LIFE MEANS HAPPENING – NEW, ARISING

| Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat 2013 Guided Meditation Part 2 (28:50-30:53)

When the mind is peaceful, know that peacefulness is just a state of mind; it is a kind of object that is neither good nor bad. Calmness is calmness; peaceful is peaceful.

If you think that peaceful is good, understanding cannot arise because you cannot understand anicca, dukha and anatta.

We need to think as it is. For most yogis, when the mind becomes peaceful, effort slowly becomes less and less and craving enjoys the peacefulness. That’s why sleepiness arises because we think peacefulness is good.

Experience is just experience; just an object that is subject to change. Knowing mind or awareness mind also changes – any experience is new, arising, new, arising. Everything is new – happening, new, happening.

This is life – life means happening.

LIFE AND DHAMMA MUST GROW TOGETHER

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 English Interviews 180220 (20:05-20:34)

Life must be dhamma – dhamma and life must be together.

Life means happening – happenings in the mind are life. Every mind happening moment to moment, we call life.

So, life and dhamma must be together. If life and dhamma are different, then life is adhamma. If life is not dhamma, then life is sure to be adhamma; it already has defilements.

So, our life must grow together with the dhamma.

ONLY A PURIFIED MIND CAN RECOGNIZE THE NIBBANA OBJECT

| Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary 2013 Retreat Guided Meditation Part 1 (6:50-7:45)

Nibbana is an object – we don’t know this kind of object, but we can know our mind.

When the mind has lobha, we can know; when the mind has defilement, we can know. Also, when the mind has no defilement, we can know – we can understand, we can experience with the mind.

When the mind is purified, when it has no more defilement, then it chooses its object. Mind and object must match.

Only a purified mind can catch the nibbana object.

WHY THE MIND LIKES TO THINK

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017 Vassa English Q&A 170715 (51:25-53:05)

Because you have already practised it for a long time. It is the momentum of old habit. If you allow something to happen again and again, it becomes very powerful.

That’s why we need to change the pattern of the mind. We try to be aware all the time; then, the mind cannot think. If you’re not aware of the present moment, the mind is thinking or day dreaming all the time.

The mind thinks so much because it wants sensual pleasure. We have enjoyed our thinking for a long time. Because of this habit, the momentum is there. That is why we try not to follow or allow this – we need to be aware all the time to change this old habit.

APPRECIATE THE PRESENCE OF AWARENESS

| Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary Retreat 2013 Guided Meditation Part 2 (37:52-40:23)

If we’re aware when defilement arises, the defilement decreases or stops; it cannot overwhelm the mind. So, how much relief is it to the mind?

If awareness is not present, the defilement can continue to grow slowly and exaggerate the intensity of the defilement. If we don’t notice, they will grow and continue to grow and grow. 
So, if you’re aware and wisdom is present, the defilement cannot overwhelm you, it cannot grow – this is a lot of relief to the mind.

You need to appreciate awareness is present – knowing something doesn’t go to waste. It is something, it is learning because we’re collecting information.

Knowing and not knowing are very different.

When you’re aware and you see clearly what is happening, the knowing mind is happening.

When awareness is absent, you won’t know anything about what is happening.

There are many levels of knowing – knowing the object and knowing the characteristics of the object are very different.

HOW TO BE AWARE OF THE MIND

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Morning English Q&A 180130 (49:02-50:53)

It’s just practice – of course, it is easier to know the physical objects, but you know there is mind.

Once you know there is mind, you allow yourself to recognize it, or acknowledge it as often as you can. And when you very clearly know something is mind, it becomes easier to recognize it, acknowledge it and be with it. It just takes practice to improve.

The 5 physical senses, for us, are always located somewhere. There are markers like form and shape which make it easier to know the 5 physical senses, but the mind has no shape and no form – you can’t see or locate it – so, it’s hard to pin down the mind.

But you can know the mind and that’s all you need to do. You can know that there is mind because it’s happening; you sense that there is mind, and the other thing is that you can know that the mind is doing something – like it thinks, or it feels, or it pays attention when you’re looking and listening.

You can sense those functions of the mind, and that’s how you know the mind is there.

And just practice, don’t expect anything; just practice and allow it to grow by itself.

MEDITATION IMPROVES WHEN AWARENESS BECOMES CONTINUOUS NATURALLY

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Morning English Q&A 20180123 (31:45-34:33)

Yogi: Sayadaw, if I want to improve in my meditation, what should I do?

Sayadaw: Shwe Oo Min Sayadaw once advised that when the awareness becomes more continuous, meditation will improve.

This doesn’t mean that we must make our mindfulness more continuous with our utmost until we look black. That’s so much greed in the way the mind takes it that when yogis hear the instruction, they think that they can make it happen. What Sayadaw Shwe Oo Min was saying was that when mindfulness becomes more continuous, when it becomes like that naturally, only then meditation will improve.

