Basic Skills and Understanding

I want to remind you of what we talked last week, maybe
some of you have good memories and will remember quite
a lot. Memory lasts a very short time, some people say that
if you hear something once, after one day you remember ten
per cent, after two or three days you remember five per cent,
after a week you remember one or two per cent. So to make
your memory stronger you have to revise things again and again,
especially when you get older it is difficult to remember things,
especially short term memory. So, I want to remind you of a few
things I talked about last week.

Do you remember the simile I gave about gardening? It
is always very important to remember that simile, always to remember
that meditation is cultivating... bhavana means cultivation,
to make something grow. So, in order to cultivate you need to prepare
the land, remove all the weeds, rocks, stones, all
the rubbish, until the land becomes soft, then enrich the land,
put some natural fertilizer especially, and water the land, prepare
the land properly so that when you put seeds in it, seeds
will sprout easily, will take root easily. Even after that you can't
forget about it, you can't leave it like that, you have to go and
check every now and then to see if some weeds are growing
again, because it is quite natural for weeds to grow easily, it is
harder to grow a flower, a vegetable or a crop, than to grow
weeds. Weeds grow naturally, weeds are very hard to kill, very
hard to uproot. That's why farmers spend a lot of time weeding
and weeding.

When we meditate that is
what we do most of the time,
we are weeding most of the time, and
enriching the soil also.
What do we do to enrich our mind? We cultivate metta,
karuna (compassion), to be more thoughtful, kinder, and more
considerate to yourself and others. We do not have a right to
be cruel even to ourselves. Some people say "I suffer for other
people" I think this is not right attitude, I think nobody should
suffer! So cultivate kindness to yourself and kindness to other
people, and that means also keeping the precepts. If you are
really kind to yourself and if you are really kind to other people
then you are already keeping five precepts because you cannot
break precepts without being unkind to yourself and to others.
One person said... "I don't kill, I don't steal, I don't commit
adultery and I don't cheat, but I drink...I am not causing harm
to anybody. I just like to drink a little bit..." but then you are
harming yourself and indirectly, when we are harming ourselves
we harm others too. We are all connected, related, you cannot
harm yourself without harming other people, without harming
your parents, without harming your spouse, without harming
your children, without harming your friends.

So we are all related, connected.
We cannot harm anybody
without harming ourselves or
without harming somebody else.
Not harming is very important.

Here is a very beautiful poem which expresses what I am
trying to say:

"What power of man can grow a rose?" this is the question
"what power of man can grow a rose?" "Prepare the soil", that is
what I am talking about "and the rose itself will grow, brought
into being by some force within", so prepare the soil!!

To achieve peace it requires that we have the courage of
our convictions; we have the courage to value something... So
what do we value? As meditators we value mindfulness, peace
and quietness of mind, we value contentment, we value deep
insight, we value liberation, freedom and to use another Pali
word we value Nibbana, ultimate peace, ultimate freedom.

So, if achieving peace requires we have the courage of our
convictions it also requires an unrelenting consistency, very
important...unrelenting consistency. If we really value
mindfulness we have to try our best to be mindful always.
It is very important, unrelenting consistency... we cannot say that...
well... now this is the time from four o' clock to five o'clock I'll
be mindful and after five o'clock I'll be unmindful, we cannot
say that.

The person who really understands
what meditation means, what mindfulness means,
has no timetable for meditation.

What does that mean? A person who really understands
what it really means, what happens in the mind when it is really
mindful and what happens to the mind when it is not mindful,
if the person understands the difference, then he will never say
that "this is the time to be mindful and that is the time not to be
mindful", there is no choice.

To be unmindful, means you are allowing your thoughts to
create all sorts of negativity, because in our surroundings there
are a lot of things contributing negativity, contributing greed,
contributing selfishness. They are making us become greedier,
more selfish, more unsatisfied, and more discontent. When I
talked about discontentment in America I said "If you are content
you can reduce the cost of your living to half, because we
are spending so much unnecessarily." One person said "If you
reduce spending to half, that will cause a breakdown in the
economy, you should not do that, you should spend more." They
are only thinking about the spending for the economy only, not
spirituality. Here you have to make a big choice, what do you
value? Is it to develop your inner qualities, your spirituality or
just to keep up with the Jones's?

There is no short cut to really
developing our inner qualities, there is no easy way.
In America they advertise meditation courses: in three days
you'll become enlightened, you have to pay a thousand dollars,
it will take you only three days to become enlightened....
there is no short cut like that, you cannot buy enlightenment.
You have to develop your inner qualities slowly, and slowly to
understand very deeply about all the good things and all the bad
things about yourself.

Even when you see bad things in you, you have to be very
open and very compassionate, with acceptance you see it as
something not personal, see all the greed, anger, frustration,
pride, jealousy, as something natural. When you feel guilty about
such kind of thoughts you are reinforcing ego again. When you
can see greed, envy, jealousy and pride as something natural
then this seeing mind has equanimity. It is not upset; it is not
happy or unhappy about it.

