The Importance of Meditation in Developing Inner Peace : หน้า 86/164

New beings with a Phammasster is hard to get back when it runs away. It is hard to bring it back into control! So we need to train children from a very early age to meditative and stay centered. “When we practice, day by day, it becomes a habit. And so, in our training or practice, we begin by thinking mostly outside of ourselves. Then, gradually, we are sometimes outside and sometimes inside. And then, finally, we become focused inside! “Happiness is peace of mind. If we don’t run away, the Dhamma within comes closer and closer. Our mind, then, becomes centered. We have to practice through meditation. By centering, two finger widths above our navel, when we meditate, the sixth and seventh base will finally be drawn together into the sixth base, which is Dhamma based. But if we meditate, as some do, on the base two finger widths below the navel, then it is very different. This base is quite strong, but we will never reach the Dhamma. The strength quite easily creates sexual desire, and it is very powerful, usually associated with the martial arts. In practicing meditation outside of the body, we might get a clear, bright mind, but we will never touch the Dhamma because Dhamma is inside the body. There is a lot of magic associated with outside meditation – black AND white magic – and it may be powerful, but it will never touch the Dhamma. “If we continually filter through in our meditation, we pass through many bodies. But we must always be an observer, not a creator.” He stops, as though listening for questions that have not been verbalized. Then begins again. “In giving birth, we have the egg, the sperm, and the inner body, or the dream body. The mind, or inner body, moves from the father into the mother through the sperm into the egg. We, therefore, need our parents to be our role models. Bad kamma can go from human to animal body and in an animal body we still have our consciousness… even if we have been a human before, we remember our humaneness but we are trapped in an animal body. Animals have consciousness because they have been human before, but, again, they are now trapped in an animal body. “There is great virtue in being a mother: Great boon, and they are lucky because they have the ability to raise us and teach us to become a ‘pure’ human being, with good habits and good ethics. The more we meditate, the more we are aware of our good and bad habits.” 85