Yogi: I think the gap in my understanding is that I thought feeling has liking and disliking, but now I recognize that feeling is just a function; its function is to feel.
Sayadaw: Yes, to feel and not feel something.
Yogi: Not the judgment, result or evaluation.
Sayadaw: Yes.
Yogi: I understand that there are many types of meditation and I hear that some of them can make the yogi go mad. I fear that it may happen to me.
Sayadaw: It is not because of the method. What causes people to lose themselves when they try certain kinds of meditation is when they have a lot of defilements in the mind, for example, when we have a lot of greed for results during meditation.
When the greed is very extreme, so extreme that we’re willing to believe or do all sorts of things, and that can lead the mind over the edge.
It’s never the method but the attitude, like how the mind is meditating that is important.
I emphasize how we are meditating; recognizing how much greed or aversion there is while we’re meditating. It is something we can observe and work with rather than be pushed by that greed or aversion to do our meditation.
I ask yogis to check their mind all the time so that they can notice when the mind becomes greedy or have too much expectation or too much aversion and dissatisfaction with what is happening right now. If we recognize the defilements, it helps us to step back and appreciate that awareness is present – and that is good enough.
Yogi: When I was in the forest, I had an overwhelming emotion of sadness. It felt like the forest was where I belonged and not in the world where everything was suffering and wrong.
The mind asked: If this is what feels right, why am I still in the world? Even though this feels right, it is not about avoiding the world.
How did Sayadaw know when it was time to leave home?
Sayadaw: I did not become a monk because I was suffering in daily life. I was doing really well meditating in lay life with the support of wisdom and the dhamma.
I became a monk because I found the practice so fascinating that I wanted to dedicate my mind to it more. I was not trying to do better because I was not doing enough.
Yogi: I heard a monk talk about non-self and I cried because there was an understanding not to play-play anymore. Is this thought avoiding lay life?
Sayadaw: Not every decision to renounce daily life is escapism. I wasn’t escaping from something; it was a choice that was meaningful to me. I was not suffering and didn’t have to escape from anything.
Yogi: How are the paramis (qualities to be perfected) related to the 5 Spiritual Faculties?
Sayadaw: A simple definition of parami is whatever good we did yesterday has become the parami for today – you can say that a parami is the result or momentum of a wholesome mind.
There are the 10 paramis and if we’re cultivating these wholesome qualities we’re growing them.
Yogi: For me, it is not a matter of seeing the discontented mind; it is a matter of feeling it.
The whole vipassana is all a matter of feeling for me. I immediate feel right or wrong in my chest area and I just feel it automatically.
It is not seeing something; it is feeling something for me, good or bad.
Sayadaw: Sometimes feeling bad about something doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad; it is feeling bad because it is thinking it is bad although it might not be bad at all.
Yogi: This, I have to check.
Yogi: Sayadaw keeps on saying to appreciate the awareness, but my mind simply cannot because it always thinks that it’s not enough.
Sayadaw: First, we have to recognize that we have expectations. We must get so much awareness, then only we think it is enough rather than recognizing that what is happening now is enough.
You have to consciously and deliberately reinforce every time that what is happening now is enough so as to change that habit of the mind.
If we don’t see that expectation, it will continue to be there and nothing will ever be enough.
We always put in as much effort as possible and be content and happy with the results we have now; that is the skill in meditation.
Yogi: It is not easy to meditate in daily life for the beginner. How can I balance a life of sensual pleasures and working life with meditation? If I go too hard there is aversion and no result; if I’m too lazy, I totally don’t meditate.
How can I enjoy sensual pleasure and yet have meditation?
Sayadaw: I don’t say that you cannot have sensual pleasure or do your work. Meditation doesn’t tell you not to do that; also, don’t try too hard to meditate.
The key is just to recognize when you’re aware and always appreciate yourself for having done that even if it comes in bits while you’re working – pat yourself on the back whenever bits of awareness are known.
The more you’re encouraged whenever the awareness comes up, the more the awareness will manifest. The key is to be happy that you have done a little bit.
It’s not that meditation is a separate activity and sensual pleasures and work are a different activity. Meditation is just being aware; so, you can be aware of your work or your sensual pleasures. When you’re happy with the awareness whenever it comes up, it will grow.
When you try to practice in daily life, you’re not trying to overcome all the defilements because you also cannot. Your goal is to be aware only – it’s like if you’re aware, you’re happy. Even if your awareness is scattered moments in the day, the mind will collect the information and put them together for us to understand the defilements more.
Yogi: If every wholesome state has sati, does it mean that whenever we introduce awareness, it is a wholesome state?
Sayadaw: Yes, but you have to be clear. Every wholesome mind must arise with sati – and when you’re being aware like when we’re trying to meditate, although you might be aware of an unwholesome mind, the awareness itself is wholesome because awareness arises with panna and sati.
Yogi: When the retreat started, the mind was really sleepy and went into chattering. There was aversion to it; it became very uncomfortable and the mind really wanted to go to sleep.
I couldn’t do much except to stand up and walk.
Sayadaw: When you saw the sleepy mind and it started chattering, right effort and wisdom had become weak and were not working actively anymore.
You should crank it up at the very beginning when you noticed it to inject more right effort or wisdom with right effort and try to activate the mind.
You’ll find yourself getting sleepier and sleepier if you fail to do this and you’ll get sucked into it. Yes, the right thing then is to get up and walk.
To activate right effort is to make the mind active somehow – you can try to increase the frequency of the awareness, body scanning for example and try to watch one spot at a time – head, ear, nose, mouth, sensations down the body all the way to the toes and working up. You can ask questions actively and continuously, like asking what you’re aware of.
You need to be creative to find ways to activate the mind and not just use the things I tell you. When you can’t change your mind, you change your body posture.
Yogi: How do I cultivate the light but persistent awareness?
Sayadaw: Be aware with an eye on your mind, the state of your mind – whether your mind is at ease, comfortable and contented, whether it is moving forward in that way. You will then notice if the state of the mind is getting more stable and bright. That is good enough; it shows the work is getting done. And, even if the mind is not stable and bright, the work is also getting done when awareness is present. Recognize your own effort.
If there is doubt, you’ll notice that your mind will start to feel like you’re not good enough. Then, you need to watch the doubt, not believe it and think that you need to improve.
You need to watch the doubt and not try to improve.
Yogi: Once I watched anger and it disappeared, is this considered successful meditation and is it the right way of meditating?
Sayadaw: Anger can disappear because of any of these reasons.
One is that in trying to be aware, it doesn’t allow your mind to think of the things that make you angry; that makes the anger become less.
Trying to be aware is wholesome work; it can change the quality of the mind and make the anger go away.
You could have actually thought of something in a different way or realized something that makes the anger stop or become less.
But in any case, when you try to be aware of your anger, you have already succeeded in being mindful. You are already successful as far as being mindful is concerned. The result is not important; it is the work that is important.
You want to congratulate yourself for making the effort and recognizing that effort is present and more importantly, the awareness is present.
Yogi: When I’m doing walking meditation, the mind is aware of the walking and the good feeling that the mind is light and wholesome, but then the mind also thinks it is not doing a proper job because it is not watching properly.
The mind is pleased with the light and pleasant feelings and cannot be aware of any other thing. Should I look for other objects or is that enough?
Sayadaw: This is enough. You just keep going with that. Your main job is to be content.
Yogi: The mind thinks that this is attachment and should look for another object.
Sayadaw: Remember that the objects are not important. Knowing that you’re knowing is enough and you can be content.
Yogi: There are times when the mind is interested but it doesn’t know how to find out more.
It is joyful and vibrant, but it doesn’t know how to start the observation.
Sayadaw: When the 5 Spiritual Faculties are not balanced, that’s when we feel like something is off. Having interest but not knowing what to do is when the faculties are not balanced.
Not knowing what to do is doubt; that is moha. Wisdom comes in one form and moha comes in another.
There’s nothing to do about it except to recognize this is what is happening; recognize there is doubt and the mind doesn’t know what to do, this is what it feels like and continue to be aware of that.
Yogi: Sayadaw once recommended I don’t watch the painful object directly but to watch it together with a neutral object like sound. In this way, it makes the suffering softer.
Sayadaw: At that time, when you had panic attack and the mind was overwhelmed, I said not to look at it, and if you were interested, to use an anchor so that you’d not be sucked into it.
But when the mind is in a good state and it can see the nature of the object, that it is doing this and it is doing that and it is not sucked into the suffering and not involved with it, then you can observe it.