AWARENESS CAN KNOW MANY THINGS FLUIDLY AND QUICKLY WITHOUT FOCUSING
Yogi: Other teachers teach to focus when we meditate, but you don’t.
Sayadaw: The main thing to look out for in the practice is the awareness – awareness itself requires no focusing. It is the power to know an object at whatever level you’re aware of it.
The aim is to grow the power of the awareness naturally so that it can know many things fluidly and quickly.
When the mind focuses on one thing, it shuts out other experiences – it cannot know them because it ignores them.
When the mind knows many objects without focusing, it feels like the mind is more scattered. This doesn’t mean that you’re not aware – in fact, it shows that you’re aware of many things.
In our past practice, we’ve been taught that if we know too many things, it means that the mind is distracted. So, we reject the idea that it’s okay for the mind to know many things; we think that to meditate, we should only focus on one or two things.
We become attached to an object when we repeatedly focus on it. It’s like without that object we cannot meditate; and it can create tension when we can’t have it.
Yogi: I can’t help but be attached to the breath when I meditate.
Sayadaw: Don’t resist the mind’s natural tendency to stay with the breath. Stay with the breath but allow yourself to acknowledge other objects that arise while you’re on your breath.