AN ENCOUNTER WITH LOSING THE SENSE OF SELF

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 8 (27:15-29:56)

Yogi: When I woke up, there was no feeling of ‘me’. I was confused and frightened. The fear exploded and the ‘I’ came back. The fear subsided and I concentrated on my breath. 

Sayadaw: Actually, there’s no ‘I’, but when you woke up, the thing that keeps the ‘I’ alive in your mind is the thought of ‘me’. 

When you just woke up, the thought of ‘me’ couldn’t form; and that’s what you experienced. 

We have relied on ‘me’ our whole life; and when ‘I’ disappears, what do I rely on?

It’s a very strange and new experience.

Yogi: Can I do anything about it?

Sayadaw: It’s just the thought of ‘me’ that is gone. When you think, the thought of ‘me’ comes back. Don’t worry.

It is not so easy to lose the sense of self. 

CONDITIONS FOR INSIGHTS TO ARISE

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 10 (13:12-17:09)

Yogi: How important is it to remember the insights intellectually – it could be very clear this moment, but come tomorrow, I don’t remember them exactly. Does the mind remember, or do I have to remember them?

Do I have to remember the insight by writing it down, or is the mind saving it somewhere?

Sayadaw: You don’t have to recall the insights – the mind does store it somewhere.

There are different levels of insight. Some insights are not very strong – it works now but does not in a different place, and you understand some insights for a while and they fade. More powerful insights last longer. 

So long as you keep being mindful, when the conditions are right, we’ll keep having insights.

The idea is to always have the conditions for insights to keep arising. One insight is not enough to entrench that insight in our mind – so, we have to keep refreshing insights, not by thinking about them, but by continuously being mindful so that insights are allowed to arise.

The insights, in and of themselves, are not so important or helpful to us because we can’t make them come. What we can do is be mindful.

We want to learn the skill of how to be mindful because it is mindfulness that makes the insights arise.

DEALING WITH DEPRESSION

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 10 (08:45-12:45)

Sayadaw: You’re not like an ordinary yogi. You’re in the fight – you have got to really work and practice continuously.

For you, the attack is imminent and you have to be mindful continuously. 

Yogi: You say to watch the tiny depression, and if I don’t manage to do that, to watch the feeling of fear. Aren’t they the same, in a way?

Sayadaw: They are different – one is the depression that wants to come to you and the other is the reaction, the fear that it will increase. They are slightly different in nature, but in your experience they might be stuck together.

Watch whichever is more obvious. The little depression that wants to come, it is not really a problem if there is no fear. It is the fear that feeds it. 

For you, try to be mindful moment to moment; not thinking about or analyzing the experience. Stay with the present moment and not dwelling in the past or future.

And, if you stay in the present moment like that continuously, thoughts will stop coming in so much.

The source of your problem is too much thinking. The thoughts are very complicated and not very helpful or useful. To stop the obsessive thoughts, acknowledge them and come back to your object.

It doesn’t matter that they don’t stop – they do their job, and you acknowledge and come back to your object. You do this repeatedly.

It is important for you to understand that there is no need to believe those thoughts at all especially when the mind is in an unwholesome state, every thought is a wrong thought and shouldn’t be believed. That is why the mind feels so bad. 

WHEN AWARENESS IS CONSISTENT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 10 (1:01:00-1:01:29)

Yogi: I’m getting more familiar with the defilements – I see the greed and aversion everywhere.

Sayadaw: That means that your awareness is everywhere.

OVERCOMING LOW ENERGY

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 8 (1:15:35-1:18:42)

Yogi: There was awareness but also a lack of energy. I asked myself if there was something I could investigate. 

I noticed that the mind was paying attention to the things I heard and decided to stay closer to just hearing sound – as a result, the mind was invigorated.

Sayadaw: When we’re low in energy, we need to investigate a little bit – this is how to wake up the interest. 

WHEN WE’RE MINDFUL, WE LEARN NOT TO OVEREXERT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 9 (1:07-6:37)

Yogi: When I’m into the practice, I get terribly charged and it is so intense that I could go on without noticing if I’m hungry or I need sleep or I have to go to the toilet.

Sayadaw: This is the pattern of the mind that will just ramp up the energy without you trying. 

