Q&ASaddhamma Meditation Society Retreat6 Dec 2016
Day 7a interviews — Distinguishing Reality and Concept, Observing Emotions with Right View
Sayadaw U Tejaniya · 1 hr 56 min
Original audio: Burmese · English interpretation
0:00−1:56:20
AI-written summary
A Q&A addressing the distinction between reality and concepts, as well as working with anger, doubt, and anxiety. The teacher explains that wisdom discerns different natures of objects, and maintaining continuous awareness naturally brings clarity without personal interference.
Topics
Talks in this retreat
Saddhamma Meditation Society Retreat · 16 talks
- 61 hr 47 minDay 5a interviews — Watching the Reactive Mind and Knowing the Awareness4 Dec 2016
- 737 minDay 5b interviews — Observing the Mind as Object and Investigation4 Dec 2016
- 81 hr 50 minDay 6a interviews — Overly Active Mind and Observing the Thinking Mind5 Dec 2016
- 91 hr 20 minDay 6b interviews — Samādhi, Sampajañña and Awareness in Daily Life5 Dec 2016
- Viewing101 hr 56 minDay 7a interviews — Distinguishing Reality and Concept, Observing Emotions with Right View6 Dec 2016
- 112 hr 5 minDay 7b interviews — Being Aware of the Knowing Mind6 Dec 2016
- 121 hr 51 minDay 8a interviews — Momentum, Labeling, and Watching the Mind's Reactions7 Dec 2016
- 131 hr 43 minDay 8b interviews — Working with Emotions and Right Thinking7 Dec 2016
- 141 hr 53 minDay 9a interviews — Working with Memory, Fear, and Daily Mindfulness8 Dec 2016
- 151 hr 58 minDay 9b interviews — Thinking the Vipassanā Way and Objects8 Dec 2016
Transcript
English
Sadama Meditation Society, Virginia, Fall Retreat 2016, 7th day—December 6—Interview English, Nganmar Group.
English
In my practice, um, sometimes—well, often—awareness will kind of direct me toward
English
a
English
somewhat of a three-part distinction of
English
objects, and I just want to ask Sayadaw if
English
I'm mistaken that this is useful. Okay. Um, and it's— Anh ơi, anh ơi, anh ngồi tối nghe mẹ nói chuyện, không sao đâu, rồi tí mình nói tiếp. It—my awareness seems to—or rather, what I seem to see is, for instance, that there is, say, the physical objects that I am perceiving by looking, and then there is the object of the sense of sight
English
that is kind of above that, and then there is the awareness. Okay. And similarly for, you know, hearing or thinking, you know, there's the content of the thought, then there is—and that is, in a way, the object of the thinking, which is the object of awareness.
English
Yep. But usually the teachings talk about just awareness and object. Is it useful to have this
English
extra layer, or should I just see it all as
English
objects that are equal?
[Burmese segment]
English
This is good. To clearly see the distinction, to clearly see the distinction between the, um, the reality, which is the, the awareness, and its immediate object, which is the sensory experience, and the concept that, you know, that is part of the sensory experience.
English
Uh, to, to be able to distinguish it, he says it's important, it's necessary. So the word he would use for the— Contents. Yeah, yeah, is, is— Content content. Content or concept? The same. Yes. The content is a concept, yes, but— Yes, okay. But we cannot get rid of concepts. We must not try to remove concepts from our experience.
English
We must end up recognizing that the concept is a concept and the reality is a reality. That's what we need to do. , Shi La, . Right. So then we are actually recognizing, uh, that component of—these components of the mind at work, these functions of the mind at work, perception is at work, and awareness is at work, and, you know— .
English
So there is, there is wisdom in, there is a— . There is clarity in the seeing, the—there is understanding of the different natures of what is being experienced. Brahma , Brahma .
English
He says, um, he says, um,
English
in the, the ideas of concepts and reality, he says, uh, yogis often get mixed up and they think that they have to remove the concepts or, or not know the concepts. But in fact, he says, what we need to do is know the concept and the reality distinctly, because they are different natures, but not because they are different.
English
Because in fact, what we are doing is conceptualizing the reality that we know.
English
Yeah? So concept is not so different from reality, but it's a conceptualization of the reality, because that's the only way that we can understand it is through the perception.
English
Yeah.
English
That is very useful for me to have another word other than object to, to talk about the other, the other layer. So that's good.
English
Yeah, you know, one of the definitions of wisdom is that it can discern, right? It discerns, it differentiates, it can tell the difference between things. So this is a, a layer of understanding that's necessary. Shi La
English
So at a basic level, Sayadaw talks about just the awareness and the, the object, right? The knowing and the knowing. But he says, when it's—when you've gone sort of beyond basic, when you know more, he says that means wisdom is part of the awareness.
English
Wisdom has started to work in the awareness, and that's why there is a distinct understanding of the different natures of what you're observing. Yeah, so it's not enough So that's why Sayadaw so often says that it's not enough to just see the object.
English
We must see what the mind is—what the mind is knowing. Because when the mind changes, when the mind understands differently, the mind sees the objects differently. Right? So we must be in touch with the mind and its, its view.
English
And a follow-up to that is that when dealing with
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objects of, of mind, it seems that that—for me, that, that distinction becomes less clear where to draw it. Is I—and
English
my, my wisdom is not able to discern. Is anger
English
the
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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.…