About This Teaching
Addressing monks and trainees, Ajahn Dtun urges them to use mindfulness at every moment and to bring up maraṇasati, recollection of death, for urgency. He discusses personal discipline: about four hours of sleep as the teachers' example, adjusted with wisdom, and reflecting on the unattractiveness of food before eating to find an amount that neither dulls nor weakens. Unpeaceful sittings are still worthwhile, and sense contact gives fresh work every day.
The core of the talk is body contemplation. One takes a single one of the 32 parts until it can be seen at will, or works with an asubha image of oneself as a corpse that dries out and returns to the four elements. With skill, the world itself may seem to dissolve, and gold or diamonds are seen as mere earth element. Even after attachment to the body is gone, subtle attachment to feeling, perception, formations and consciousness remains, and finally one must destroy the "one who knows". He advises testing the books against practice rather than arguing over them.