WATCHING THE UNPLEASANT SENSATION

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (1:09:00-1:12:20)

Yogi: I still can’t see pain as nature. When I watch the hot sensation, the mind keeps going to the disliking. How can I learn to see the pain correctly?

Sayadaw: It is normal to not like the sensation that the mind doesn’t like.

When you watch the disliking mind, just check what level the disliking is. As you watch it, take a few deep breaths and see if the disliking decreases a bit.

If it gets less, then you can watch the heat again and you’ll notice the disliking again. And maybe the disliking has increased. Then go back to the disliking and watch it again to and fro with the heat and disliking.

Take that as an exercise.

Yogi: Sometimes I ask myself what is wrong with the disliking and it releases some, but it’ll come back again.

Sayadaw: It’s okay as long as it releases sometimes and you’re okay with that.

DEVELOPING OUR AWARENESS IS THE CRUX OF THE PRACTICE

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (1:45:26-1:47:15)

Yogi: If I hear it right, the key to the practice is developing the continuity of the awareness, that this is foremost in the practice. May I confirm this understanding?

Sayadaw: Right, continue being aware.

Yogi: If I design my practice in such a way that I’m aware of seeing and hearing and I switch between knowing these two objects, is this encouraged?

Sayadaw: Yes, you can.

HOW TO TELL IF WE’RE SUCCESSFUL IN MEDITATION?

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group B 16 January 2023 (01:00-05:50)

Yogi: Once I watched anger and it disappeared, is this considered successful meditation and is it the right way of meditating?

Sayadaw: Anger can disappear because of any of these reasons.

One is that in trying to be aware, it doesn’t allow your mind to think of the things that make you angry; that makes the anger become less.

Trying to be aware is wholesome work; it can change the quality of the mind and make the anger go away.

You could have actually thought of something in a different way or realized something that makes the anger stop or become less.

But in any case, when you try to be aware of your anger, you have already succeeded in being mindful. You are already successful as far as being mindful is concerned. The result is not important; it is the work that is important.

You want to congratulate yourself for making the effort and recognizing that effort is present and more importantly, the awareness is present.

KEEPING THE EYES OPEN OR CLOSED OR HALF OPEN

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (1:15:12-1:16:16)

Yogi: As a beginner yogi, can I open my eyes while practicing sitting meditation or walking meditation?

Sayadaw: Yes, for both sitting and walking meditation.

Yogi: I will have my eyes half open while walking.

Sayadaw: You can have your eyes fully open. Meditation is the work of the mind; the mind is being aware.

So, whether you open your eyes or close your eyes or half open your eyes, it really doesn’t matter so long as your mind observes.

DEALING WITH LOW CONFIDENCE

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (33:52-41:30)

Yogi: How do I overcome low self-confidence? I notice that it impedes my practice too.

Sayadaw: Firstly, you don’t lack self-confidence all the time, right? Use your awareness to recognize and acknowledge the times when you’re feeling normal confidence or good confidence. You want to acknowledge and be happy at those times; that will remind the mind whenever you feel confident.

Secondly, when you don’t have confidence, remember that if you have a lot of expectations and they are not met, you will feel low confidence. High expectation is wrong attitude and also unrealistic.

When something is unrealistic, we’ll have low confidence because we’ll feel like we are never going to achieve it. But why do we need to achieve it?

Watch the high expectation and feeling of low confidence with that background understanding, breathing deeply, and letting it go. If we can reduce it a bit, we’re doing good.

We can never get as much as we hope because what we get will match what we can do. Even if the low confidence reduces a little bit, it is a good sign – we need to celebrate small gains. Do it little by little and don’t have the expectation that it is going to disappear or it’ll set you up for low confidence.

WHEN THE RIGHT INFORMATION CAN GUIDE THE PRACTICE

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (1:26:00-1:33:02)

Yogi: I’m not good at watching the mind. There is an interval where I’m lost in thought between knowing the thinking and switching to knowing the body sensation. How can I stop the thoughts between knowing thinking and knowing body sensation? And, how can I see the connection between the mind and the body?

