About This Teaching
The body is fed every day, and Ajahn Dtun says the mind should be fed every day too. He suggests a firm resolve to meditate daily, starting with ten minutes, and not going to bed until one has sat or walked. Just as exercise strengthens the body, meditation strengthens the mind to resist moods and defilements; continuous mindfulness on an object such as buddho gives rise to samādhi and wisdom.
Most people use their intelligence to seek external wealth. Fewer see the value of merit and precepts, fewer still the benefit of meditation, and fewest have the wisdom to reduce greed, aversion and suffering. Merit is inner wealth that thieves cannot take and that follows one from life to life.
Human birth is rare and life is short; one should live in the world while also practising Dhamma. When suffering arises, something has gone wrong in the mind: know it, find its cause and let it go. Keep mindfulness and wisdom guarding the mind in every posture, discarding unwholesome thoughts and keeping wholesome ones. He recalls the Buddha's teaching that whoever guards the mind is freed from the bonds of Māra.