Yogi: When awareness is natural, I just need to check if awareness is there; but other times I need some effort to maintain the awareness.
Sayadaw: If awareness is weak, you need to use personal effort to keep the awareness going. If natural effort is present, you don’t need to use personal effort.
But if awareness is lost, you just keep trying to allow awareness to be present. Just try and try again.
Yogi: The more relaxed the mind is the easier and clearer awareness becomes.
Sayadaw: Relaxed means that there is less defilement. If defilement is strong, the mind cannot be relaxed.
That is why when you relax, awareness becomes more powerful.
Yogi: I’m used to practicing samatha, and when I switch to awareness practice, I often become drowsy.
Sayadaw: You use too much energy to focus when practicing samatha – so, when you relax and change to being aware of multiple objects, you exert less energy and the mind gets sleepy.
In actual fact, you shouldn’t force in concentration practice either – you just need to be patient and be aware again, again, and again. You do this for a long time – the mind wanders off and you bring it back to the target again, again, and yet again. Slowly, the mind stays with the target.
For most people, every time they are sick, every time bad experience comes, the mind resists.
Anger exaggerates the experience and the mind begins to think of bad things – the mind becomes more upset and the body becomes more painful.
If you try to be mindful, the mind cannot think of negative things. That’s why the mind settles down as the awareness becomes better and better.
The mind quality gets better – physical condition may not be better but the mind quality improves because of right attitude and awareness.
So, try to think how to practice (cause) and practice (effect and then cause); then, the mind cannot think of negative things (effect).
Yogi: I have strong anxieties in daily life; especially fear of taking the plane and other anxieties arising from thinking.
Sayadaw: If negative thinking arises, for example, about something fearful, then fear comes.
You should not practice this again and again (don’t entertain negative thoughts), and also, don’t believe the negative thoughts.
Negative thoughts come from delusion, and when you believe them, these thoughts are even more deluded.
Don’t repeatedly replay these negative thoughts; you can try thinking a positive way (and notice thinking and feeling are happening).
They are powerful and appear to arise automatically because of the repeated habit of many years. Now, you need to stop doing this – not continue the negative thoughts or follow them.
[Try to follow Sayadaw’s advice – the skill will reduce the possibility of depression, or going deeper and deeper into depression.]
Yogi: I see the nature of defilement in liking and disliking when the mind is lost in the story; when there is no liking and disliking, does it mean that the defilement is absent?
Sayadaw: That’s true if the watching mind has no liking or disliking when awareness returns. If there’s no awareness and the mind thinks that there’s no liking or disliking, then delusion is there. Even neutral mind may have delusion.
If awareness is absent, then there’s no wisdom. When there’s no wisdom, we’re sure that delusion is present. (And when delusion is present, all defilements have a chance to arise.)
Yogi: I started having depression 2 years ago when I suffered from health issues, anxiety and sleeping problem. Now, I have no energy and no interest. I don’t know what to do and have no desire to do anything – I just feel numb. What can I do?
Sayadaw: Energy is lost totally because the mind is depressed, because defilements overwhelm the mind. No energy means that wholesome energy is lost.
Because unwholesome mind is being repeated day after day, it overwhelms the mind. The mind complains every day it wakes up – then, the mind becomes more and more depressed and more defilements overwhelm the mind.
What you need to do is to start to practice, to build up your wholesome strength – the wholesome qualities of awareness and samadhi.
Meditation means to grow the wholesome qualities of the mind in any way – sila, samadhi, panna; or samatha, or vipassana. You need to cultivate these every day, all the time. Build up these strengths first. The best way is to practice mindfulness meditation.
[Previously, Sayadaw wasn’t interested in practicing seriously.]
Actually, I had no interest to practice meditation in the past. I started to practice seriously only due to depression.
At first, to overcome depression, I went everywhere and tried to do anything that would make the mind feel good. Because everything that I tried didn’t work, I had no choice but to meditate.
Every time I was aware, I was relieved from the depression. I continued to practice only because of this understanding.
Day by day awareness, samadhi and understanding increased slowly – and only then the defilements weakened slowly.]
You need to practice continuously and be very patient because it has been 2 years since the defilements overwhelm you.
Be careful of your thoughts. When negative thoughts arise, don’t continue to think. Immediately change the direction to be mindful and to think in a positive way. Don’t allow the negative thoughts to continue and increase.
Just practice regularly, but not very hard. If you stop work, the mind is too free and has more chance to think negatively. So, continue to do some small work.
Try to be aware in the present in whatever you do.
Check your mind all the time – when you’re depressed, the feeling is obvious. You need to keep your mental state from being negative by changing the direction of the thoughts.
Every time the defilements come and the depression is strong, use a neutral object and stay with it mechanically, again and again; and slowly the mind calms down. Don’t think about anything; use a neutral object and continue to be aware.
Don’t stop working – it is better to be occupied. Day by day in your daily life, try to stay in the present moment in whatever you do. You need to maintain the awareness the whole day long. This is the best way to relief you from the defilements. Try, try.
We have to make decisions all the time. We need to practice how to decide; but first, we need to know what idea and attitude the mind holds when we decide.
It’s only when we decide with wisdom that the decision is right; otherwise, it’s defilement that decides and that leads to problems.
