Q&AGaia House Retreat31 May 2015
Interview groups E and F · session 1 (priority for group E) — Middle Way, Right View, and Working with Dullness
Sayadaw U Tejaniya · 1 hr 42 min
Original audio: Burmese · English interpretation
0:00−1:42:53
Uses compressed audio.
AI-written summary
This group interview clarifies maintaining right attitude and right view while observing the mind's movements. Sayadaw explains working with sloth and torpor, relinquishing excessive effort, and understanding that objects are merely natural, selfless processes.
Topics
Talks in this retreat
Gaia House Retreat · 22 talks
- 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
- 41 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
- Viewing61 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
- 1123 minMorning Guided meditation — Recognizing the Workings of the Mind2 Jun 2015
Transcript
EnglishIt's Sunday, May 31, at Guy House with Sayadaw U Tejaniya, group B and F, session one. 2015.
English2015. 2015, in Guy House. 2015.
EnglishWhoever wants to go, Sayadaw says, "This is your chance."
EnglishTell him about your practice.
EnglishYour deep level. Yeah. Sayadaw? Um, I'm curious. I'm just, uh, today you said, uh, it's, uh, good to watch the mind, watch, uh, what's, uh, where it's moving, and, um, its behavior,
Englishand. No, he just said he just gave an example, and he said, "When you notice that, that is noticing the behavior, the movement of the mind." So, like, when you're watching something, then you notice the mind's attention goes to something else, but you're noticing the way the mind works. That's all. Mm-hmm.
EnglishOkay.
EnglishUh, on the other hand, I'm, um, often sucked into, uh, bad mood, sucked into, um, yeah. Mm-hmm. Feelings.
EnglishAs an object, it's quite good because it's very clear, right? It's hard to not know it. If I notice. If you notice, then please tell me. So just take it as an object.
EnglishDon't judge it. It's just something to know. Good things are objects, and unpleasant things are also objects. Just objects.
English He says we must have the desire to understand its nature. We want to understand, therefore we watch it. it's been interesting sheen in it, so in that, so we're hoping. When we find it interesting to watch one of these unpleasant emotions, um, at work, Sayadaw says, then you can say that you're practicing quite well.
English It's in yeah, it's interesting. it's a bad experience good. Sayadaw says, um, for a yogi to understand how to watch unpleasant or bad experiences with a detached mind, with a mind that is not feeling bad about watching it, that's a very important skill.
English - So it can be the peer. Watching mind, it can be the peer. But experience are suffering peers. Yeah. So that's, um, one of the first things we need to understand: that we can watch with equanimity while the object might be something like suffering.
English If we don't have this skill, it's hard to keep moving forward in the practice.
EnglishSo whether what you're observing is pleasant or unpleasant, the observing is equanimous. It observes equanimously that which is pleasant and that which is unpleasant, and it's the observing that's on the middle way.
EnglishThat's on the middle path, you know? Yeah.
English But how do we make this observing not biased? How does this observing remain equanimous? Sayadaw says, it becomes equanimous when we have understanding.
EnglishAnd the type of understanding we might have could include understanding that the object is just an object, it's something that's being known, or understanding that it's not me, it's just a process. So if we understand, truly understand in this way, when we watch, we can watch equanimously.
EnglishYes. Okay. Okay.
EnglishYeah. Uh, I've realized on this retreat that I've been practicing putting a lot of effort, um, concentrating a lot, and now I'm in this transition
Englishwhere I'm trying to back off and, and, um, I don't know whether lighten up is the right word, but, um, it's, um, kind of hard finding, finding my, um, my footing, um, not, not putting a lot of effort.
EnglishMm-hmm. To evaluate it. And tightness, uh, on the object, but, um, widening. It's, it's not easy.
EnglishGood habit. It's die hard. Okay. All have. Hold. All have. So it's, uh, there's a momentum of the way the mind usually works, and that momentum doesn't go away right away, so. You need to give it some time to settle.
English Yeah. So keep backing off. He says, "Yeah, that's correct."
EnglishStep back. Back off.
English Yeah. He says the old habit of focusing too much, too hard, um, and, and usually when we do that, greed sort of gets in as well.
EnglishSo Sayadaw says, having to break that habit, to reverse it, uh, to back off initially, it can feel. But really, backing off just means relaxing. There's two ways, Sayadaw says, that you might find yourself backed off.
EnglishUh, one is, Sayadaw says, relaxing. So relaxing your energy, and it feels like you have some space from the object. The other one is when you understand the difference between the knowing, what the observing, and what's object. When you understand this, it you also separate, backed off.
EnglishBut the second one is, is more because of understanding. You understand clearly that there are two different natures: the nature of the observing or the knowing, and the nature of the, the object, whatever you're knowing. When you know there's two different natures there in this field of awareness, then you, yeah.
EnglishHe says, and, you know, when you know two, it means that there's a third, and that's what knows there's two. So you're really backing off, you know? Yeah. Back. Twice off. Yeah.
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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.…