Yogi: The mind wants to interpret the experience more than it understands.
Sayadaw: There’s no need to interpret it any further than you already know. So, just recognize that the mind knows what is being known.
When you keep it simple and leave it only to the information you have instead of trying to interpret it, then when the mind really understands, it will tell you.
Yogi: I experience unpleasant physical feelings arising from aversion, sometimes they last for hours, and I don’t want these unpleasant sensations. I want good feelings on retreat but I don’t have the tools to get rid of them and I get stuck.
Sayadaw: These are bodily sensations related to the mind. Unwholesome mental qualities will give unpleasant effects in the body.
Yogi: Expectations, holding on and wanting things to go away make it more stuck. These unpleasant physical sensations arise from time to time and I don’t know how to handle them.
Sayadaw: Yes, that’s right. There’s no need to do anything about it – just know it, just recognize it. (If there are expectations, holding on and wanting things to go away, know that too.)
Awareness is not trying to make it go away, or make it better, or handle it. Awareness is knowing what is happening so that eventually the mind will learn something about it.
If and when learning does happen, if and when understanding does arise, then wisdom allows the mind to let go of the unwholesome.
Yogi: I find practicing with the sangha in the group sitting and walking in the meditation hall very positive with a strong atmosphere. Now with the no-schedule practice, I’m a little lost.
Sayadaw: Rather than think about a situation we find helpful but we don’t have at present (e.g. group sitting), we can make the situation work for ourselves – that’s the best way to help ourselves.
At home, not only do we not have the support from the outside to be mindful, the external is always pulling us away from mindfulness.
So, it is important to learn to use the strength within ourselves – the decision and intention to be mindful within ourselves – because when we use that, it becomes stronger.
When we use our own strength and wisdom to find out how to be aware, when we make our own effort without anybody’s help to be aware, when we find the faith in ourselves to be aware – that’s when these qualities grow stronger.
When we say we strengthen the mind, it’s when we use the wholesome qualities of the mind. We practice them and they become powerful.
In our whole lives, we have done things because other people are doing them and we follow the crowd. We need to think for ourselves and walk our own paths.
We must use our wisdom so that our wisdom will become stronger.
When we ask the W and H questions, we immediately go to the external reasons. Why am I angry? She made me angry. Why am I upset? They are noisy.
When I say why, I’m not talking about the story. I’m asking what it is that I know now (in my own experience, not outside) that is making the mind angry. So, you have to look within yourself to see what you are knowing that is directly connected to the feeling right there.
When unwholesome qualities are in the mind, there are thoughts and beliefs that are operating and the emotions that come with them. They are all feeding each other and we want to watch the process.
It’s only when we have stepped back from that experience that we can look at it like an outside observer and can then see that this is happening. But, if we are identified with the experience, then it is difficult to separate ourselves from what is happening.
Yogi: I noticed restlessness and its characteristics – and the mind made a series of reflections, including identification and the 5 Hindrances.
Sayadaw: When you could recognize the restlessness for what it is, that is wisdom; it means that the awareness is good. You could also see many other things and that is also seeing things clearly.
At that time, you should continue to be aware, and not go into thinking about the theory of the Hindrances. We already know the theory – we want to understand more, not what we already know.
So, keep on knowing the experience and just keep observing – very simple. There’s no need to analyse.
Yogi: I have difficulty asking ‘Where is the mind now?’ because the mind that I noticed has disappeared when I asked and I have to stop and feel a little bit.
Sayadaw: When you already know what the mind is knowing, then there’s no need to ask that question.
The question is only for when the mind is not mindful, or when the mindfulness is not very continuous, to keep reminding the mind to be mindful.
Only use it when it is necessary. And, ask ‘What is the mind doing now?’, rather than ‘Where is the mind now?’ That’s a better question – and not to find the answer, but to get in touch with the mind.
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.
Yogi: I become very tense whenever I watch my breath during the sit.
Sayadaw: The breath is not suitable for you. The mind doesn’t find it natural to rest on it; the mind has to strain to pay attention to it. You don’t have to use the breath.