If there’s defilement, it is better not to decide then – wait, watch and learn. Let the mind calm down, and then reasonable thinking can come and we can decide with wisdom. That’s better.
Every day we have decisions to make – as we practice, slowly our decisions over time become wiser and wiser.
Yogi: When I think of my mother, emotions arise during the sit, and they carry over to walking meditation. I eventually cried.
Sayadaw: Every time emotions increase when we think, it means that there is wrong thought. You need to stop thinking and watch the feeling – the feeling can then come down.
Yogi: I made a determination to sit one hour but couldn’t. Is it still beneficial to make this determination?
Sayadaw: No need. Determination needs some wisdom or understanding; if we do it with delusion, it then becomes extreme and we try too much. When we cannot achieve it, we become depressed.
You can only do it when you know your abilities very well – then this adhitthana is effective.
But you don’t have enough energy and you think you can do it (that is delusion), then there is no benefit in trying.
Buddha made his adhitthana because he knew his conditions very well; then he made his adhitthana. But yogis make determination without knowing their conditions well.
For example, a yogi wanted to meditate all night at Shwe Oo Min from the day he arrived; he had a lot of faith. I said “Cannot – you should try as much as you can and build up your strength slowly”. He didn’t follow my advice and sat the whole night, but he was sleeping through the night.
If he keeps on practicing this way, then bad habit forms because he would sleep every time he sits, he’ll be trying blindly with delusion.
Every effect happens by fulfilling necessary conditions – due to cause and effect. It takes many conditions for an effect to happen, not only one condition (e.g. faith alone); you need to fulfill many conditions to get an effect; otherwise it will not happen and what you do is not beneficial.
Yogi: I label ‘Left, right, left, right’ when I am doing walking meditation.
Sayadaw: Labeling is for the beginner to pay attention to the object; it is not necessary for experienced yogis.
When the yogi labels, it helps the mind go to the object because he is thinking about the object.
You don’t have to label if you already know the object because the mind is late and busier when it labels. Direct experience is enough.
Also, if you label, you need to control your actions, you need to slow down. If you’re fast, the mind cannot label.
If you know 2 objects at the same time, how can you label?
Yogi: If I don’t label, the mind wanders off easily – e.g. towards sound.
Sayadaw: Sound is happening here in the mind, not an outside object. It is an object happening in your sense door. Sound is not happening outside.
That’s why you can use sound as an object of awareness. You can be aware of hearing.
Yogis label because they want to stay only with one object. That’s why the mind cannot be fast. If you don’t label, you can actually see how fast the mind is.
[If labeling has become a habit for the old yogi, then notice that labeling is happening – that there is awareness and the object (labeling).]
When wisdom is present, it wants to know what is going on.
For example, you have been watching the breath as an object for a long time – what’s the difference between in-breath and out-breath?
That’s it – we have been watching the breath for many years, but we don’t know much about it.
That means that the mind is not interested. We practice meditation for various reasons; most yogis watch the breath to calm the mind down. They just use the object to be aware, aware, aware – they don’t want to understand.
Vipassana idea is different – it wants to know what is happening. The motivation is very different. If you want to know, then you can know. If the motivation is to calm down, they don’t want to know and therefore they don’t know.
If you want to understand, you can understand.
Yogi: We can only see the angry and craving mind through the thinking and feeling.
Sayadaw: Only wisdom can understand the characteristics of the defilement. For example, when you watch the defilement, you can see feelings and thoughts. Thought is not defilement; thought is thought. Feeling is not defilement, feeling is feeling.
Defilement is defilement. They have different characteristics. Feeling is a particular function of mind; thought is another of function of mind; defilement is yet another function mind.
Only wisdom can understand the nature of defilement. When defilement arises, thinking and feeling are obvious too. All 3 are present. You can see differently depending on your wisdom level.
Yogi: Is defilement the motivation for the thinking and feeling?
Sayadaw: Yes, defilement motivates thinking and feeling. Wisdom also motivates thinking and feeling – when wholesome mind arises, thought and feeling are present too.
Yogi: Is there is a relationship between emotion and body sensation?
Sayadaw: Obviously, because when there’s a reaction in the mind, the chest feels something. Because of emotion, the body becomes warm or tense – you can notice both at the same time.
There is no need to focus on the body sensation – just know; awareness means just to see, not to focus. Let the process happen, just as if we’re watching a movie.
That’s the best way because then we can realize something from the process if we let it happen again and again. If you focus, you get involved with the process, and you interfere with nature.
When the mind is strong enough, it can see in greater detail naturally. Remember that mind and object will match each other (blur mind, blur object; clear mind, clear object).
The thing to do is to make the awareness stronger, to build up the quality of the mind. Awareness-samadhi-wisdom is weak when craving is present, and you can only notice the gross level.
When you don’t focus, the view becomes wider. Yes, that’s wisdom’s view – when you see the overview, then you can see more things, the relationship between processes, and cause and effect.
When the mind focuses onto an object, the view is narrow and the picture is not complete. When that happens, wisdom cannot decide because it doesn’t know what is happening.
When you focus onto the object, you won’t know your thoughts and the mind state. But if you relax, you can see both the object and the thinking mind. You can then see both nama and rupa at the same time. Then we can understand the relationship between mind and body or mind and object.