Sayadaw: You’re fine right now. You are practicing observing and that is all you need to do right now. There is no need to make a connection between thoughts and body sensations. You’re just trying to ground your attention to the body or else the mind will be thinking too much.

It won’t be connected. Just be aware of your sensations – your breath or hearing – and keep doing that.

When your thoughts are actually causing sensations in the body, for example, when people are worried, they have a bad feeling in the heart or when they’re angry, the whole body feels hot, that’s when they are connected.

When you come to the body, you not only notice the bodily sensations but also notice the feelings in the heart area. That is connected to how the mind feels. That will give you a closeness to the mind. Just be content to do the exercise of being aware of what is happening inside the body and in the feelings.

PRACTICING WITH RESTLESSNESS AND STRESS

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 6 January 2023 (1:15:30-1:23:42)

Yogi: I was more tense and restless in the first 2 days and I tried to relax by not pushing myself too hard. I tend to overthink and that leads to restlessness and tension. The mind is constantly not stable.

Sayadaw advices to practice samatha to calm the mind; do I understand it right?

Sayadaw: First thing, you want to tell yourself that thinking is not a problem. Thinking is the nature of the mind; it is a function of the mind. You want to tell your mind this because it doesn’t make your thinking into a problem.

The second thing is you want to meditate – you still need to be aware of something.

Take an object – but not be aware of thinking – and very gently you want to keep bringing your attention to the object; just know the object, again and again.

When you have managed to do this repeatedly, then you can take a look at your thoughts if you want to. That’s when you are ready.

If your thoughts come with associated feelings – and you can recognize something you’re thinking is accompanied by feelings – stop watching the thoughts and prioritize the feelings and use that as your object as much as possible.

As we keep observing the relationship between this thought and this feeling and if it comes with suffering and we’re not rejecting it, eventually the mind will think negatively less.

OPEN AWARENESS EXPLAINED

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 6 January 2023 (5:07-10:20)

Yogi: I’ve been practicing rising and falling for a long, long time and now I find it difficult to change from focusing to open awareness. I can be aware and suddenly get lost in a dull dream state repeatedly. Why?

Sayadaw: There’s some misunderstanding about open awareness. It is a state that you’ll get to, not something that you practice. To get to open awareness, you have to start by being aware of an object.

Open awareness is not something that you decide to do. You don’t decide that you’re going to open your awareness and you’re going to know all these objects. Your mind is starting to pick up one or two other objects.

The goal of the yogi is simply to keep the awareness continuous on whatever objects that you know and keep that going.

Because the awareness is not continuous and the mind doesn’t have the capacity and the insight that understand what is the knowing and watching mind, then you’re going to be like this, losing your awareness repeatedly from trying to be aware of everything.

Yogis should do their job – know your object and start with one object before you get there.

SEEING AND THINKING ARE OBVIOUSLY DIFFERENT

Singapore Q&A 21 November 2022 (55:52-56:40)

It is good to learn the seeing and thinking process. Whenever we see something, the mind thinks about it.

Seeing and thinking are totally different.

I look at the flower bouquet in the Dhamma Hall and seeing the flowers, the mind thinks that they are beautiful.

That shocked me because the flowers are not beautiful; it’s just the mind thinking that the flowers are beautiful.

It’s funny because the flowers are not beautiful but the mind says that they are beautiful. These two processes are totally different, but people combine the two and say that the flowers are beautiful.

WHEN THE MIND BECOMES DISINTERESTED IN THE TEACHINGS

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group B 8 January 2023 (17:55-31:00)

Yogi: Sometimes when I listen to a talk and I realize that it’s information which I already know, I jump to the conclusion and my mind skips the talk. How do I adjust the mind on this matter?

Sayadaw: For 6 months you were thrilled with all the new information. But then, it hasn’t sunk into more experiential insight. 