Use an object that is already there for you, maybe the touching sensation or sound; where you don’t have to do anything to it because it’s already there.
With the breath, we find ourselves controlling the breath after some time and that’s already one tension and we’re trying to be aware of it and that becomes too much work.
Whatever you choose should be an object you can know without focusing, something that comes easily. When it is no longer obvious, you can change to any other object.
Yogi: Could investigating doubt be right meditation?
Sayadaw: You can. All 5 Hindrances (Sensual desire, Ill-will, Sloth-and-torpor, Restlessness-and-worry, and Doubt) are also just objects in meditation to observe and understand. When you understand them, they are no longer hindrances to the practice.
The nature of the Hindrances is to hinder, and when you understand its nature – when you can take its nature as an object and observe it and learn about it, you understand enough that it does not hinder you – the poison then becomes the medicine.
This is Dhammanupassana – when it is Dhammanupassana, everything is dhamma; whether wholesome or unwholesome, they are just objects.
They are nature, and you just observe them as such (i.e. different minds doing different jobs).
Yogi: After a while, everything became light and peaceful and I saw different colors for a time. Does this experience have a place in vipassana meditation? I know that it’s not the goal, but is this the benefit of the practice?
Sayadaw: The mental colors are called nimittas. It is a sign that the stability of the mind has increased for that time; it is just a byproduct of the practice.
Some people have the experience of light shining in their eyes.
Light and colors are concepts – they are not important to the practice of vipassana in and of itself, except that the stability of the mind/samadhi is growing. That’s what you take it to be.
Remember that the mind doesn’t get old. The mind does not decay; it grows as you train it.
If you neglect it (basically, training it with the unwholesome), it goes to the unwholesome. So, you have to train it to be wholesome.
Yogi: Why are old people more forgetful? Is it a slower brain or a disorderly mind?
Sayadaw: Not all old people are forgetful, but when it happens, it could be due to brain deterioration or delusion when we don’t train the mind to be aware and present.
If we want to be more present as we get older, we have to start training now.
If we make a habit of taking note of what we’re doing – like when we put a cup down, we make it a habit of noting that we have put it down and where and how we put it down.
When we recognize the physical action, we take notice of what the mind is like, what is happening in the mind when we’re doing it – the awareness at that time and the decision to put the cup down and what we were thinking of doing next?
If the mind has practiced a lot being aware and present, then it will stay like that.
Many people say that when they retire, they are going to relax and do nothing. That’s when they deteriorate very fast.
Meditation is the work of the mind; so long as we keep the mind working properly, the brain will have to keep up with the mind.
Yogi: My work is most stressful because each project is new and uncertain. What shall I do?
Sayadaw: When the mind is stable, there is no problem that cannot be solved; there’s no perspective that cannot be understood.
Doubt, anxiety and worry shake the mind and make the mind unable to work. The important thing is to cultivate a stable mind.
[Remember Sayadaw’s principle of observing objects: When there is a reaction (doubt, worry and anxiety) to the object (our work), don’t pay attention to the object; switch to watching the reaction first. When the reaction subsides (the mind has stabilized), go back to the work.]
Yogi: Can Sayadaw share the way he practices?
Sayadaw: I didn’t plan ahead how to be mindful; I just did one simple thing to be mindful – that was it for me, like just try to be mindful, mindful, and mindful. All the reflection, investigation and understanding will follow naturally.
My goal was to be mindful because when there is mindfulness, wisdom is sure to follow.
Yogi: There are many meditation centers teaching different techniques. Which technique is the most effective?
Sayadaw: The best way is to practice all the time; that is the fastest way. It is the truth.
When people say that they have been practicing meditation for 20 years, it means that they came in touch with meditation 20 years ago. They have not been practicing 20 years’ worth of meditation. When we count the hours of meditation, they might not add up to a month of continuous mindfulness.
If you say you have been meditating for 20 years, you must have put in the meditation like you’re on retreat every day for 20 years, being mindful from the time you wake up till the time you fall asleep; then you can say that you have been meditating for 20 years.