ADVICE ON PRACTICING CONCENTRATION MEDITATION

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 6 (13:00-18:43) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Sayadaw: When we use a single object, we need to hold it loosely. The key is balance, really.

When we look at a single object, we start to get a little intense in the way we get into it. It is because we don’t notice the way the mind is working to place itself on the object again and again.

If we were simply placing the attention again and again, we’ll be fine, but what we start to do is press the mind onto the object or get into the object. It’s all to do with the amount of energy we use.

If you can see how the mind uses its energy – how much the mind is paying attention and how it is paying attention – if you’re looking at an object and you can also see how it is looking at the object, you start to notice when this much attention is starting to cause some tension and then you back off.

The energy gets too much when we’re always too much into the object. If we don’t know how the mind is attending to the object, then we easily tense up or lose the object.

When we can gauge our energy, we can be more skillful at practicing.

Yogi: I begin to notice that the awareness is also very helpful in the concentration practice. The mind can become quite still even when it is open to many objects. That’s surprising.

Sayadaw: We often have the wrong idea that trying to concentrate is what concentrates the mind.

It is never actually that trying to concentrate is what concentrates the mind, even in using a single object – it is actually having the right attitude that helps the mind to become still.

If we don’t have the right attitude when even watching a single object, the mind is like ‘oh, why can’t I get it, why can’t I get it’; it won’t settle down. And understanding that is a kind of wisdom – understanding that letting things take their own time is the understanding that helps you not only in vipassana practice but also in samatha practice because it stills the mind.

NURTURING AWARENESS AMIDST STRONG AVERSION AND DEPRESSION

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 5 (1:21:30-1:25:40) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: There was much aversion the whole day yesterday. I wanted it to stop but it was not possible.

I was very much stuck with mental pain from depression over the last 2-3 years. I’m afraid that it won’t stop.

I feel better today, but there’s the fear that it will come again.

Sayadaw: It is true that for someone who has had depression and mental pain, it is something you really don’t want to face or to deal with and you’ll rather that it is not there because it is so painful. I understand that.

When it comes and you cannot watch it directly, consider the aversion to be someone you don’t like. They are sitting beside you and you cannot tell them to go away, but you do your mindfulness.

Watch something else – pay attention to a neutral object. If the aversion pops up in your awareness, acknowledge it, put it aside and go back to your neutral object because what you’re doing is building mindfulness. That’s the important thing.

Right now, the mindfulness is not strong enough to face the aversion; so, you need to build the mindfulness for it to become strong enough to face the mind.

Eventually, we’ll have to face the aversion. If we do not have the strength to face the aversion, it will never go away. So, we need to build the mindfulness until it’s strong enough and then there will come a day when you face the aversion and learn about it.

Now, just watching something else will slowly make the aversion fade away. Sometimes it comes again and you do the same thing over again, put it aside like someone you don’t like and slowly build your mindfulness and do that again and again, until the mind becomes powerful enough.

WHY SAYADAW DOESN’T TEACH CONCENTRATION MEDITATION

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 5 (31:10-34:07) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: Sayadaw, you have done single object practice to quiet the mind when you’re sitting still and when you’re moving around, you do what you teach us.

Why don’t you combine teaching both?

Sayadaw: First of all, most of you have already practiced some single-point object practice. I don’t need to teach it to you.

I want to teach you the other aspect – learning how to be mindful in a natural way with the right attitude that everything helps you to be mindful. I make a whole retreat about that because it takes time to learn that.

The more important reason that I don’t teach it in a retreat is because when yogis do concentration exercises, they get attached very quickly, and they also develop tension. And, then I have to spend so much time getting the yogis to relax and de-stress from trying too hard.

I don’t have the time in a 10-day retreat to do that much adjustment for yogis; I would rather teach what I consider the more important part of what I have learnt in meditation so that we can bring it out there and use it in the right way for ourselves.

The main message I’m teaching is right attitude – if we view things in the right way, everything is open for mindfulness and nothing is wrong. You can be mindful of and learn from everything.

FOCUSING CAN BE USED TO SUSTAIN MINDFULNESS IF WISDOM IS LIMITED

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 4 (1:28:00-1:33:10) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Sayadaw: That the mind has a task is the most important thing, then it’ll be awake or else it gets dull. Challenge the mind to observe.

To stay mindful continuously, one of my favorite games is to touch all my fingers together and pay attention to one of the touching until all the others fade and then I’d switch to the next one, training the mind to be disciplined and present.

It teaches the mind to be aware and stay centered.

I would listen to the various sounds in music and I would pick out an instrument and focus on it. Once I got one, I would move on to another just to keep mindful.

It always felt good because the mindfulness developed samadhi, stability of mind.

Yogi: And that is focusing?

Sayadaw: Yes, that is focusing. We sometimes need to do that for continuity.

At that time, there wasn’t so much wisdom in the mind and I had to rely on focusing to keep the mindfulness continuous.

THE AWARENESS CAN BE CLOSE OR DISTANT TO THE OBJECT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 6 (1:03:42-1:05:54) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I’m not sure what you mean by awareness. On the low level, I feel sitting – I feel the objects. Then, there is the other level where the watching mind sees me feeling the sensations.

The 2nd level is more distant to what is seen and I’m not identified with it, not me feeling but there is a feeling.

When you talk about being mindful, which level are you referring to?

Sayadaw: Actually, we use it on both levels – when we’re identified and we try to be aware, we say ‘aware, aware’. When you’re not identified, we also say ‘aware, aware’.

Yogi: So, the objects are not so important; it is the watching mind that is more important.

Sayadaw: That’s right.

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.