If you can see with mindfulness,
with equanimity then whatever comes up that
tries to take over, the ego does not feed the defilements.
Defilements are not afraid of being attacked.
No matter how much you try
to attack defilements they will not lose the battle,
they become even stronger.
Defilements which mean greed, anger, frustration, envy,
jealousy, pride are afraid of being looked at very straight, looked
at with equanimity, looked at with wisdom, and looked at as
something natural, not a being, not me, not mine, not myself.
We have to be mindful all the time, doing the right thing all the
time.

Especially with what happens in meditation. You sit and
meditate; your mind becomes very calm and peaceful. Then a
flash of insight comes into your mind, you see that you made a
mistake, or you see that there is something you needed to do and
you forgot to do it. Immediately get a piece of paper and write it
down, don't let it be forgotten, it is very important. Our nature
is that we are naturally and spiritually intelligent, but this
forgetfulness and other things that make us greedy, very often take
over our minds. So we forget to do good things. Whenever some
flash of insight occurs in your mind, get it, catch it, get a piece
of paper and write it down. Then try to put that into practice as
soon as possible. In your meditation when you realise you have
made a mistake or you have said something wrong, said something
which is not really true; you must correct that mistake as
soon as possible.

If you want to develop deep insight,
put into practice as soon as possible what
you understand to be the right thing to do.
If you do just this one thing I assure you that you
can develop your very deep spiritual qualities.
This is something that my teacher told me a long time ago
and I found it to be true in my own practice.

Many people came to him and asked him many questions
and he answered hundreds of questions every day. Some people
even asked him very simple questions like "my knee hurts,
should I go and see a doctor" Questions like that; they came and
ask to my teacher because they cannot decide for themselves.
But he was always very compassionate he always gave them the
answer that they needed. Then many times he said,

"Be more mindful, your mind will tell you the right thing to do".

It sounds very simple, unbelievable, but if you really do the
right thing that your mind tells you to do, it will tell you more
and more. I call it 'it' as it is not something personal; your mind
is not something personal. It will tell you the right thing to do
because in our nature we know what is right and what is wrong,
in most cases, I mean we know it.

Not only humans. I read a book about somebody training
a chimpanzee, The Education of Coco they made it into a
television show. I know the trainer who trained the chimpanzee.
They have many trainers but one of them was the chief
trainer, an anthropologist I think. One of the trainers, when
leaving his shift, said to the trainer who was taking over, that
the chimpanzee that day was causing a lot of trouble, that he
was very naughty, something like that. This chimpanzee was
so intelligent that she could understand human language and
she was so angry, jumping, because somebody was saying that
she was bad. Then she said "no... telling a lie...lying... lying."
that the trainer was lying. Then when this first trainer left (she
does not like this first trainer) the other trainer was more
sensitive to the chimpanzee, she could understand the chimpanzee's
feelings more intimately. So she tried to calm Coco down and
asked what happened, Coco said "I was bad" she admitted that.
Even the chimpanzee knew she was bad, she got into trouble.
How much more a human being can know!! Although we know
what is right and what is wrong we don't always do the right
thing we don't always try to avoid the wrong thing and if we
know something and we don't do it, what is the point of trying
to know more and more.

No matter how much
we know if we don't put it into practice,
what is the point of knowledge.
Another day when the trainer came, the chimpanzee was very
upset again. The trainer asked the chimpanzee what happened
and the chimpanzee said "cat bad", (she can speak sign language,)
the trainer asked why? The chimpanzee said "cat killed
bird" she can make all the signs even speaking in sentences. You
see the chimpanzee knows that it is not good to hurt another
being, and she was very upset about it, because she felt for the
bird. Another day many visitors came to see Coco, because she
was becoming very famous, many people came to see her and
one visitor looked at Coco and said "beautiful" (using sign
language) and when the visitor said Coco is beautiful, do you know
what Coco said? Can you guess? With American Sign Language
she said "lying". She scratched her nose, so they understood,
"lying", and she didn't like that, for even a chimpanzee which is
very close to a human being, can understand that it is not good
to lie; it is not good to kill.

We know that, if we don't put into practice what we know
there is no point in trying to find out more. If you put into
practice what you know is the right thing to do, then your mind will
let you know more and more; this is very encouraging. When I
first found out about this truth I felt very happy about it. I have
the quality, the ability to know. When many people asked my
teacher many questions my teacher said "try to be more mindful
and your mindfulness will let you know the right thing to do".

Unless you do something everyday to make yourself feel that
you are becoming a better person, which means, to be more
loving, more compassionate, more caring and sharing, more mindful,
more understanding, then there is bound to be a feeling of
failure. Unless you do that you may feel your life is a failure.

"What am I doing... just going around and around". As you
get older and older you feel the failure more and more. If we
develop our inner qualities every day we feel better and better
about ourselves. "Oh! Another day has gone and I have developed
some good qualities. I am becoming more understanding
more loving, more caring, more sharing, more compassionate"
and that will make you very happy.

Take small steps to improve yourself every day,
consistently and with determination,
it gets easier as you go on.
As long as you head in the right direction and
keep going you'll get there.

Actually, we know quite a lot but many of us like to procrastinate.
"I'll do it later", many of us procrastinate like that hoping
that if we delay we'll be better equipped to take up the job later.
We need to learn more and more about how to do this... how
to do that... we think that if we know more then we will be able
to do it more easily, but that is not the truth. If you do what you
know, that will make it easier for you to learn more and more.
So, doing and knowing should go together. If you just do one
thing that you know how to do, if you take but one step forward
something will happen to make the second step easier.