When these thoughts of déjà vu come up, recognize them. We don’t know everything yet; if we’re mindful, if we apply ourselves, we’ll discover more things happening in our own experience.

Also, recognize the things you’re discovering, whether through seeing, hearing, thinking, or attitudes. We need to be sensitive to all the things we’re experiencing.

If you’re practicing in your daily life, during your ordinary moments and difficult moments, the more you’re aware, the more learning unfolds. When you have experiences that give you little insights into what happens every day – you’re able to deal with things in a more skillful way – when we’ve learned it doesn’t mean that it is done, it is never for good.

If we continue to be mindful every time we learn something, there’ll be more new learning. 

It gives us confidence when we notice that we’ve learned something when we practice – how it has influenced the way we see things, the way we speak or act or think of things, it gives us that faith, that the mindfulness is working. It becomes practical and real in our lives.

HOW TO BRING IN RIGHT ATTITUDE TO THE PRACTICE

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (26:53-30:48)

Yogi: What conditions can I introduce to have the right attitude for practice?

Sayadaw: It is basically recognizing wrong attitude.

There are those that release immediately as soon as you notice them.

Some wrong attitudes stay longer. You have to watch these and also be on the lookout for resistance towards the wrong attitude because you might not want the wrong attitude to be there – you want it to go away quickly.

We can’t rush through meditation. Take your time; don’t be in a hurry to achieve things.

NOTHING BLOCKS THE PRACTICE EXCEPT OUR EXPECTATIONS

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 6 January 2023 (30:55-34:25)

Yogi: I can feel that my practice is blocked and it cannot move forward.

Sayadaw: Nothing blocks you except your own beliefs. When we expect the practice to be like this and that to mean we’re improving, we’ll feel like our practice is not improving when we don’t get what we expect.

We’re not supposed to be thinking about where our practice is going; we’re only supposed to be practicing.

There is no block except our expectations. As long as we’re practicing, the practice is moving forward. We only have to check if we’re practicing.

Watch out for those expectations.

THE YOGI’S JOB IS TO KEEP BEING AWARE

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 6 January 2023 (1:07:47-1:14:10)

Yogi: When there is understanding, the issue dissolves; but when there is clinging, although the mind releases the grip, the issue comes back regularly.

Do I stay with the unpleasant feeling?

Sayadaw: Your job is only to recognize and there is no timeline. Keep doing it over and over again. Keep it up.

Yogi: But there is no learning from that.

Sayadaw: Just keep knowing and also recognize the thought that says ‘I still haven’t learned anything’, and bring that into your field of awareness. That is also what is happening.

We really miss the fact that in our quest for meditation, we’re expecting a result; so, recognize the thought that says ‘I still haven’t learned anything’.

SAYADAW’S ADVICE TO AWARENESS-WISDOM YOGIS

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (1:55:42-1:56:45)

Remind yourself not to fight with your experience or to complain or judge it. Every experience that we know is a sign that we’re aware. We’re supposed to celebrate the fact that we’re aware.

Every object that we know is supporting our awareness because we’re already aware due to the object. Every object is a supporting condition for our awareness. If we see it that way, whatever the experience, it is never an obstacle.

BUILDING RIGHT ATTITUDE WITH RIGHT INFORMATION

Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat Zoom Q&A Group A 10 January 2023 (21:30-26:10)

Yogi: I know all the right information and yet the suffering is there. I believe my attitude is not right. When I’m really in it, I still don’t have the right attitude. What am I missing?

Sayadaw: The practice is like a game. The more you play, the more you get it right and the more you become skilful.

You have all the right information like wrong attitude is when you don’t want something and you want something else, and right attitude is when the mind is accepting and welcoming.

Whether we can recognize it or not in the moment, that’s the game; what attitude are we operating from.

Every time you recognize your attitude whether it’s right or wrong, that’s an insight into your own practice and it’s a skill that you build. Each time you spot it, it helps you to see it more often. The more often you spot it, the less it will get in your way.