Yogi: When I know that there’s liking and there is no desire to make it any different, then there is no lobha, just nature?

Sayadaw: When you know that the mind is liking, enjoying, or wanting something in the object of your experience, the greed is there. But, in the observing, it is just recognizing that the mind is liking, enjoying, or wanting something – when this observing has no agenda, it has wisdom. It is seeing the nature of what is happening.

We are developing the wisdom to see the lobha that is happening (the object) and the watching without the lobha (the awareness), or if the watching has lobha, we need to recognize that too. (The biased watching then becomes the object.)

Yogi: If I’m observing without interfering, then it’s okay?

Sayadaw: You just have to check whether the mind is watching objectively at that moment. You don’t have to have a fixed idea (that it is only okay when the mind is watching without interfering) – if there is wanting, there is wanting; if there is not, there is not and that is fine.

We want to be open to this moment, like ‘Is the mind observing this way?’, or ‘How is the mind observing right now?’ rather than thinking it should be this way.

There is no should; it is ‘How is it now?’, and that is seeing its nature.