There is a power within you greater
then you realize, it awaits you,
NOW!
So do what you know now and it will make
it easier for you to do the next thing.

As we use what is in hand, then greater opportunities are
given. Use your knowledge now; if you use it, then you will get
more knowledge, from yourself and also from your teachers
too. Teachers will come to you, or you will be there where your
teacher is, so, use what is yours to use today, your motivation,
knowledge, ability, today's resources are sufficient for today's
task and what you need tomorrow it will come, which means
don't wait until tomorrow, you already know what to do now,
do it now! This is the most important thing.

I got very simple instructions from my meditation teacher,
just to sit very relaxed, deeply breathing in, breathing out...
feeling more and more relaxed, keep the mind on breathing,
very simple instructions like that. After that he said go through
the whole body from the head to toes, check all the sensations
in the body. Those simple instructions I practiced for six years,
no more instructions; that was just enough. Just sitting breathing
in and breathing out, feeling more relaxed and after that
going through the whole body, seeing whatever sensation there
is. It might be cold or hot, pain, tension, ache or it might be
just feeling good. Sometimes it feels very good, so I am aware of
that, feeling very relaxed... very peaceful... sometimes thoughts
come in... just watch the thoughts... see the nature of them
and they will go away.

Everything comes and goes,
we don't need to push it away,
and it will go away by itself.

I did that for six years, not in a hurry and later another
teacher told me that you can practice meditation while walking
too! I didn't know about it before. I thought at first to meditate
meant to sit in full lotus, so I tried to sit in full lotus and,
actually it was not difficult for me. The first thing I heard about
meditation was... you sit like this... and keep your hands like
this...and meditate, I thought this is the only position that you can
meditate. Then later somebody told me that you can meditate
while walking, that was a surprise for me... so, I said "Really?
How do you do that?" The person was actually my friend, we
were living in a hostel in university". He was next to me and
sometimes we talked about Dhamma and he said "You can meditate
while walking"... "How do you do that?" He said "You
can be mindful of breathing while walking... quite simple... you
don't need to change your object of meditation, try to be mindful
of breathing while you are walking" or he said "You can be
mindful of each step... you can do that too". So, when everybody
was asleep I just walked around the university campus trying,
just very happy to experiment with it. I was very interested
in doing that. It was very nice, quiet and cool also. I think it
was in December and in the northern hemisphere it is a cold
season. Walking around the university campus very excited...
"Oh really it works! It really works!"

Later we discussed about meditation and he said that you
can meditate anywhere.

No special place, but
if you have a special place it is good,
but if you don't it does not matter
you can meditate anywhere.
There was a Chinese cemetery in the east of our university,
a big cemetery, we crossed over the hill and went there. It was
very nice like a park, even clean. We would sit and meditate
there for a while and then come back. Sometimes late in the
night when we could not go to the Chinese cemetery, I went
to the tennis court where there were benches to sit and nobody
there at night. So I meditated there, very peacefully.

Learning a few things at a time and
immediately putting them into practice.
That is the most important thing to do,
don't wait for more knowledge.
Do what you know right now,
that will make you know more and more.

So when you are really doing something and somebody gives
you advice, you know the value of that advice because you are
already doing it. If you are doing something and are having
difficulty, and somebody comes and tells you... "Oh, if you do it
like this it will solve your problems", immediately you use that
knowledge and solve the problem and you know the value of
that advice. However if you are not doing anything and somebody
tells you how to do something again and again, you won't
learn anything, you don't value their advice.

It is very, very important to prepare. There are many things
we should think about. What you eat affects your mind and body.
A meditator should be aware of that and should be sensitive to
that. Recently somebody told me that his meditation was very
good. He felt very calm and peaceful and he asked me, why? In
fact he should ask himself "What have I done right?", and if it
is not good you have to ask yourself "What have I done wrong."
You should think about how much you ate and if you ate a big
meal before you sat and meditated, I am sure that won't be a very
good sitting. Even the quality of your food, if you eat for instance
too much fried, oily fatty food it will make your mind dull, and
it affects your mind. If you drink too much coffee it makes your
mind agitated. It depends on the right balance. If you like to
drink coffee, drink just the right amount, just to keep you alert,
but don't drink too much because it will agitate your mind.

Also what you talk about it is very important. If you talk about
something that causes agitation in the mind, then you go and sit,
your meditation will not be very good. It is quite natural that what
you talk about affects your mind very much. That's why in Burma
(Myanmar) in some meditation centres, here also, the teachers
instruct the students not to talk. In our daily life it is not
possible for us not to talk, so we should be careful what we talk
about and how much we talk. If we talk mindfully and we are talking
about
something not useful we will be able to cut it short.

I am not trying to push you
to live an ideal daily life, it is not possible.
I understand how difficult it is for
a lay person to live daily life.
However if you are mindful
you'll know how and what you talk about affects
your mind, affects your meditation.

