Right attitude for home practice – any awareness IS No waste

| IMS 2014 Dhamma Discussion Group A1 (57:10-58:44)

At home, we’re not so dedicated to watching with so much attention. We might find that at home the defilements are much stronger and we’re not able to watch them.

At home, you might find that whatever happens, you’re not able to stop the bad TV (yogi’s note: the defilements) but you’re aware.
The attitude you have to keep is that as long as you’re aware, it doesn’t go to waste.

You may not be able to win the war today, but you’ll come back for another day. So just keep being aware as much as you can.

Learning still happens as long as awareness continues.

You have to be patient for wisdom to come for that sort of thing; and when wisdom comes, wisdom will help to stop the defilement.

wait and watch

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya Vassa 2015 Oct. 4 English Interview (41:10-41:51)

When any defilement comes, wait and watch. At the retreat, you have the time, right?

In daily life, you’re busy and don’t have time; that’s why sometimes defilements overwhelm you.

Now you have time; there’s no need to hurry.

Every time defilement comes, you need to watch the defilement first. Don’t follow what the defilement wants and pushes you. Wait and watch.

Make it a habit.

how to be aware When at work and havING to solve problems

| Kalaw Retreat Mar 2017 - Day 8 Discussion Group A (0:30-2:51)

You have to watch out for the defilements that might be motivating the thinking. You need to know your thoughts and your feelings so that you can identify if there are defilements in the process and clear the defilements so that you do the thinking you need to do without the defilements.

When you need to think you cannot not think. At that time, you have your thoughts and your feelings – and you want to check if there are defilements; and if there are defilements, you want to clear them first. You clear them by watching your feelings and when the feelings are cleared, then you continue what you need to think.

That’s what you have to do at work – you can’t work without thinking. You have to plan.

You’ll know that defilements are there because you can feel them – it’ll not be comfortable; there will be suffering, tension, stress. Basically, if it’s stressful, there’s defilement.

USING feelings AS AN ANCHOR TO RECOGNIZE THE HINDRANCE

| IMS 2014 Dhamma Discussion Group B1 (41:30-42:28)

The feelings that you have are a reflection of the hindrances in the mind. And to access that hindrance, you want to start by watching the feeling.

If you are thinking about the thoughts as hindrances like aversive thoughts or anything that is motivating the whole thing, you can get into thinking.

You use the feelings as an anchor to recognize what the hindrance is.

Continue to watch that to see how it changes, watch how the feelings change and then you can see how the hindrance changes.

When you see lots of defilement, don’t forget that awareness is present

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya Vassa English Interviews 8 September 2017 (43:20-46:35)

You forget that the awareness is working – you’re only thinking that the defilement is happening and judging that the defilement is not good. ‘My mind is full of defilement’ – then you become worried. Because you’re only thinking about the defilement, the object; you forget how much you’re aware.

You don’t have a complete view – you only see the experience, and you forget that awareness is working.

You need to appreciate that awareness is present. You are not concerned over how much defilement is there because it is not your responsibility. It is already there even if you’re not aware, it’s already happening. Now awareness is present, now you know that it is happening. So you should be happy that you’re aware – you need to appreciate that awareness is working. We’re trying to cultivate this awareness quality.

You forget what you’re doing. You only see half the picture – only the experience part; then your thinking cannot be right. You see only the defilements and become upset because you don’t see the wholesome quality that is there. Defilement is unwholesome but watching mind is wholesome. Don’t forget that awareness is present.

If the person only looks at the experience, then liking and disliking are bound to arise. If the person is more aware of the awareness, he appreciates the awareness more and more. The mind is happier that the awareness is still there because it knows that awareness is working.

don’t try to change anything, but watch and learn

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya Vassa English Interviews 15 July 2017 (7:35-9:15)

Everybody, when upset and depressed in daily life, try to change their mood by, for example, sleeping. When they wake up, they feel better. But they cannot learn anything this way.

What is the meaning of meditation? We try to be aware and learn about this mental state. Good or bad quality of mind, we need to know what it is, how it is working, why it is happening. We want to know. So, you need to change your attitude to “I want to know this nature”; and then, the mind will be more interested to watch.

So, the first step is for yogis to learn how to watch their mental states. Normally, when all experiences come, the mind is either liking or disliking the object. This is a very strong habit. Now, we are learning how to watch the pleasant and unpleasant situations with equanimity. You need to learn this first to be skillful in meditation.

Whatever comes, if we can watch with equanimity, only then, understanding can come.

Don’t set targets in your practice

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017-12-17 English Interviews (15:05-16:27)

Don’t target anything in your practice. You shouldn’t target what you want to see in Vipassana practice. Whatever happens, stay with the experience. Your responsibility is to maintain the awareness – have right view and continue to be aware.

How long? From the time you wake up till the time you sleep. It is very important that you don’t set a target for what you want to see. When you have a target, the mind starts to imagine this, and you cannot see as it is. We want to know nature as it is.

You should not think about the future – e.g. ‘I want to sit for an hour and not move.’ Whatever happens, your responsibility is to be aware of the present moment; any situation, any time. That’s all.

when the IDEA changes, FEELING changes

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017-12-1 Q&A Chinese & Malaysian Yogis (21:16-22:00)

When the idea changes, feeling changes. Feelings change not because of different objects. It happens so fast, you don’t see the change in the idea; you only see the change in feelings.

