Dhamma talkInsight Meditation Society Retreat7 May 2012
Taking practice into life
Sayadaw U Tejaniya · 12 min
Original audio: Burmese · English interpretation
0:00−12:23
Uses compressed audio.
AI-written summary
The teacher instructs yogis to bring practice into daily life by maintaining awareness while speaking and listening. Yogis should keep more attention on themselves than the other person, noticing eagerness and defilements to cultivate right speech and preserve momentum.
Topics
Talks in this retreat
Insight Meditation Society Retreat · 28 talks
- 161 hr 56 minGroup C 3 — Awareness of Mind, Sleepiness, and Rushing at Work6 May 2012
- 172 hr 3 minGroup D 3 — Continuity of Practice and Aversion6 May 2012
- 181 hr 47 minGroup E 3 — Investigation, Continuity, and Natural Working of the Mind7 May 2012
- 191 hr 49 minGroup F 3 — Seeing Object as Nature and Right View7 May 2012
- Viewing2012 minTaking practice into life7 May 2012
- 211 hr 44 minGroup A 4 — Recognizing Wisdom and Checking the Observing Mind8 May 2012
- 221 hr 38 minGroup B 4 — Observing Defilements, the Illusion of Self, and Cause-and-Effect Chain8 May 2012
- 231 hr 53 minGroup C 4 — Guarding Sense Doors and Staying with Awareness9 May 2012
- 241 hr 47 minGroup D 4 — Working with Wanting, Aversion and Awareness9 May 2012
- 251 hr 10 minDharma teachers group — Right Attitude, Interviewing and Sharing the Practice9 May 2012
Transcript
English
U Tejaniya. There's 3 days left of this retreat.
English
em. So he wants to give you all an opportunity.
English
And this is something that
English
is part of the instructions in the Satipatthana Sutta.
English
You're beginning to understand how to be aware of seeing and hearing. We're going to increase one more, and we're going to learn to be aware while we're talking.
English
. In the Satipatthana, it says that when talking, be aware, and when silent, be aware.
English
Now, all of you here are very skillful at being aware while you are silent.
English
But he's not sure how much awareness and wisdom is present when you talk.
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For yogis, it seems like
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it's hardest to practice when we are seeing and looking, listening, and hearing, and talking. . And that's simply because we lack practice.
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And anything that we lack practice in, we're not skillful at, we find difficult.
MY
[Burmese speech]
English
And
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talking is something that's very important in our lives, so it is something that we should practice with, really. .
[Burmese segment]
English
So from tomorrow,
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he would like you all to practice speaking with each other. He says please don't speak in the retreat center if possible. When you're outside, on your walks or something, you can practice a little bit, he said. And he says what's really important to remember is that
English
it is for the purpose of practicing when speaking and listening, and if you are able to remain aware, the momentum of your practice will not die. But if you're not able to be aware, the momentum will just go.
MY
If particularly if we speak with defilements in our mind, all this awareness, steadiness of mind and wisdom that we've been cultivating will seem to vaporize.
MY
So both persons speaking will need to be watching their own minds and be aware of what they say and how they listen.
English
What's very important to watch out for is eagerness to speak. He says we are so used to speaking with defilements, almost unnoticed in our minds. He says that instantly when we speak,
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you know, the defilements will flood in with our speech, and
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so please watch out for eagerness. He says you can recognize your voice, you can recognize how you feel, you can recognize how you think about
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what you're going to say. As far as the topics of conversation go, he would like you to minimize conversation that is going to lead to defilement, for example politics and so on.
English
Things that are of strong emotional value to you, perhaps you'd like to minimize that.
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You can speak about the Dharma with each other, or life in general.
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. Communication "a-pi-wa-pi-wa" . So when you're communicating with each other, do not put your attention completely at the other person. . He says generally we put our attending, our listening, and our looking with the other person.
English
We look and listen to the other person. But if we pay too much attention to that, the concepts of the person with us, he says, then you will lose awareness of yourself.
English
So you have to maintain more awareness of yourself. So more of your attention must remain within yourself than with the other person. .
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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.…