Yogi: I watched the breath and pain arose – I continued to watch the breath and the pain subsided but it was still there. What should I do then?
Sayadaw: You're looking at a neutral object, not the pain. When you’re not paying attention to the pain, you’re not reacting to the pain; and because you’re not reacting to the pain, it feels less strong because there’s less aversion.
It doesn’t mean that there is no aversion at all because you still feel the pain.
Now is the time to investigate. There is still some pain in the body; now you have to look at how much reaction there is still left in the mind towards the bodily sensation.
What happens in the body is called ‘dis-ease’, not feeling; feeling, the reaction towards the dis-ease, is what happens in the mind.
What you have to spot is that little reaction towards the bodily dis-ease.
If you watch it continuously, it can decrease because it’s low level. You can also see the relationship between the level of reaction and the dis-ease.
Actually, there’s another component in the mind besides the feeling – it’s the attitude. Is there expectation in watching the feeling? Is the watching in the right way? What happens when you watch in the wrong way?
There are three things – the dis-ease, the mental feeling and the motivations behind the observation. What can you understand from these interactions?