with wisdom to accumulate the additional merits and perfections they need to attain the path to Nirvana.

As if Today were your Last . . .

Put your time to good use because only the present belongs to us. Tomorrow is never for sure. Therefore make sure today is the day you do your best whether you be a monk, a novice, a layman or laywoman, do your duties to perfection imagining how you’d prepare yourself in body and mind if you knew today had to be the last day of your life, to ensure yourself a good afterlife destination. In such a way you’ll avoid recklessness in life while inspiring yourself to accomplish the maximum of good.

The Core of Buddhism

Dhammakaya… is the core of Buddhism, it being vital we study it to the point we can attain it for ourselves. It was there at the beginning of Buddhism, something which has been revived . . . rather than some modern invention. The knowledge of it was lost over the ages because its study and practice fell into neglect. But its truth remains the truth. Its reality is something we can still verify by our own striving in the here and now.

Awaiting Discovery

We have become used to hearing the word ‘Dhammakaya’, but will continue to have no idea what Dhammakaya is really like until we attain it for ourselves. It is thus our mission to go beyond hearsay and prove its existence to our own satisfaction, which corresponds to the nature of the Lord Buddha’s teachings, that is ‘paccattam’ to be known only subjectively by the wise.

Essential

Meditation practice is essential to life. It is what life is all about. It will lead us to reach life’s ultimate goal, namely Nirvana.

If We are True

The path and fruit of Nirvana is already within us. Method, example and guide are readily at hand. It is not for lack of these things that we have not achieved success in meditation, but rather our lack of earnest, perseverance, and commitment to the practice. If we are true to our practice true results must come to us.

Transforming

The still mind is the only thing which can transform delusion into knowing, the fool into the wise.

The Brink of Success

Every time we sit cross-legged with our attention firm and our mind still at the centre of the body, although our mind may sometimes suffer sleepiness or wandering, we are already on the brink of 1,000,000% success in attaining enlightenment.

All the Time

Practise meditation every day. Practise consistently. Don’t let a single day go by without meditation because even one missed day will undermine your attainment.

Consistency

Consistency is the key to attainment in meditation.

Purity

Each time we adopt the half-lotus position sitting upright, mindfulness firm, with our mind at a standstill at the centre of our body it is then that our mind starts on its journey towards purity. Purity accumulates for as long as the mind stops thinking. No amount of wishing can make us pure in body, speech and mind. Purity happens only when the mind comes to a standstill at the seventh base.

Free of Worry

For the mind to be able to reach the Utmost Dhamma, it must first be free of worry, with no remaining attachment for things, creatures or people, a mind that is constantly cool and calm, forever clean, pure and radiant, irrespective of whether we’re standing, walking, sitting or lying down. This is the mind bound for the Utmost Dhamma.

The Ideal State of Mind

Any time we feel replete like we need nothing more from the world than a meditation mat to sit on, a sitting space no larger than a metre square, a sleeping space just twice that size, enough to eat (irrespective of the flavour), and where nothing elates or disappoints us any more, where annoying matters fail to irritate, and no-one could provoke us even if they tried, this is when our mind remains at a standstill and is refreshed the whole time. This is the ideal state of mind a state destined for the Utmost Dhamma.

Recipe for Success

Simply observe whatever arises at the centre of the body relaxedly and without any mental commentary. It’s all you need to do nothing more because this is the recipe for success that will allow you to attain Dhammakaya.

Doing what comes naturally

Our meditation practice differs from day to day. Some days we feel like repeating the mantra to ourselves. Others not. Some days we feel more comfortable visualizing a mental object. Others not. We have to listen to our inner feeling, meditating in the way that comes naturally on each particular day. Attaining Dhammakaya can be simple if we realise the nature of the mind, which is to favour ease and patience rather than force or struggling against what comes naturally. We have to go along with the nature of the mind that’s the simplest principle of practice.

Expectation Free

When practising meditation, don’t harbour expectations or worries about whether your inner experience is moving forwards, backwards, or the same as before. Speculation is of no use. Simply bring your mind to a standstill and remain joyfully with the moment. Don’t go thinking “with my mind as still as this, I ought to be getting some new experiences”. Accept it if there is no change, and if there is a change then accept that too. Don’t let anything rob your mind of its neutrality. These are groundworks to the study of the Wisdom of Dhammakaya.

Ease is the Way

Tension during meditation tells you that you are using too much force, that you have deviated from the proper method. If you were on the right track, the meditation would bring only joy and ease. Never forget that for the entirety of the Middle Way within you, beginning, middle and end, ‘ease’ needs to mark every step of the way.

Perpetually at the Centre

I try to help everyone to attain the inner body of enlightenment. But you need to keep your side of the bargain by gently maintaining your attention at the centre of the body the whole time. Even outside the formal meditation sessions, you should still habituate your mind to the centre of the body. In this way, during the formal meditation sessions, you will reach concentration quickly and waste no time adjusting your mind, because a properly located mind has already become your habit.

Our Inner Work

Meditation is our most important inner work a task that takes no physical effort which can be done in tandem with other ‘outer’ activities. It should be no harder to do our inner and outer work simultaneously, than remembering to breathe while having a meal!

No Excuse for Excuses!

No matter if you’re weary, ill, or snowed under with work, nothing should stand in the way of meditating as much as you can. Don’t let life events become obstacles or excuses that stand in the way of your meditation practice.

As if Your Life Depended on it

Treat the centre of body with full importance. Neglect it no more than you would neglect to breathe.

Be Thankful

If someone has the compassion to advise us or point out our faults, the least we can do is to thank them for their concern.

Dedication Conquers All

No matter what good deeds we do, there will always be obstacles it’s always an uphill struggle.But consider this, no matter how high the hill it’s always beneath our feet! If you want to know how high your feet can get then keep on walking to the peak and you’ll know that no matter the height we can always go higher. Obstacles are there to be overcome. Even the highest mountains can be crossed on feet a fraction of the size so believe me when I say nothing can beat earnest dedication to a task.

Glossary

1.The Perfections [paramita] are virtues such as generosity, selfdiscipline, renunciation, wisdom, patience, perseverance, sincerity, resolution, loving-kindness and equanimity. Pursuit of Perfections is a lifestyle of dedicatedly cultivating such virtues.

2.Having a clear and wholesome Purpose in Life is very important to meditators. Apart from having the Pursuit of Perfection as our aim in life (see above), we aim to be self-suffi cient materially by earning an honest living and meditating until we can attain the inner Body of Enlightenment or ‘Dhammakaya’.

3.Translated according to context as ‘the teachings of the Buddha’, ‘inner knowledge’, and ‘pure knowledge’.

4.The scriptural term for the ‘inner Body of Enlightenment’.

5.The Buddha in his previous lifetimes of accumulating perfections.