Q&AGaia House Retreat30 May 2015
Interview groups C and D · session 1 (priority for group C) — Working with Aversion, Right Attitude, and Everyday Habits
Sayadaw U Tejaniya · 1 hr 35 min
Original audio: Burmese · English interpretation
0:00−1:35:42
Uses compressed audio.
AI-written summary
This group interview explores recognizing anxiety, aversion, and greed during daily work and communication. Sayadaw explains the importance of knowing the mind and persevering to establish continuous awareness throughout the day.
Topics
Talks in this retreat
Gaia House Retreat · 22 talks
- 11 hr 30 minOpening instructions and questions — Cultivating the Mind with Right View29 May 2015
- 223 minMorning Guided meditation — Concept Versus Reality30 May 2015
- 31 hr 43 minInterview groups A and B · session 1 (priority for group A) — Open Awareness and Working with Resistance to Pain30 May 2015
- Viewing41 hr 36 minInterview groups C and D · session 1 (priority for group C) — Working with Aversion, Right Attitude, and Everyday Habits30 May 2015
- 529 minMorning Guided meditation — Three Yogi Jobs and Right Attitude31 May 2015
- 61 hr 43 minInterview groups E and F · session 1 (priority for group E) — Middle Way, Right View, and Working with Dullness31 May 2015
- 71 hr 46 minInterview groups A and B · session 2 (priority for group B) — Natural Speed, Concept and Reality, and Working with Craving31 May 2015
- 826 minMorning Guided meditation — Right View and Right Attitude Towards Experiences1 Jun 2015
- 91 hr 26 minInterview groups C and D session 2 with priority for group d to speak — Protecting the Knowing Mind and Practicing with Fear1 Jun 2015
- 101 hr 42 minInterview groups E and F session 2 with priority for group f to speak — Being Aware of Thinking and Knowing Without Focusing1 Jun 2015
Transcript
English
It's Saturday, May 30, group CND, session 1.
English
In Gaia House. At Gaia House. What did you just do?
English
Whoever wishes to— Hold on. Thanks. So, uh, I guess I want to start by saying that my practice has
English
changed since I was at Shwe Oo Min in January, February. I'm— it's quite amazed, my experience beginning here versus the first couple of weeks there. So I just want to acknowledge that. It feels important to me to recognize.
English
I was so overwhelmed with thinking, having been accustomed to just going back to an object. This different model was just overwhelming. And lost in the aversion, and then the aversion to the aversion. And there's still thinking,
English
and some of it of an unwholesome, not-useful nature, but none of the rest is there.
English
So... the right attitude has
English
established the soul. Yeah. And just kind of, for me to step back and realize too that this is a process. It's not— even though intellectually I could read in the book, right attitude, it just wasn't happening. And it needed to be okay, and it just didn't, you know? I don't know. Anyhow.
[Burmese segment]
English
And so
English
anxiety is what I would like to talk about. I'm noticing if I'm—
English
if anxiety is known,
English
what I'm doing is
English
knowing it, and
English
going to, like, a neutral place in the body. It changes my— Especially if it feels overwhelming. If I feel like I'm going to be lost in it. But the ground looks harder. Right. So you ground the mind. Yeah. And so I stay usually in my feet or my hands, and then go back. And sometimes it dissolves.
[Burmese segment]
English
But today I had an interesting experience with anxiety. I realized I was going to be late to get back here at lunch. I was out in those fields, way far away. And so it was kind of like running to catch the plane. Of course.
English
Cows are in the way. And so just realizing the difference between the other experiences of anxiety and this one of, you know, the heart beating fast, and just seeing craving, "I want to get back. I want to get back in time. I want to get back in time." And trying to
English
rush and be kind of feeling in the body, the tension and the heart beating and sweating and the craving to get back.
English
How do you work with anxiety in those circumstances? You don't have to do anything to it.
English
I mean, when you say, "How do you work with it?" it suggests that you think that if you did something in the right way it would go away. But there's nothing to do. It's there, you watch it, you learn from it. That's all. When we have a desire for anything to happen, a lot, like, "I need to get back in time."
English
So the stronger that desire, the more the anxiety, because of the not knowing what to do. If we understand this connection, that it's the desire to get somewhere quickly and not knowing whether we can make it that's causing the anxiety, Sayadaw says, then we can— he says we can choose to do something quickly if we want, without the desire or the anxiety.
English
Maybe you do need to hurry. Like, let's not use the word hurry. You need to have speed. But you can just have speed without the, you know, the excess needing. Anxiety that will not go. Well, whether you can get there in time is, well, it'll happen if it does, and not if it doesn't.
English
But you can still speed up.
English
And then what happens? And if you're late, he said, "What does it matter?"
English
Telling her it's late for her lunch if I'm late. He's like. Sayadaw says, in life we will come across many situations like this, right?
English
Where we need to hurry, need to speed up to get something done. Sayadaw says, and we can choose to do things with speed and do things quickly without the anxiety. So we know we need to. So you watch yourself either running here, or if the anxiety is already there, then you just run and watch the anxiety all the way.
English
I do, I know the proper word, I know. You can. It's just another object. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what I did. A little bit. But it was just that feeling of, is this right? There's some other way? So long as you're aware, on the way back, Sayadaw says, something is being learned.
English
And then as you kept watching, what happened to the anxiety?
English
I'm sorry? As you kept watching, as you were returning, what happened to the feelings of anxiety? I could, I mean, it was very clear to me. I could see, this is craving. And I could feel it in the body. Feel all the contraction and 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.…