Thinking is so quick, so fast; and then, the feelings change. Different ideas, different minds, different feelings – it is not that this feeling changes to that feeling because of different objects.

The mind is not in the body

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017-12-13 Q&A Chinese & Malaysian Yogis (1:07:36-1:08:27)

The mind is not in the body – the mind relies on the body to happen.

You think that the mind is in the body because you want to see the mind clearly. This is a habit. Much later, the mind won’t think over the concept of locating the mind.

The mind comes and goes, period. Objects also come and go.

The non-meditator changes the object to find peace

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya Vassa English Interviews 11 August 2017 (41:15-43:14)

When you go to the pagoda, the mind calms down and become peaceful. You go to a party, the mind becomes hot. You go to the bar, the mind is different again. The object and mind are related.

The object overwhelms the mind of normal people. But for the meditator, the mind can be peaceful whether the experience is good or bad.

That’s why people go to a peaceful surrounding when they’re upset – because they cannot change their mind, they try to change the environment first, and then the mind calms down. It is not necessary for meditators because they can change their mind immediately in any situation.

The object is not important. Actually, the mind calms down because the mind quality has changed. But people think that it’s the object that makes the mind calm down.

When I was depressed, I went everywhere but the depression couldn’t go away. I tried to go to the mountain and the beach, but the mind was still depressed. They couldn’t change my mind because the depression was so strong. Whatever I saw and whatever I heard, I became depressed.

With practice, the skillful mind grows stronger and the idea of ‘self’ gets weaker

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017-12-22 English Interviews (38:08-38:28)

There are only 2 minds – skillful mind and unskilful mind. So, whichever one has more chance to happen, it gets stronger and stronger.

Now that we’re practicing, we’re letting the skillful mind happen again and again until your mind doesn’t have ‘me’ anymore.

STRONG AWARENESS MEANS WISDOM IS PRESENT

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017-12-19 Chinese & Malaysian Interviews (1:47:28-1:48:47)

A yogi reported that awareness became sleepy when watching drowsiness. But when wisdom came, awareness became detached from the drowsiness

Sayadaw: When we say that awareness is strong, it means that there is wisdom. Because of wisdom, we say that awareness is strong. Then you can see clearly the quality of awareness.

How to be interested in the meditation object?

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017-12-19 Chinese & Malaysian Interviews (1:55:15-1:56:57)

We use some question – e.g. “Do you want to understand?” Then the mind has some interest.

For example, you want to understand why the mind suffers? If you really want to know, then the mind becomes interested. When you ask the 'why, what and how’ questions, and the mind doesn’t know the answer, it then becomes interested.

Having interest means using wisdom energy. If you want to understand nature, then you become interested.

In the beginning, it is difficult to be interested because meditation objects are so neutral. The mind becomes interested only when it is exciting, but neutral object is only form, cold, touching – how to be interested in this kind of object? But if you try to be aware again and again, you become more familiar with these objects.

Like a game – in the beginning when we don’t know the game, we’re not interested; but when we play again and again and become more skillful, we then become interested.

When we know more about the subject, then more interest arises. That’s why you need to continue to practice a lot.

Defilements everywhere

| Czech Retreat 2013 Concluding Talk (9:53-10:47)

Every day you take a hot shower – but with which mind, you don’t know.

You think you’re mindful, but there is attachment there, right? The attachment continues to arise every time you take a hot shower.

Defilements can happen anywhere. Defilements have a chance to arise at any of the 6 sense doors. If defilement is not getting weaker, then wisdom cannot grow.

So, you need to practice awareness all the time, as much as you can – then, the mind pattern can slowly change.

Samatha has its place in the practice WHEN DONE CORRECTLY

| Kalaw Retreat Mar 2017 - Day 8 Discussion Group A (1:04:05-1:06:43)

It may seem sometimes in the early years, for other reasons (because yogis are having lots of tension) I encouraged yogis not to concentrate in the sense of having too much concentration.

But samatha is a practice that is taught by the Buddha; it is a valid practice. Samatha is also only done correctly when the mind has the right attitude, just like vipassana. When samatha is done correctly, the mind is balanced, clear and strong, just like vipassana. So, samatha is not a practice that I discourage. Samatha is a practice you can use if you want to. It is a practice that I still use. You must know how to use it; you must understand the purpose of it.

Samatha practice is used to calm the mind when the mind is overly agitated. If a yogi is very agitated and he can’t have the right attitude, then go back to anchoring the mind on one object; stop thinking about it and concentrate on one thing.

So, when yogis cannot bring on right attitude – the mind is too angry, too confused; when the mind cannot have right attitude at all – keep stopping the thinking and keep coming back to one object, keep anchoring the mind. If the mind cannot think, the feelings will subside.

When the mind has enough wisdom – even though the mind is confused, having anger or excessive greed – it can intellectually tell itself to watch the defilement in a balanced way. If there is enough wisdom, it can do it; but when there is not enough wisdom, it cannot bring on right attitude. Then it must rely on watching a neutral object.

Some yogis find that when they try to observe defilement, they resist the defilement because there is too much identification. When there is so much resistance, it’s better at that time to calm the mind first and then try to watch the defilement again.

You can use metta, Buddhanusati, or any of the 40 samatha practices