Part 1: Establishing the Anchor (The Core Purpose)
This is an excerpt from an interview on 2019-06-05, Week 2, Day 5, Group a2
Student: I needed advice.
Sayadaw's Primary Advice: Remember that the purpose of meditation is not to clear the mind and to get rid of problems or emotions—whether joy, sorrow, or whatever. Rather, it is to understand how they work.
The Problem: Because everything is coming together right now and the mind doesn't know what to pay attention to first, "Don't pay attention to them directly." You know they are there.
The Solution: Instead, you are going to make the awareness stronger. What you are going to do is use your body as the object. Use something simple, or you can use multiple things, whatever you choose.
The Choice: Now it's your choice. Choose one of the objects that feels interesting to you now. If you find something else more interesting later, you can change as well. But use those—use this stuff in your body.
Part 2: Building and Observing Awareness
The Instruction: As you are being aware, just keep in touch with the awareness, knowing that it is doing its work. During this time, it's not that you don't notice the rest of what is going on in the mind, but your attention is continually being placed on your anchor, whatever you use.
The Focus of Inquiry (The "How"): You are going to be interested in how your mind pays attention to the anchor you have chosen.
- How does the mind get in touch with its object?
- How does it sustain its attention?
- How does it stay interested?
- Is it aware? How long is it aware?
- When does it lose awareness? How does it come back?
Just be interested in the process of being aware with a neutral object.
Applying the Anchor:
- Sitting: You can start while sitting.
- Walking: Once you have the hang of it, you can do it while walking as well. When you are walking, also check: How does the mind get in touch with the object? How does it sustain its awareness? When it comes back, just recognize this.
Part 3: Transitioning to Thoughts and Feelings
The Stabilization Check: After you have done that—maybe not even a full day, or sometimes a day or two, it depends on yourself—you should check when the mind feels a bit more stable.
The Shift: When you feel the mind is more relaxed, a bit more settled, you can then choose to look at the other things going on.
- You start by noticing how they feel.
- When you know how they feel, you will also notice what the mind is thinking. This might happen altogether or separately; it doesn't matter.
The Important Note on Content: As the mind settles down into being aware, you'll notice that the other feelings and thoughts will simply be known. You don't have to worry about them; you just build the awareness. It's important to remember that the stories the mind tells us are not very important for now. We are interested in finding out how the mind gets in touch with feelings and how it recognizes thoughts—that is all.
Part 4: Troubleshooting and Adjusting Attitude
Dealing with Discomfort: While you are staying on the neutral object, it might be easier. Sometimes you'll find that you get annoyed with being aware.
- You then have to come back and check: "feeling annoyed."
- Other times, while on the neutral object, you may start remembering things that happened at home. You'll find that when you start remembering those, the mind does not feel comfortable. You then have to come and check that as well.
Intellectual Adjustment: We have to try to see if we can intellectually adjust the attitude a bit. Just tell yourself, "It's okay. I'm only having to watch it. It's just an object, it's nature. I just have to watch it for a while." See whether you can be in touch with it.
Stopping: If it feels worse, you can stop watching it and go back to something neutral—something the mind wants to watch.
Final Words: Just do that. Sayadaw says he always finds it interesting when somebody doesn't know what to do, because then he has a job to do. That is what he is here for. That is why we are sitting here.