It’s a matter of finding out how much of that energy you need to do the things you need to do.

When I was busy running my business, I was more interested in maintaining the mindfulness. Although I was doing things quickly, I would be watching the mind. 

I used enough energy without overexerting. Wisdom will learn what is enough energy – and what is too much and what is too little – through mindfulness so that it can find the balance.

Yogi: I must be present to know how much effort I’m putting in. That’s where the interest came from, and it just wants to know how much do I press when I write.

Sayadaw: That’s right; you must do that much.

WE FEEL THE WAY WE THINK

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (1:05:33-1:07:41)

Yogi: In the first sit this morning, the stomach made a loud rumbling sound and I felt embarrassed. I saw that it was the expectation for a good, quiet sit that made me ashamed of the sound. When I realized that I could let it be – it was just the stomach doing its work – the shame vanished.

Sayadaw: These principles relate to many things in our life, but we don’t immediately see the principles when we experience something. 

But if we understand the principles deeply about something like this, then the deeper the understanding, the more easily we see it in other scenarios. 

AWARENESS DOES NOT IMMEDIATELY BRING IN RIGHT DECISIONS

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (46:30-49:30)

Yogi: It is not so easy for big daily-life decisions to be guided by awareness-wisdom and be right.

Sayadaw: Relook at our idea that if we have some sort of wisdom that it is going to be okay right away. It is not, more so in life.

We’re used to living life the way we do – if we have mindfulness, it is not going to bring in the wisdom that will help solve our problem today.

Today, you have this problem and you don’t know what decision to make, so you’re mindful and make this decision and this is the result. It could be a good or not so good result and there is some learning – it is going to be a process of learning at home from the decisions you make and the results you get over and over again, changing decisions, changing conditions and changing the way you think about things – all of them – until the mind gets to a point where it understands what thoughts and decisions hurt the mind and then it makes the choices that bring better and better results. 

Yogi: The better choices and results are for whom?

Sayadaw: If it is truly right for this mind, if it is truly wholesome and wise, it has a wholesome effect on those around us.

KAMMA AND PERSONAL CHOICE

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (03:00-6:18)

Yogi: When the experience of every moment is the result of the past, do we even have a choice?

Sayadaw: There are 2 kinds of result – the results of the actions of the past, so you can’t change it, and there are the results yet to come that are determined partly by what has passed and partly by the present moment which you have a choice with.

For example, now you’re tired which is a result of something in the past and you can’t change the tiredness but in the present moment, you can choose how you want to deal with the mind. 

The mind can have the right thought and right view and it will feel better even when the body is tired.

Or, the mind can have wrong view and complain, so the body is tired and the mind is also stressed.

In the present moment, that is the choice the mind has. If the mind is trained, it has more choices to be positive.

In the moment, we can have wisdom that gives us better decisions and better choices or we can be deluded, and delusion doesn’t give us the best choices.

With every experience, we have a choice to respond with a wholesome response or unwholesome response. 

Yogi: Is it actually a choice or a feeling of having a choice?

Sayadaw: There is no freedom to choose if there is no wisdom; it will only seem like you have a choice.

COMPASSION ALONE HAS NO SENSE OF SUFFERING IN IT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 8 (37:42-41:22)

Yogi: When I’m aware of grief and anxiety, I’m detached from them. I fear that it’ll also happen to the compassion I have for the people close to me.

When I’m detached from those who’re sick, the compassion has a different flavor than the usual. Perhaps I don’t know what compassion is. 

Sayadaw: It’s a different level of compassion. What we’re used to experiencing as compassion is mixed with suffering. That suffering bit is actually aversion because we don’t want things to be that way – we would like things to be fine.

There is the wishing well for others, but also there is the non-acceptance of the situation or grief. So, it is mixed.

When there is pure compassion, compassion is a wholesome mind, then it will feel good.

The mind understands that there is suffering going on, but it is not suffering together with it.

Yogi: The confusion is because the ‘I’ is not much there anymore, I was afraid I would lose compassion for myself and others. I don’t have to be afraid of that.

Sayadaw: When there is more ‘I’, there is more unwholesome and the mind experiences more of the grief. Compassion alone has no sense of suffering in it.

