ONE REASON WHY SAYADAW DOESN’T TEACH SINGLE-OBJECT MEDITATION

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 5 (1:06:00-1:07:00) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Sayadaw: You have trouble falling asleep because you’re focusing a little too much. See if you can tune it down.

Yogi: I don’t know how.

Sayadaw: Don’t take a small object, take a big object like the whole body and spread your awareness over it.

To answer your question why I don’t teach single object meditation, it is because these problems come up. We can apply attention to one object but we don’t know how to tune our energy and that becomes complicated.

Spread it over the whole body; that will diffuse the energy.

BEING AWARE OF UNCLEAR OBJECTS

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 4 (07:00-10:38) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I was working with seeing and realized that it triggered a lot.

I figured that I was too near to seeing and was more into the looking. I switched to a very light level of seeing. This was good.

Then, I saw something that I couldn’t see what it was and the mind got really excited and that surprised me. It occurs to me that there are many things that I think I know but I don’t really know. This is shocking.

Sayadaw: When we’re being aware, and when the awareness sometimes becomes very clear, it also becomes very clear that things are not always clear.

The non-clarity becomes clear because of the clarity.

IGNITE THE INTEREST WITH CURIOSITY

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 4 (1:20:40-1:23:40) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: When the calm becomes dull, what do I do?

Sayadaw: You need to think.

You have to now think and reflect about your experience. You have to start considering – so, this is the experience now, what is the theory about the experience that I have been taught?

For example, there is the object and the awareness – so, in my current experience, do I know what the object is? And, do I know the awareness? Does the experience stay the same? Does the awareness stay the same?

How many objects am I knowing? Do I see the reality or the concept?

Investigate the experience against the theory. If you understand it theoretically, do you see it experientially?

You need to think about your experience, and that’s how you investigate.

HOW SHOULD THE MIND INVESTIGATE?

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 4 (20:00-23:45) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: Today, I was lost how to look at anger – maybe I want to fix it too much.

Sayadaw: Investigate means to make us look carefully at what we’re observing; and it is not to think about or analyze what we’re observing, but just to make us observe it carefully for an extended period of time.

If you’re used to thinking, you don’t need to think now – the way you want to position the mind to observe is a curiosity, not to fix the anger, but to check what anger is, how it works and what it does.

Yogi: So, I just look at the anger and find out what it does with me in my body and mind?

Sayadaw: But just observe and not think about it. You need to observe for a long time to get answers – you need to be patient.

Yogi: I don’t have to know why I’m angry and anxious.

Sayadaw: No. First, we just need to observe it continuously.

Yogi: I find it difficult because automatically I’ll think about why I’m angry and anxious.

Sayadaw: Just acknowledge the thought and bring it back to the sensation and feeling again and again. Try to do that.

BE INTERESTED IN THE CURRENT ATTITUDE

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 4 (49:42-50:36) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Instead of reaching for a goal, think of the present moment. When I was trying to be mindful, I didn’t have a goal in mind, I didn’t ever think that I could become mindful continuously. I didn’t even think that it was possible.

The only thing I felt was that ‘when I’m mindful now, I feel a little better than feeling depressed’.

I want you to rely on what your present experience is. Is this better than not being mindful? Is this much mindfulness better than being less mindful? Let that motivate you to be more mindful.

DREAMING IS THINKING

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 5(16:00-16:27) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I find my mind slipping away into day dreaming while sitting.

Sayadaw: Day dreaming and night dreaming are the same – they are all thinking.

RIGHT ATTENTION MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 4 (04:15-04:47) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Sayadaw: The positive is in the knowing, whatever it is and however ugly. It is positive to be mindful.

Yogi: Even if I cannot do anything to reduce the judging? And, I hate it.

Sayadaw: You know the hate – that is the positive.

Yogi: Even if it doesn’t change anything?

Sayadaw: No need to change anything. Meditation is not to fix anything; meditation is to know everything.

DEALING WITH MENTAL PAIN

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 5 (42:00-43:16) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: How do I deal with mental pain arising from conflict with other people?

Sayadaw: At first, you try to avoid the object and watch your own mental pain. And when there is no mental pain, see if you can deal with that object and whether it changes the way you deal with the object.

It’s a learning process – always taking yourself away to deal with your own mental pain so that you can see how to better deal with it.

The sooner we can deal with mental pain, like if we notice a little bit and we start working on it immediately, it can relieve it faster. If we start much later on, it takes longer because a lot of stuff gets rooted in the mind.