If you talk about something unwholesome, something that
makes you greedy, angry or upset, it makes you feel hopeless
and depressed and it will affect your meditation. If possible, talk
about something positive, something encouraging, and even
though the situation is not a happy one, you can see it from a
positive angle and learn something from it... "This is a lesson I
need to learn... this is something that is teaching me to be more
patient. This is teaching me to be more content". Even when
somebody says something bad about you... "Oh this person is
testing my forgiveness, how much I can forgive, how much I can
maintain my equanimity". If you look at it from that point of
view it helps your meditation.

Your peace of mind also depends with
whom you are associating,
if you associate with those people who are loving,
kind, generous, mindful and peaceful,
it helps your meditation.

But if you are associating with people who are unmindful,
jumpy, talking about one thing after another or unkind, angry,
upset, greedy or proud, they will affect you negatively. So whatever
happens to us in our daily life affects our mind and affects
our meditation.

For meditation it is very important to
understand how food affects your mind.

I do that all the time. I watch what I eat and how much I
eat; sometimes I eat too much because I don't want to throw
things away. When people throw away food I feel very bad about
it. But very carefully as much as possible I try to get the right
amount of food, the right kind of food. When I eat the wrong
food my stomach won't digest, it will stay a long time in the
stomach, I don't have energy, and the mind gets dull. If you
eat the wrong kind of food it becomes poison to your body. For
example I cannot eat anything made with milk because I cannot
digest lactose. When I eat milk or anything made from milk my
stomach becomes poisoned.

Not only food but what we see poisons our mind as well.

We are more concerned about our physical body only. We
think so much about our physical body but not enough about
our mind. We are careful enough not to poison our body, however
many people are poisoning their body eating the wrong
food, junk food. Similarly what we see can poison our mind,
what we hear can poison our mind because ideas are coming
into our minds; ideas are poison for the mind. We need to be
very careful of how our ideas affect our minds especially with
our children. Be careful of what they are getting on the television,
what they hear from their friends, what kind of ideas they
are getting. Also be very careful about how, what you see and
what you hear affects your mind. A good meditator should be
careful of that.

Clothing is important;
when you meditate it is much better to
wear loose fitting clothes, not very expensive,
just simple clothes.

Food affects you, what you talk about affects you, what you
see affects you, what you hear affects you, what you wear affects
you and your surroundings affect you. It is best to meditate in a
very peaceful and clean place.

The place should be very clean,
like this, it is very clean here,
with a quiet peaceful atmosphere,
because a lot of people here are trying to
cultivate their spirituality and
that affects the place too.

Sometimes we have no choice and the place is not suitable
to meditate in. In that case what shall we do? I'll tell you what
I did. It is very useful; I do it all the time, every day. I'll tell
you
the story so you'll get the idea very well. Once I was in America
living in a monastery and there were about seven or eight
monks and more than twenty people in the place. It had been a
school for children but this meditation group bought that school
and made it into a monastery, actually into a meditation centre.
I was the only English speaking monk in that monastery and I
talked a lot all day, from about five o'clock in the morning until
eleven or twelve in the night. Sometimes I got very tired and
distressed, sometimes so many people around making so much
noise, it disturbed my mind. I told one friend it is very difficult
to meditate here and to relax and sometimes I want to relax
I can't ignore the noise and relax. So when I wanted to relax
I wrote on a piece of paper 'please don't disturb' and I would
stick that paper on the door outside my room. But there were
so many people who needed to talk to me they would come and
knock at the door, take off the paper and show it to me saying
that "Maybe you forgot to take off the paper".

So no time to rest... all day... talking... talking... I want
to run away, to go away, I can't do it anymore. I told my friend
"What to do now? I can't go on doing like this for a long time,"
so my friend said... "I am very sorry! Let's go into the redwood
forest". The monastery is in a redwood forest, we walked up
the hill, it was a very nice place, the moment we walked outside
it was forest, no houses. In that area they don't allow many
houses. One house here and you walked one mile and found
another house. We walked out of the monastery, the path was
very simple, just rocks and gravel and up the hill we go, down
the hill and then climb another hill and found a very nice spot.
They had cut down the trees and when they did that small trees
grew again from the roots, and they grew like a ring and inside
that area the redwood tree needles filled the gap and it is like
a bed, soft. We spread a cloth on there and we sat there and
meditated. It is very nice to meditate in the redwood forest, very
quiet and peaceful. Sometimes we lay down and took a nap in
the afternoon and then came back to the monastery.

That helped quite a lot, but sometimes I could not go out
so what I did was I just sat in my room imagining that I was back
in my monastery in Burma. Don't think that imagination is useless...
it affects my mind very much. So I sat there... breathing
in, breathing out... relax and relaxing... the mind became a
little bit calmer.... The way to my monastery goes through rice
paddy fields, on the left and on the right green paddy fields, very
wide and the wind blowing, very cool and I can hear the birds.
I go slowly and slowly imagining that I was really there walking
on that road, feeling the temperature, the wind, the sound, the
smell of the rice fields and then going across a small wooden
bridge. There is a small waterfall near the bridge, in my imagination
I would be there and sit there for a while, listening to the
water falling and also the wind blowing very cool. Then from
there after I crossed the bridge I climbed a very gentle slope
going up the hill to my monastery. It goes through a small opening
and on the side there is a cliff, so in between there a small
road about eight or ten feet wide with bamboo groves and other
small trees growing. So I would go through that place, climb the
hill very slowly and I get to the top where it is flat. Not many big
trees up there so I can look and see everything around. I look
far away and see the mountains to the east, the Shan hills and I
keep going slowly and slowly, feeling everything in that area in
the surroundings and then after that I have to go slowly down
the hill again to get to my monastery. The slope goes down
slowly and slowly and as I go down into my monastery the trees
are becoming bigger and bigger because people don't cut down
trees in the monastery.

Outside the monastery they are cut
down. As I go into the monastery trees become taller and taller,
shadier and also quieter because the trees absorb noise, so as
you go into the trees it becomes quieter, cooler.Then I would go
deep into my monastery. In the middle of the monastery there
is a clear space without trees. Near that place is the shrine room
and the meditation hall, not as big as this, it is quite small. I go
into my meditation hall shrine room and close the door. As I go
into my monastery, even physically when I go there, I feel that
I am leaving the whole noisy, busy world behind, ... the noisy,
busy world... it has nothing to do with my place. My monastery
is just outside the world. Not disconnected... it is in touch with
the world but outside the world;
that is the way we feel about it.
I go into the monastery and I feel that the noisy, busy world is
left behind. I get into the place, pay respect to the Buddha, sit
down and meditate. That takes about five minutes to imagine
but that imagination affects my mind very much.
If you cannot find a suitable place to meditate,
try to do that. You imagine that you are into your
ideal meditation place.
Take your time, slowly and slowly.
When your mind believes that and accepts
that it affects your mind.

You know that you are imagining,
you know that it is not real but
even though it is not real
it has real effect on your mind and
that is the most important thing.

You sit down and meditate; the mind becomes very calm
and peaceful. If you imagine bad things it affects your mind in
a bad way, if you imagine good things it affects your mind in a
good way, it is quite natural, so try to do that.

Last week I talked about wholesome thinking: any kind of
thought that is wholesome. We can't make ourselves not think
about anything at all because thoughts are coming and going
all the time, but sometimes we have a choice to turn our mind
towards wholesome thoughts. Try as much as possible throughout
the day to do that. When you get used to doing that your
mind will stay in that wholesome state mind more and more and
whenever unwholesome thoughts come to your mind you find
that your mind becomes uneasy, not peaceful, agitated, tired...
you feel the difference.

Some people are so used to thinking unwholesome thoughts
that they like to think unwholesome thoughts, they like to be
angry and upset most of the time. I know some people like that.
I asked one of them, "Why do you want yourself to get angry,
you are making yourself angry, do you know that?" He said "Yes
I know I'm making myself angry" and I asked him "Why do you
do that?" This person knows that he is making himself angry,
deliberately thinking about bad things, and he said that "When
I am angry I feel I have more energy". Some people do that to
make themselves angry so that they have more energy and this
person will try to think about all the things that go wrong about
government, weather, food, about everything in the newspaper,
in the television, something is always wrong for him. I asked
him "Why do you want to see all the faults?" We are very close
friends and we can talk very openly. He said "If you don't know
what is wrong then you are stupid!" What is he trying to prove?
He is trying to prove that he is not stupid by looking at all the
things that go wrong.

When we get upset, try to look deep inside.
Why are we doing that?
What are we are trying to prove?
What do we get from that?
Whenever we do something we expect something,
so... what do we get from getting upset?
He was trying to prove that he is not stupid; also he wanted to
be more energetic. Another thing I found out was that this person
was not doing anything wholesome.
When you are really interested
in doing something wholesome and useful whether worldly
or meditation, then you have no time to have unwholesome
thoughts, no time to look around and find faults in people. Those
who are not doing something wholesome will naturally do something
unwholesome, you cannot stay in between. For most people
there are only two ways: to be wholesome or to be unwholesome.

When you become used to keeping your mind peaceful and
calm and relaxed, the moment any kind of
unwholesome thoughts come into the mind
you'll see the difference.
You become unpeaceful agitated,
hot, you become tired.

When I talked about keeping the five precepts with another
person that person asked me "How long do I need to keep the
five precepts intact to start to meditate?" This is a very valid
question, a good question. Some people say that first of all you
have to develop your sila (morality), you have to keep the five
precepts, your sila intact before you meditate but how long? It is
very difficult to say how long, so I asked this question to some of
my teachers, and I also tried to find out what the texts say and I
got a very reasonable answer.

The answer is it does not matter how long;
the only thing that matters is your sincerity.
If you decide right now
"I will not harm myself, I will not harm anybody else"
from that moment you can start to meditate.
If you still have in your mind that you'll harm somebody even
though you meditate you cannot really develop deep concentration,
peacefulness and insight because you need the intention
not to harm yourself and others. Intentionally make a decision
and that is a necessity. Honestly make a decision "I'll not harm
myself and I will not harm anybody else", with sincerity.

If you can make the decision from
that moment you are ready to meditate.
It all goes together, sila, metta and vipassana bhavana
(morality, loving kindness and insight meditation),
they all go together, and you cannot leave anything separate.
We have a tendency to keep things separate.

Each aspect of our life is connected with
other aspects of our life,
this is very important especially for meditators.
Each aspect of our life it is connected to
every other aspect of our life.

Whatever you do, it will affect your meditation,
either in a good way or in a bad way.
This truth is the basis for our awakened life.
This is the basis.

Someone who was a member of a meditation centre in
Burma, he was a business man and in his business dealings he was
dishonest. So one of his friends pointed that out; "Look you are
meditating to develop your spiritual qualities to attain liberation,
something very noble and high but in your business dealings you
are not really honest". He was cheating a little bit and everybody
does that; he was not exceptionally bad but he was just normally
bad. So this businessman said "The two are different, when I go
to the meditation centre I meditate and I try do develop
my spiritual qualities to attain liberation but when
I am doing business it is business, it is another matter!"
No way can you do that!! Keep
this in mind and see what you are doing and see if what you are
doing is appropriate to your spiritual ideals, what your ideal is,
and always keep your ideal in your mind and always check with
everything you do whether what you are doing now will harm
your spiritual practice or will support your spiritual practice.

What counts is how we live our daily life.
How constructively we use the resources that we have and
how lovingly we treat the people around us. The two keys to
successful living are attunement to spirituality and service to
our fellow man, the two go together. If we harm anybody in any
way it will harm our spiritual practice. Søla has many aspects.
Keeping five precepts and whenever we use something we have
to reflect why we are using it. When we eat something we have
to reflect on it, "Why do I eat?" When we use clothing also "why
do I use this clothing?" If we don't reflect on that then greed will
take over, and we will eat greedily and we will wear clothes with
greed, just to show off. Whenever we see or hear something
try to be very mindful, so that we will not react automatically.
When you go down the road, go down to busy shopping centres
try to be mindful. See what happens. Our eyes looking here and
there all the time and we try to listen to many things. We are
not trying to be mindful at that moment and when we are not
mindful then we become more and more agitated.

There are other things that hinder our spiritual attainments.
One is killing one's mother. If one has killed one's mother one
cannot attain magga-phala (the path and fruition), one can
meditate and he will not achieve supramundane consciousness,
because to kill a mother, to kill a father, to kill an Arahant and
to cause injury to a Buddha affects the mind very badly. Wrong
views are also very important! If somebody thinks that there is no
such thing as wholesome or unwholesome actions, everything is
the same, if somebody believes that if you do something good it
will not give any good result, if you do something bad it will not
give you any bad results, if a person believes that sort of wrong
view he cannot attain any spiritual goal. I know you don't have
those sorts of wrong views.

If even mentally you have accused anybody, any fellow
meditator even, if you have any bad thoughts about that person,
remember that, and ask for forgiveness. Please tell yourself
"I have made a mistake". It is very important to have positive
thoughts about each other. If you have any negative thoughts
about each other or any other people who are meditating, that
unkind negative thought can hinder your progress. That's why
when we sit and meditate first of all we try to develop this feeling
of belonging, connectiveness, support, loving kind thoughts.
It is very important to do that. Whenever we sit and meditate
whether in group or alone, first think of those people and try to
develop mettæ for them, "I support their practice". If you don't
support their practice then you feel isolated, you feel very selfish.
When some meditators accuse each other, I have noticed that
that caused them guilty feelings and agitation and that destroys
their concentration.

This is another important point here; somebody asked me a
similar question few days ago. There are some people who have
been meditating for quite a long time but mostly they are doing
only one thing for example sitting and trying to be mindful all
the time of breathing, breathing in and out, just one thing

The Buddha said
"Cattaro Satipatthana (MN i.56),
Four Foundations of Mindfulness"
We have to practice all four foundations of mindfulness not
just one. To really develop deep insight we need to develop all
four. The first is kayanupassana, mindfulness of the body and
I'll go into that later in detail, the second is vedananupassana,
mindfulness of feelings, even in kayanupassana there are many
aspects. Another is cittanupassana, mindfulness of thoughts;
another is dhammanupassana which generally means the content
of any consciousness. Try to develop as much as possible
all four.

The Satipatthana meditation is all inclusive,
it is not exclusive.
Samatha meditation is exclusive,
you choose one thing and you leave everything else out.
But vipassana meditation is that first you start with one thing
slowly and slowly you take in more and more, be aware of everything
happening in your body and in your mind, in your eyes,
ears, nose, tongue, body, everywhere.

Whenever we want to learn how to do something we need
a method from somebody. We have enough methods in the Pali
texts and there are a lot of teachers around as well. To learn the
method is not very difficult anymore.

However one important thing is to clarify
whether you have understood it well or not,
you must ask questions.

Don't just listen and make notes and go away; ask questions.
This is the best way to learn. Either in meditation or any
other kind of learning, those who really ask more questions, I
mean really thinking and asking questions and really listening,
do understand more. And asking again and again until you get it
very clear is the best way to learn. Discussion is very important.
Learn the method; ask questions to clarify and practice; and as
you practice you'll find some difficulties coming up. Whenever
you have difficulty ask your teacher, talk with your teacher, take
their advice.

In most cases if you keep on practicing you get your own
answers, this is true. We lived in the forest most of the time and
we were very far away from our teachers. We can only see our
teachers once a month. So, when we meditate and have difficulties
we say "I will ask this to my teacher when I go to see him"
and then we go on meditating and one day the answer comes in
the mind and we don't have to ask anymore. With many other
of my students also, I go to their city sometimes and when I go
away and they have difficulties, they write down their questions
about their difficulties thinking that "I'll ask my teacher when
he comes", but they keep meditating really earnestly, honestly,
whole heartedly and then they find their own answers. So when
I go and see them many of them say "I wrote down a lot of
questions to ask you when you came but as I keep meditating I
find my own answers so now I don't have many questions just
one or two".

If you keep meditating you'll find your own answers.
A good friend; a good teacher is a good friend, a teacher
and a friend they are the same, not two different things. Even
Buddha talked about himself as a good friend. To have a good
teacher, to have a good friend, to be in touch with the teacher
to ask him questions, to take his advice all this is very important.
Without a teacher and without a friend, without a guide it
will be very difficult for us to go on this path. We'll make a lot of
mistakes, we'll sidetrack a lot.

In the beginning stage of meditation naturally we'll try to
keep our mind concentrated on one object. For example breathing
in and out, we try to keep our mind there as much as possible.
As we keep our mind there, slowly and slowly we develop
more concentration, our mind stays on that object longer and
longer. As our mind becomes a little bit calm we can see the
changes in the nature of this sensation, of this object. Even in
this mindfulness of breathing there are many steps. If you do
each step systematically it is much easier to develop mindfulness
and concentration.

For example the first thing you know is that you are breathing.
If you know that you are breathing, then you have taken
one step because most of the time although we are breathing we
don't know it. Why? Because we are thinking about something
else all the time, thinking... thinking... What do we think
about most of the time? Sometimes we don't even know what
we think about. Most of the time we don't know what we think
about, it happens so unconsciously. Whenever we know that
we are breathing, it helps to bring our mind back to this present
moment... "I am breathing"... that is one step. The next step
is breathing in and you know that you are breathing in, breathing
out, you know that you are breathing out, another step...
breathing in and out.

The next step is, when you breathe in, it takes about three
or four seconds if you breathe in slowly, breathing out takes
another two or three seconds, in that time two or three seconds,
your mind can go out many times. To help your mind
not to go away you can do another thing. You can break down
your breathing in into five sections so that you can be mindful
five times. You can bring back your mind five times when you
breathe in and also the same thing when you breathe out. You
count five times; it helps you to be more aware of your breath.
There is a misunderstanding about this method. Some people say
when you breathe in and out count one and when you breathe
in and out again count two. That means that you are counting
how many times you breathe. It also helps you keep your mind
on breathing, but the real purpose is that you are trying to be
more aware of your in-breath, so that your mind cannot go away
in between. If you are aware of your in-breath five times then
it is more difficult for your mind to wander away. Sometimes
and again on the breathing. Don't try to reach the number, this
is very important. Don't try to count faster so that you'll finish
counting as you finish breathing; just count naturally, evenly.
when you breathe in you are aware in the beginning and you
are not aware in the middle and in the end, it can happen. So
in order for that not to happen, you count in your mind again
and again, five times at least. It can be more then five but the
maximum should not be more than ten because if you count ten
times then you count very fast and it causes agitation. Depending
on how long you breathe in and how long you breathe out
you count a minimum five times and somewhere between five
and ten. The number does not matter. You need to understand
the purpose of counting; the purpose is to keep your mind again

Keep your mind there and when you keep your mind there
where do you keep it?

Keep your mind on the sensation, not on the concept,
breathing is actually a concept, an idea;
in Pali it is called paññatti, and
I will explain this word again and again.
Paññatti and Paramattha these two words need to be explained
quite a lot because in many cases instead of keeping the mind
on paramattha most meditators keep the mind on paññatti
because that is what they have been doing, keeping the mind on
paññatti. I have tried to translate this word many times and I
discussed
about this with Venerable Ñanavisuddhi. In translation
they say paññatti means concept. What does concept mean?
When you hear the word concept, how do you understand it? A
word, a name, we tried to find out the meaning and we couldn't
really find a really exact translation in English and so Venerable
Ñanavisuddhi suggested the word 'designation'.

Names are paññatti, any name is paññatti; in and out
direction is paññatti; when you call something air that name is
paññatti, because in fact what you call air it is a combination of
many elements.

So when you take things together,
give it a name or understand it as one thing then
you are understanding paññatti not real paramattha.
When you breathe in, the direction is not important, naming
it is not important because both of them are paññatti. What
is paramattha is what you feel directly. What do you feel when
you breath in? Where does that sensation, that feeling happen;
sensation is what is real! What do you feel when you breathe
in, breathe out? Something gently touching, rubbing, pushing,
these sensations are the real things to keep your mind on.
Temperature also, coolness, warmth... Around your nose somewhere
you can feel something happening when you breathe in
and when you breathe out. Keep your mind there and try to
keep your mind there many, many times bringing it back as you
breathe in and as you breathe out. Do that for a short time only
because even the counting is another paññatti. Numbers are all
paññatti not paramattha. When we use the numbers we break
down our breath into smaller pieces so that we can be more
continuously aware of it. That is the most important point, to be
continuously aware of the breath without any break in between.
If you understand the purpose of a method then you can let go
of the rest of the things and just do that.

Keep your mind on when the air comes in and goes out,
keep your mind on where it touches,
keep it there continuously, without any break...
try your best!
Only in the beginning, try to count or to say "in" and "out,"
but after a while let go of "in, out" and let go of the counting and
try to be just with the breath, without any ideas.

As you develop a certain level of concentration you become
aware of the changing nature of the breath... I mean the sensation...
even what we call breath is paññatti. What we directly
know is the sensation. Check and see whether you are doing
that when you are meditating. Where is your mind? What are
you thinking about? If you have any questions about this it is
very important to ask and make it clear because if you are not
keeping your mind on paramattha, then although your mind
can become calm, peaceful and concentrated, you cannot see
reality.

There are two parts in meditation.
The first part is to calm down,
to develop concentration so
that your mind does not get distracted,
to calm down the thoughts and
keep the mind on one object...
that is the first object,
the first purpose of meditation.
And the second which is more important is
to understand the way things are,
whether you call it reality or whatever,
to understand the way things are...
sensations, thoughts, feelings...
to understand things as they are.
If we keep our mind on paññatti we can get calm and peaceful
and concentrated but we will not see nama (mentality) as
nama and rupa (materiality) as rupa, we are not trying to be in
touch with the nature of nama and rupa, we are just keeping our
mind on paññatti 'a designation'. Shape, size, small or big are
paññatti; east, west, north, south are paññatti; to give you more
idea of what paññatti means... Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
etc they are all paññatti, just names.

When you meditate and keep your mind on
what you can really directly experience,
all that disappears.
Sometimes you don't even know where you are sitting
whether you are facing east or west, we don't know that anymore.
Sometimes very strange feelings happen; you don't even
know who you are sometimes, because who you are is another
idea you created in your mind. But to get to that point you need
to have deep insight of anatta (non soul, non self). When your
mind has developed this wisdom of anatta, sometimes you don't
even know your name. You have to think about it for a while. It
takes time to think about it... but that will come later.

If you have any questions about paramattha and paññatti
please ask, it is very important. We discuss about this in the
night sometimes, it takes many days to discuss, very interesting...
Venerable Ñanavisuddhi and I... we sit and discuss about
paññatti and paramattha and the object of vipassana. Sometimes
it takes a long time, we forget about time even... we sit
and discuss about it from nine o'clock in the evening thinking
that we will have a discussion of about one hour and we forget
about time because time is paññatti. When we look at the clock
we realise it is about eleven thirty. If you have more questions,
please ask. Now is the time to ask questions. Is there any question?
Please feel very free...

QUESTION &

AN S W E R: Long and short (breath) is paññatti. This is a
very good question, thank you for asking that. When we
think about long what do we mean?

The important thing is not
to keep your mind on the word.
The important thing is when it is long you know the whole thing
from the beginning to the end.
You keep your mind on the touching sensation, the
place where the in-breath and the out-breath touches and
keep your mind there no matter how long it takes, whether
it is short or long. In the beginning only, you know that it
is long, you know that it is short... this is only in the beginning
stage. Just to know that you are breathing, it is the first
stage; just to know that you are breathing in, that you are
breathing out is another stage; just to know that you are
breathing in long, breathing out long is another stage; or
breathing in short, breathing out short; but after that you
let go of long and short, but be with the breath continuously
from the beginning to the end.

The counting should not be more then ten... don't try
to count to a certain exact number. How many numbers is
not important. The important point is that your mind stays
there.... This is only in the beginning.

Once you get to a certain level of concentration, let go of
the counting and see if your mind can stay there. Because we
have the habit of thinking so much and it happens so quickly
and easily that when we breathe in a long breath we'll be
aware of breathing in. In the beginning we number one, two,
three, and forget about four, five, six, seven, eight etc... we
forget and we think about something else. In order that we
don't slip away we try to catch it back again and again and
keep it on our breath; that is the purpose of counting... then
we let go of the counting and stay with the breath...
...and if you can stay with the breath
without counting don't count anymore, because
counting becomes another hindrance later;
because it is just numbers...
we are not trying to understand numbers...
we are trying to understand the bodily sensations.

QUESTION &

AN S W E R: Yes, to know that you are breathing is paññatti;
in and out is paññatti; to keep your mind on counting is
also paññatti; long or short is another paññatti. This is good
in the beginning. And when you can stay with the breath
without thinking of any word that is the best thing to do...
without thinking of any word, because long and short is
another idea.... It is comparison...the main thing that we
should do is be with the breath continuously; if you can stay
with that let go of everything else! Short, long, in out, does
not matter!

QUESTION &

AN S W E R: Just to help your mind from being distracted,
to help your mind to quieten down. Only in the beginning
stage when you sit for a while, just for a few minutes try
to do that and then let go! Because we have being going
around doing so many things that naturally our mind has
speeded up... is thinking too much.... When you begin sitting
meditation... breathing in... breathing out... then try
to count a little bit only...
... see if you can stay with the breath,
if you can stay with it, let go of all the words,
all the ideas.

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