BE AWARE OF CONFUSION, NOT LOOK FOR CLARITY

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (1:07:57-1:09:45)

Yogi: How do I deal with confusion because I cannot realize confusion when I’m confused or when I’m not knowing? It is really tricky.

Sayadaw: Just suffer it. (Joking)

Confusion is not not-knowing. Not-knowing just means you don’t know; that is not confusion. 

Confusion means that you’re unclear about what you think you should be knowing. Confusion is being unclear; it’s not that you don’t know. 

When we’re confused, we usually know we’re confused, like what is it or what am I supposed to think or what am I supposed to do? 

PRACTICE WATCHING PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DISCOMFORT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 5 (37:15-51:43)

Yogi: When I watch aversion, at what point should I go and do something about it and not just look at the aversion? 

Sayadaw: When you have a physical illness or physical discomfort that can be relieved, I’m all for relieving it. The reason is so that the aversion doesn’t keep building in the mind -having aversion build in the mind is not helpful because then you cannot be mindful. 

Having done everything we can, sometimes we’re left with residual physical discomfort or mental dis-ease that cannot be relieved. That’s the point when you have to be mindful of it and learn the nature of mind and matter so that the mind is not so affected by the physical discomfort. That’s what we want to learn.

What we can relieve, we relieve and what we cannot, we need to practice watching till we can relieve it. 

We start with things we know we can get relief from so that it doesn’t give the mind a lot of pressure. If we sit and there is some pain, we can choose to stand up for the pain to go away, or we can take a little time to investigate what it is like if we watch the aversion in the mind while there is pain in the leg.

If we become skillful at watching aversion so that aversion is not there – if we know how to adjust our mind towards the aversion – we can learn to become almost neutral at watching physical and mental discomfort.

We need to practice now because when we’re on our deathbed, we will probably have pain and then it is too late to start practicing.

We need to have learnt something now so that we can be at peace with whatever is happening as it is.

THE MIND GETS RESTLESS WHEN AWARENESS IS ABSENT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (18:00-20:55)

Yogi: I lose awareness at interviews – the mind and body become restless and I sweat and get tense. 

Sayadaw: What do you do then?

Yogi: I try to be aware.

Sayadaw: Be aware at the interview. Try knowing that you’re listening, understanding and feeling, lightly.

When we lose awareness, all the things that you describe can happen; and it’s good that you know that. 

This is information that the mind can learn – when awareness is absent, the mind gets restless. This is nature – the process of the mind.

We can understand these processes in our own experience that when there is mindfulness the mind gets a certain way and when there is no mindfulness the gets another way.

I learned that when I was mindful it made the mind feel better; and when I was not mindful, the mind suffered.

MIND-BODY INTERACTION

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (52:35:58:36)

Yogi: There was unpleasant sensation in the shoulder that came very strongly from a past retreat. It was not pain but an overwhelming sensation. I could see the aversion of not wanting and the wanting to know what it was. 

It helped when I opened up the awareness to the whole body and expanded the awareness to more objects during walking – is that the right way to practice?

Sayadaw: Don’t look at the sensation directly because the mind already knows that it’s there. 

The main attention should be on the reaction of your mind which is the aversion.

If you keep your attention on the aversion, you’ll see how when the aversion changes, it changes your perception of the sensations; and that’s the connection you want to see.

Because of the aversion, the mind has the experience of the unpleasant sensation. It is only when you watch the aversion, and sometimes when it goes away, you’ll see how the mind sees the sensation there as what it is. 

But don’t think of meditating to make the unpleasant sensation go away; the body is just a set of conditions.

This object can give rise to the understanding of the nature of body and mind interaction.

FEELING TIRED

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (00:05-02:34)

Yogi: How does one work with feeling tired? There are different qualities of tiredness in the body and in the mind; and sometimes, I just accept it as part of being old.

Sayadaw: As we get older, it is natural to be more tired. If we do have aversion towards it, we need to work with the aversion.

We let the tiredness be because we won’t be able to meditate the tiredness away. When there’s a body, there will be tiredness.

But we can practice in a way that the mind is more accepting so that the mind is not averse or resisting it. This gives the mind more rest.