Yogi: The mind tends to be anxious and to balance that, I’m used to watching the breath and the mind would sink into a quiet dull state. I notice that the habit is there and the mind goes there very easily.
Sayadaw: The motivation behind the approach to the practice is wrong. The motivation should be to know, discover and learn.
When there’s anxiety, you should welcome, watch and learn about anxiety; then anxiety will shy away.
There is always some motivation behind our practice and there can be many kinds of wrong motivation.
There was a yogi who took the train to work daily and every time he’d watch the rising and falling, but his objective was to sleep on the train. He thought he wanted to practice and so he’d be mindful until he fell asleep.
When he came to Burma to practice and if he did rising and falling, he’d fall asleep because the mind had a set pattern – rising-falling was to go to sleep.