Yogi: I lose awareness at interviews – the mind and body become restless and I sweat and get tense. 

Sayadaw: What do you do then?

Yogi: I try to be aware.

Sayadaw: Be aware at the interview. Try knowing that you’re listening, understanding and feeling, lightly.

When we lose awareness, all the things that you describe can happen; and it’s good that you know that. 

This is information that the mind can learn – when awareness is absent, the mind gets restless. This is nature – the process of the mind.

We can understand these processes in our own experience that when there is mindfulness the mind gets a certain way and when there is no mindfulness the gets another way.

I learned that when I was mindful it made the mind feel better; and when I was not mindful, the mind suffered.