BUILD UP THE STRENGTH OF AWARENESS FIRST WITH A PHYSICAL OBJECT

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017 Vassa English Q&A 170720 (04:20-04:29)

First, you need to make your awareness strong with a physical object. When the awareness is strong, you can then watch the mind and body together.

PUT YOUR TRUST IN THE PRACTICE

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Morning English Q&A 180127 (44:40-45:15)

You know saddha in the practice – one of the translations of saddha is trust (others are faith, belief and confidence).

You must trust in the practice – when you trust, you let go of your desire to make something happen. Then you just trust in the practice – you’re just aware and aware.

All you’re doing is keeping the awareness sustained. And the understanding will come out of that practice.

WRONG VIEW: IDENTIFY AS ‘I’ INSTEAD OF SEEING IT’S THE MIND

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Malaysian Interviews 18-01-23 (07:07-08:42)

The yogi saw the greed and stinginess, all these are important to recognize because they are natural to the mind.

So often we recognize what is happening in the mind but we misinterpret it. Instead of seeing it as ‘Oh, the mind is like this; the mind is doing this. When it does this, this is the consequence’ – instead of seeing that process, we miss the message. We identify with the mind instead of seeing it objectively as different mind nature at work.

The mind is talking to us; it’s showing us its nature but we fail to read the messages because of wrong view – the moment we think with wrong view, ‘Oh, why is my mind bad’.

If the mind has the right attitude, then the mind can learn something from that whole process, just seeing that when there is greed, this is the result; then, it can just see the flow and process of the mind at work.

EXPLORE CAUSATIVE FACTORS INSTEAD OF BEING CONFINED TO EFFECTS

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Morning English Q&A 180116 (30:45-32:54)

As a process, emotions always start with a thought – the thought comes first.

But when we come in and notice that process, we come in somewhere in between, in the train of the process. We might start noticing when there’s an emotion, or we might start noticing when there’s a thought. Subsequently, even though a thought starts the emotion, but the emotion feeds the thought. When we’re able to keep watching that process and not be involved, then the awareness starts becoming stronger while that process starts getting weaker.

EMOTIONS ARISE DUE TO THOUGHTS

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Morning English Q&A 180125 (33:35-34:51)

As a process, emotions always start with a thought – the thought comes first.

But when we come in and notice that process, we come in somewhere in between, in the train of the process. We might start noticing when there’s an emotion, or we might start noticing when there’s a thought. Subsequently, even though a thought starts the emotion, but the emotion feeds the thought. When we’re able to keep watching that process and not be involved, then the awareness starts becoming stronger while that process starts getting weaker.

MEDITATE FOR WISDOM, NOT FOR HAPPINESS

|Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Morning English Q&A 180121 (15:23-21:31)

If we want wisdom to arise from our observation of the worried mind (defilement), to learn about it, then the number one condition is that we are not doing it to have the happy mind. We are not observing so that we can become happy; we’re just observing the worried mind.

The mind wants happiness so much that the moment it hears of happiness, it wants it. Whenever I ask yogis why they meditate, and if they say they want peace or happiness, for sure, 100%, there’s going to be greed in the yogis’ practice. It’s the old habit of the mind that whatever it thinks as good (ie. Happiness), it becomes attached to it. So, the intentions can be very strong because there’s belief without investigation.

For people who enjoy music, when it stops, it makes us feel a little empty; that’s the indication of the attachment. I keep reminding yogis that the objective of meditation is not to find happiness or peace. It is an inevitable by-product of wisdom when it arises, but it is not the motivation or objective of meditation because then the happiness becomes the trap. When the yogis get entangled in the desire for happiness; it makes the whole practice difficult.

CONCLUSION LIMITS THE UNDERSTANDING

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2018 Malaysian Interviews 20180109 (24:46-25:46)

Don’t make conclusions about an understanding immediately. Just recognize that the mind only knows and understand that much because we still need more information, more points of view.

Sometimes, the mind stops learning when it makes a conclusion; so, open-ended learning is better. The mind notices that much now; it is not finished yet. Now the mind only knows this way and slowly as wisdom grows further, it can see other ways.

CHECK ATTITUDE OTHERWISE JUDGMENTS CAUSE MORE JUDGMENTS

| Shwe Oo Min Dhammasukha Tawya 2017 Vassa English Interviews 08 September 2017 (39:30-41:30)

If you have some expectation, and you cannot get what you want, then the mind becomes bored. So, check your attitude. What idea do you have when you’re watching the defilement? If you have the right attitude and right view when watching the defilement, the defilement will slowly get weaker and weaker. But if the defilement gets stronger, then there is something wrong with the watching mind.

Actually, the most important thing is attitude. If the attitude is right, the object becomes more distant. Don’t expect the understanding to come – it only comes due to right conditions. If you have expectations, the right conditions cannot arise. When you don’t have any expectation, then wisdom can arise. If you want to understand, wisdom cannot come because they are opposites.

Just practice continuously, and be interested in the process, that’s enough. Don’t try to get something or expect something. If you know that there’s expectation, watch the expectation first.