Sayadaw U Tejaniya emphasizes a relaxed, continuous, and all-encompassing awareness (mindfulness) that focuses on the quality and attitude of the mind rather than strictly focusing on specific meditation objects or trying to control experiences.
The core of his advice involves:
🧘 Continuous Awareness in Daily Life
His key teaching is to cultivate awareness at all times—whether sitting, walking, standing, lying down, eating, or talking. The goal is for awareness to become a natural habit that sustains itself without excessive force or energy.
- Know What You're Doing: From the moment you wake up, know that you are awake. Know that you are getting out of bed, walking, washing your face, etc. Continuously know everything you are doing.
- Relaxed Effort (Right Effort): Don't use big bursts of effort or strain. Practice without tension or forcing yourself to concentrate hard. The effort should be a light, relaxed perseverance in simply reminding yourself to be aware. If you feel tense or tired, check your posture and attitude.
- The Object Isn't Important: The particular object (breath, sensation, sound) is secondary. Any object is the right object if the observing mind has the right attitude.
🧠Awareness of the Mind's Attitude
The most critical part of his practice is turning the awareness back onto the meditator's own mind and its state.
- Check the Watching Mind:The real importance is the observing mind that is working in the background to be aware. Regularly check how the mind is feeling while observing objects:
- Is it chaotic, calm, fatigued, or contracted?
- Is there an attitude of greed (wanting something, wanting a good experience)?
- Is there aversion (rejecting what is happening, trying to stop thinking)?
- Is there delusion (not knowing what is happening)?
- Right View: Practice with the understanding (wisdom) that everything is nature—all experiences, thoughts, and feelings arise due to causes and conditions and are not "I/me/mine."
- Be Interested and Accept: Accept, examine, and study whatever is happening as it is without trying to interfere, create preferred experiences, or make unwanted things stop. Be cool and calm; be interested.
- Strengthen the Mind: When awareness is present along with the right attitude and wisdom (the desire to know), the mind becomes stronger. This stronger mind can then do its job of understanding without requiring you to put in a lot of energy.
The process is one of recognizing and acknowledging the mental state and thoughts as they arise, not trying to prevent them. You simply watch to learn about the nature of the mind and its reactions.
If you'd like to hear Sayadaw U Tejaniya's instructions directly, here's a resource: The brief instruction about mindfulness meditation // Sayadaw U Tejaniya's Dhamma Interview. This video provides a direct brief instruction from Sayadaw U Tejaniya on the practice of mindfulness meditation.