Put your hands together – do you know the touching or the knowing of the touch?
Between the object (touching) and the mind (knowing of the touch), the mind is more important.
(Elsewhere) You go about your daily activities, but between the action (object) and the mind (the motivation and mind quality), the mind is more important. So, ask: With what mind do I do whatever I do?
We can know that the mind is paying attention. Touch something and see whether you can notice that the mind is paying attention.
If you notice that the mind is doing this work of paying attention, you can start meditating by being aware of the mind that is paying attention.
If you cannot notice the mind that is paying attention, then you can start by noticing the object itself, what the mind is paying attention to.
You don’t have to use force to be aware. When you can recognize that you’re sitting, seeing, hearing, or if your body is warm or cold, that is awareness.
That much energy is enough. Just recognizing any of your sense doors is awareness.
Once you know what I mean, you can practice immediately.
Is it difficult, tiring, or painful to be aware?
We human beings are called puthujjanas or worldlings because we are full of craving. Long-time yogis ask what pitfalls they need to avoid. I say ‘Only lobha’.
Such yogis often think that the practice has stagnated and they start to try many things. They think so, but in actual fact as much as they have practiced, that much they have progressed – however much the mind has practiced, the result is already there. They don’t understand cause and effect; so, they think that they have not tried enough.
Many yogis follow the pleasant object. Once, a monk experienced extraordinary peace and calm; he followed and longed for this experience for over 10 years, hoping to get it back. He kept trying but it never did.
When he came to practice here, I told him not to target this experience. If you set your mind to get it, it would never come.
Yogi: I was a lawyer and police woman – whenever I hear the word ‘Investigation’, the mind gets stressed.
Sayadaw: This word is not suitable for you. We use a WH question not to think, or encourage thinking. If you think, you’re simply recalling old information which is intellectual knowledge.
We think of this question only once, and then we watch 99 times. But, yogis think that to investigate is to think a lot.
I explained about applying wisdom because a lot of yogis just focus and push in their practice; they forget to think. If you already have interest, there is no need to ask more questions.
Yogi: When I sat meditation, I felt that the body was moving to the back.
Sayadaw: If you think that there is movement to the back or front, you’re thinking about direction, it is a concept. It is the thinking mind working.
If it’s the air element, it’s just the air element moving – it goes nowhere; just movement and gone, movement and gone. (Reality is always new.)
When the mind thinks of direction, it is a concept (idea or thought); it is the mind thinking.
Yogi: The mind lets thinking continue because it likes the story.
Sayadaw: You then have to be aware of liking, not the thoughts. You intentionally want to think because of liking. Liking is the cause, thinking is the effect.
You need to watch the liking, the wanting, or intention to think. You can watch the intensity of the intention because you can feel it. When the intention reduces, naturally the thoughts reduce too.
When we see the cause and effect, we take care of the cause, not the effect.
Intention is an important function of the mind. We have this wanting all the time – intention to look, intention to eat and intention to go. Intention is mostly motivated by defilements.
Nobody taught me about seeing and looking meditation. Because I was always aware of the mind, suddenly, I recognized this process. Looking and seeing are obvious because the mind is seeing and looking all the time.
If you know the mind, you can know whenever the 6 sense doors are working. I tried to practice seeing and looking myself.
When I told my teacher about seeing and looking meditation, he said that many people forgot to practice this.
Whenever yogis practice, they close their eyes; so, they can never practice seeing and looking. I asked seasoned yogis who have practiced more than 20 years if they knew how to practice seeing and looking, they would say ‘No’.
Yogi: I couldn’t sleep all night because I was coughing, but the mind was still fresh the next day.
Sayadaw: When not sleeping becomes a problem, it means that there’s a lot of defilement thinking. If you’re not thinking, and you’re trying to be aware the whole night, not sleeping isn’t a problem.
Resistance and defilement thinking make the mind tired. If you’re aware and can maintain your samadhi the whole night, not sleeping is not a problem.
That’s why some yogis practice meditating the whole night long (to prevent defilement thinking during sleep). Now you are already doing that practice.
It’s only sometimes that we learn when we think back – whether we actually learn depends on the present-moment mind. We often recall past experiences, but how many times does understanding arise?
If the state of mind is defilement, no understanding arises – when we reflect with lots of emotion, wrong view is reflecting.
Understanding only arises when wisdom recalls experiences.
The present state of mind is more important – when wisdom and awareness are present, then you can learn something.
You need to learn how to watch your mind (what the mind thinks, knows, and feels). Every retreat, you don’t think – you just focus and calm down. The concentration is good and the mind calms down, and then you go home.
But this is not useful in daily life. You need to learn how to be aware of your mind – your thoughts and feelings. You need to understand.
That’s why in the first several days, yogis are confused what to do – they’re used to the old idea of just concentrating to gain calm. Now, I encourage you to watch your thoughts and your feelings. Then, it can become a habit and you can use the skill in daily life.
Yogi: When the mind says it knows how to meditate, how do we check that the mind is not bluffing?
Sayadaw: You look at the result. If the mind is relaxed, light, peaceful and free – and there are understanding, samadhi and awareness – then you know that the mind knows the way. When what you do is right, the result must be good; this is cause and effect.
If the mind becomes very tired, tense, or boring, then you are not meditating correctly.
It’s like knowing how to make money – if you know how to make money, there must be money in your pocket.
Yogi: The mind was angry and another mind said that it was happy to notice anger. But it was not really happy.
Sayadaw: It is better to watch your anger – then, you can learn.
When the mind doesn’t like an object, the mind is very good at covering it because of the unpleasant, suffering feeling. When you do that, it becomes harder to practice.
We do it all the time in our lives and it has become a habit. For example, when the mind is angry, we sometimes put on a smile.
It is better that yogis don’t try to change the experience when there is anger, resistance or suffering. Rather, let nature happen and then try to be aware.
A yogi reported that when he relaxed, the idea of ‘self’ disappeared; why?
Because we believe that effort is ‘me’. That’s why all our life we always say ‘I try, I try.’ It means that we believe that effort is ‘me’. The identification grows stronger when we exert more effort.
When the mind doesn’t push, the idea of self disappears. That’s why when meditation becomes natural, when meditation is happening on its own, no one is meditating.
Don’t think that the experience is personal; think that it’s nature. When you think this way, the mind can be interested to know this nature.
When good experience arises, the mind is interested; bad experience comes, the mind is also interested because it is not ‘me’. If you think ‘me’, when good experience comes, you get attached; and when bad experience comes, you push it away.
If you think that the experience is nature, the mind doesn’t resist or get attached too much because the experience doesn’t belong to you. It is then easier to watch objectively.
So, right view is very important – you need to watch this mind and body process as nature.