TEMPTATIONS TOWARDS FEELING GOOD

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 5 (52:20 – 59:45) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I went for a walk and the mind was interested in checking what the mind was knowing. The mind got interested and I was working with the question for 2 or 3 hours; all of a sudden, I became very peaceful, still and confident. I was just very happy – that lasted for an hour.

The next day, I tried asking the question again, but the question wasn’t interesting anymore. The mind just used the question to get there again.

Sayadaw: The temptation is always going to be there because every time there is right practice, it is going to feel good like that.

When we have right practice and continuity, all these wonderful qualities of mind like joy, rapture, steadiness, steadfastness, confidence, flexibility and resilience will manifest.

Sometimes yogis listen to the instructions and they get it right away and they’re on a high for a day and the next day it is like ‘where is it’. It can happen.

The unwholesome qualities of mind, they are always waiting for their chance, particularly greed.

MEDITATING IS TRAINING THE MIND TO BE SKILFUL

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 5 (1:15:50:1:16:50) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya Sayadaw U Tejaniya

The practice of meditation is like a discipline – it is training the mind so that we don’t have to suffer the things that the mind willfully wants to do, like cause us to think again and again about something that makes us suffer.

But when we don’t train the mind, we don’t have the option to stop that suffering. When we train the mind, that option becomes available to us because now the mind knows how to pay attention to an object, how to place the mind here or there, how to have right attitude, or how to observe a feeling and not get lost in the thinking.

All these exercises that we do will help us deal with that suffering.

PURE AWARENESS HAS NO MEANING

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 6 (03:26-06:40) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I was sitting and when I was hearing sound, it was frightening until I realized that it was someone pulling the curtain.

That got me thinking of awareness and concept – that without concept, we could be lost in awareness.

Sayadaw: You made a wrong conclusion from the experience – the experience you had when you were afraid was not pure awareness.

Your mind had already thought of some concept although it might not be a concept that you have a clear idea of.

That was not raw or pure awareness that was making you afraid – it was some wrong concept that the mind had.

THE AWARENESS IS THE REWARD, NOT THE RESULT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 6 (08:02-11:08) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: Today, I came to the conclusion that whatever the awareness is – however much there is and wherever it is – it’s good enough.

I feel that when we’re learning something new or practicing a new skill, the reward comes from the amount of effort we put in, right? More effort, more reward.

Here, I feel that this is incorrect – the effort is in being just remembering to come back to the awareness again and again, just the continuity, that’s where the effort is.

Sayadaw: Yes, that’s correct. If possible, just hang on to the awareness for dear life.

If you understand the awareness, then every moment, there is something that the mind knows. You can appreciate that.

For the yogi, the most important mind is the awareness.

WHEN WISDOM INCREASES, DOUBT DECREASES

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 8 (46:00-47:48) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: How can I detect doubt before it moves to the house? How do I prevent doubt?

Sayadaw: It is not possible; but there is a principle that when there is more wisdom, there is less doubt. 

Doubt is a function of delusion – so, when there is more wisdom, there is less delusion hence less doubt. 

I agree that doubt is a difficult mind to have around and to live with. I have experienced it and we don’t really know what to do. We are left mired in doubt. 

HOW TO WATCH UNCLEAR OBJECTS

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (1:22:45-1:25:25)

Sayadaw: Why do you think the vibration is the mind?

Yogi: I say vibration because I cannot think of another word; also I cannot locate it in my body.

Sayadaw: Because you don’t know for sure, don’t think of it as the mind; just think that the vibration is an object.

You can say this is an object. Just consider it as an object and don’t go into it.

Don’t go closer to the object and don’t inspect the vibration. Stay with the awareness, stay knowing that the awareness is still present.

THE POWER OF RIGHT VIEW

Swiss Retreat 2019 Group Interviews 7 (49:30-51:28)

Yogi: My working meditation is chopping vegetables during the retreat.

Today, I suddenly realized that I was really bored chopping the same vegetables for a whole hour. I tried to find out what it was being bored and it was clearly aversion and wanting. I was thinking about cooking and was chopping faster to get rid of the boredom.

I then remembered Sayadaw saying that it was just aversion and to let it be. From then on, I chopped with joy.

Sayadaw: Sometimes the mind discovers how to ease itself.

You see how all these information and the awareness, they all work together.