KNOWING THAT THE MIND IS PAYING ATTENTION IS BEING MINDFUL

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 3 (06:15-06:44) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I have been struggling to be mindful because I keep forgetting; how can I remember more?

Sayadaw: When we do work, we need to put our attention on what we’re doing, that is also the mind paying attention. If you can see that it’s the mind doing that, you can still remain mindful. That is why we do need to know the mind as well as the body.

If we know only the body, it is not enough to practice at home. We need to know both.

ANY SOLID EXPERIENCE IS A CONCEPTUAL OBJECT

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 5 (1:27:46-1:35:12) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I was experimenting with sitting longer to see what happened. After an hour and a half, there was a lot of pain, but it seemed like fake pain because my hands felt like they were bruised and I thought I was sitting on a rock.

The pain got really intense suddenly, and I had to move. After that, I sat for a while longer.

Sayadaw: You need to come back to the real sensation. When you have the real sensation, you can see if the sensation is solid or not.

Now, the mind has a picture of sitting on a rock, but you know it’s not a rock or you felt your hands were bruised but they weren’t bruised. So, you need to come back to feel the real sensation.

If there was a feeling of pain and the mind was that steady, if you gently put your attention on it, you will see the reality of the sensation, which is just all movement.

You won’t see it as solid; you will see the changing nature of the sensation.

It won’t feel solid anymore.

NOT SHOOTING THE SECOND ARROW

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 4 (13:30-16:16) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: I was touched by Sayadaw saying that everything was Dhamma – both the positive and negative – and I was in a state of deep quiet. I couldn’t even walk; I had to stand.

I could notice all these changes in the mind – being aware and being not aware.

This morning, I was practicing seeing when I heard a loud noise in the sky. I noticed then that the looking and listening grew stronger.

Sayadaw: It is important to understand everything is the Dhamma, whether we judge it as good or bad, but essentially it is just the Dhamma.

If we can remember that what is pleasant or unpleasant for us, they’re both equally the mind, it is just equally the mind – if it is just the mind, then it is just the Dhamma.

Then we won’t have another reaction to it.

IT TAKES WISDOM TO FREE THE MIND

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 5 (43:35-44:56) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Mental pain is harder to overcome because there is a lot of ‘me’ involved – there’s not enough wisdom. There is a lot of delusion around what we’re feeling and we don’t understand it clearly enough.

It takes more wisdom to free the mind.

We really suffer from mental pain because we don’t know how to stop the mind from generating the mental pain, we don’t know how to stop the mind from thinking about the things that causes pain.

The thoughts are causing us pain, but we don’t know how to stop the thoughts. Sometimes, we don’t even want to stop thinking those thoughts that are causing us pain.

We’re really twisted in our own pain, but we have to learn to stop hurting ourselves.

BEWARE WHENEVER WE DO CONCENTRATION EXERCISES

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 5 (35:00-35:55) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

When we do concentration exercises, there’s so much the idea that ‘I’m doing this’, it is very hard at that time to separate and see effort as nature – that the mind is simply putting its attention on something again and again.

And there’s so much investment in me getting a concentration or stillness and that can really mess yogis up – and half the retreat can be spent on ‘Oh, I can’t do it, I can’t do it’.

My message, whereas, is that you don’t have to have stillness if you have the right attitude – it’s fine, you can still be aware.

TWO WAYS TO OBSERVE PAIN POSITIVELY

Swiss Retreat 2019 Interviews 6 (37:13-48:25) with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Yogi: Sayadaw says to watch like in a distant contact – it is somewhat cold. For me, when dealing with strong physical or emotional pain, it needs loving contact. More than just being watched, it needs to be touched.

Sayadaw: If we have right view, we become willing to observe something, but many teachers teach to have some metta for ourselves when approaching a difficult emotion to observe in a softer way.

The effect is to take the edge off the aversion to the object so that the mind is not resistant to it and the hope is for the yogi to find a way to approach the object that is not painful.

It could be viewing the object as not mine but something universal and interesting, coming from the place of interest, or for some of us, it could be coming from kindness to bring positivity into the observing.

My motivation has always been, first it was just surrender because I was depressed, then it was interest. That’s my experience; it was never to view something kindly in that way.

If we can bring up kindness and view our difficult experience with kindness, it serves the same purpose. The point is to become willing to accept and observe, it doesn’t matter whether interest or kindness brings in that willingness and acceptance.

Do what is suitable so that you can observe so long as observation happens eventually, whether it is with kindness or interest.

Whichever way we approach it, the awareness should keep working happily.

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.