Dhamma Everywhere
This site is a project of students of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. His third book in English, Dhamma Everywhere: Welcoming each moment with awareness+wisdom is available for free distribution in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Czech Republic, Austria, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, and Indonesia.
If you live in one of these countries and are interested in a copy of the book, please provide your email address and indicate your location and someone will get back to you. Please note, you must enter your email address in this format: somebody AT somewhere DOT com for Tumblr to accept your message.
Please enjoy the teachings shared here and visit the website for more, including PDF versions of Dhamma Everywhere, Don't Look Down on the Defilements: They Will Laugh at You and Awareness Alone Is Not Enough.
If you are a student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya and would like to share your gratitude for his teachings, please go here (or if you would just like to read testimonials from yogis!).
Please also note that this site and the book from which the content comes by no means are meant to replace the personal guidance of the teacher.
All objects are dhamma nature (2)
Don’t go looking for objects or experiences that you may think are good. The search for good experiences is coming at the bidding of lobha. You are not meditating to get good experiences. If there’s thinking right now or you are feeling heat, just know what is happening. What are they? All are just phenomena or objects.
The work of meditation is not to develop objects which are just happening through their own causes; the work of meditation is to cultivate the five spiritual faculties of sati, samādhi, viriya, saddhā, and paññā.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 95)
(photo by Russian Yogi, Retreat at SOM, Spring 2012)
All objects are dhamma nature (1)
All objects are dhamma nature, dhamma phenomena. You can’t hold onto any object with lobha. Don’t perceive any objects or experiences as good or bad as no object or experience is better than any other experience or object. Objects are just objects. They are to be known. That is all.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 95)
(photo by Hor Tuck Loon)
The saying, “Don’t think when you’re meditating” means, “Don’t think with defilements.” Right thought needs to be there. You can think with sammā-sankappa (Right Thought). Right View and Right Thought are important.
There must be wisdom involved in meditation. Vipassana is the work of wisdom. We say we’re mindful when we are mindful with wisdom. What kind of wisdom are we talking about here? There needs to be investigative wisdom, the wanting to understand.
What is happening? Why is it happening?
You investigate like so…You can’t be just intent on watching objects. The mind may calm down if you just focus in on these objects but you won’t have learned anything [from the experience].
It’s only Dhamma when you want to understand what’s happening with Right View working in the background.
(translated excerpt from guided meditation in Burmese, Laura Zan)
Cultivating wholesome qualities (2)
Saddhā and viriya have the wish to keep up the practice. Viriya is the wish to practice continuously and with perseverance. Saddhā wants to continue meditation because it knows the value of the practice. Merely focusing on results is the work of lobha. If you are pleased that you see the object you wanted to see, that is the work of lobha. Dissatisfaction with getting an object other than what you want to see is dosa. These are both defilements!
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (pp. 94-95)
(photo by Malaysian Yogi)
We meditate to develop the sati, samādhi, viriya, saddhā, and paññā that are not yet present in the mind. The stronger these five spiritual faculties become, the weaker the defilements become.
When sati is present, defilements become weak.
When samādhi is present, defilements become weak.
When viriya is present, defilements become weak.
When saddhā is present, defilements become weak.
When paññā is present, defilements become weak.
What is important is that we meditate to nurture and cultivate these currently weak, wholesome mental qualities so that they can grow stronger and stronger. