Dhamma talkGaia House Retreat5 Jun 2015
Closing talk · daily life instructions — Maintaining Practice at Home
Sayadaw U Tejaniya · 40 min
Original audio: Burmese · English interpretation
0:00−40:46
Uses compressed audio.
AI-written summary
In this closing meditation instructions, the teacher encourages yogis to maintain continuous mindfulness as they return to daily life. Drawing from his personal experience overcoming depression, he explains how guarding the six sense doors builds momentum and leads to genuine insight.
Topics
Talks in this retreat
Gaia House Retreat · 22 talks
- 1330 minMorning Guided meditation — Cultivating the Wholesome and the Value of Sati3 Jun 2015
- 141 hr 31 minInterview groups A and B session 3 with priority for group a to speak — Working with Emotions and Thoughts with Right View3 Jun 2015
- 151 hr 48 minInterview groups C and D session 3 with priority for group c to speak — Recognizing Wrong Attitude and the Difference Between Goal and Expectation3 Jun 2015
- 1626 minMorning Guided meditation — Knowing the Awareness and the Object, Thinking, and Intention4 Jun 2015
- 171 hr 41 minInterview groups E and F session 3 with priority for group E to speak — Wisdom and Defilements4 Jun 2015
- 181 hr 46 minInterview groups A and B session 4 with priority for group b to speak — Observing Aversion and Watching the Mind Door4 Jun 2015
- 1922 minMorning guided meditation · intro to talking meditation — Being Mindful When Speaking5 Jun 2015
- 201 hr 50 minInterview groups C and D session 4 with priority for group d to speak — Working with Anger and Daily Awareness5 Jun 2015
- 211 hr 28 minInterview groups E and F session 4 with priority for group f to speak — Wanting to Understand, Effort, and Knowing the Mind5 Jun 2015
- Viewing2241 minClosing talk · daily life instructions — Maintaining Practice at Home5 Jun 2015
Transcript
[Burmese segment]
English
Um,
English
so the closing talk was supposed to be tomorrow morning, but
English
something came up, and so
English
it's going to be done tonight.
English
Firstly, Sayadaw would like to thank everyone involved in making this retreat possible, and in particular, um, the people at Gaia House.
English
He understands the coordinators are volunteers, and they've— they do so much to keep the retreat going.
English
. And— Yogi . And then he'd like to thank the yogis for being here. ,
English
Sayadaw is very pleased with this retreat. He feels heartened.
English
And he's very grateful to all of us for practicing.
English
For any one effect to take place, Sayadaw says, many conditions need to come together. One thing is never enough, and only many conditions can— coming together will give rise to an effect.
English
So since we're all going home tomorrow, Sayadaw says it's his responsibility, and as he always says, "please continue practicing," and he'll say a bit more about that.
MY
[Burmese speech]
English
When Sayadaw was young and would go to practice at his teacher's monastery,
English
every time he would leave a retreat, his teacher would remind him to continue practicing at home. But he never practiced at home.
English
And he— he really, literally, he would just throw it away. It's not that he didn't know how to do it, but he just wasn't interested. He would be very pleased with himself for having done the retreat and done— done well at the retreat.
English
And then he'd go home and he'd think that he was fine, but he wouldn't continue to practice at home. But he wasn't fine. He said, you know, the moment he stopped practicing, the defilements would gain momentum again, and then he would be in trouble again.
English
And, um, when he grew older, he began to get depressed, and three times he went on retreat, um,
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and got better, but then he went home, and then he got depressed again, because he didn't practice.
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But it was only when he was
English
in— in real trouble. He said he couldn't go back on retreat, he didn't have the time. He was super— he was superly depressed at home. Um, that it drove him to start trying to practice at home, he said. And it took years, um, and it became better, but he really began to understand the nature of the Dhamma, that it was something you had to— to maintain in your life, because it was a balance of energies, and you had to keep maintaining that energy to keep it alive.
English
The unwholesome is so prevalent in the mind, the defilements there, so much around. And when we go on retreat, he says, they— they retreat a little bit.
English
They take a break for a little while.
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The defilements say, "How long do you want to go on retreat? One month? Two months? Three months? One year? Okay. After that, it's my turn. I'll be back. Yeah. And the moment we finish our retreat and go home, they're waiting for us at home.
English
piano . And they— they come to greet us at the retreat center to take us home.
English
. So delusion loves us to say that we've finished practicing, or finished the retreat. party . Then delusion can have a party, invite all of us. defilement, anh . And once delusion holds the party, then all the defilements come to the party.
English
So please, continue practicing, because, um, a retreat is like going on course, learning a skill, or going for training in camp.
English
Um, and it's to learn a skill, but the where you have to
English
put those skills to use is at home, at work, in life. Um, you know, you learn the skill a little bit, you gain a little bit of strength, but then you learn to become more skillful and more strong when you're home and apply it.
English
He says— . Really, learning to meditate is learning to live in a more easeful way. That's what it actually is.
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Sayadaw U Tejaniya began his Buddhist training as a young teenager in Burma under the late Shwe Oo Min Sayadaw (1913–2002). After a career in business and life as a householder, he has become a permanent monk since 1996.…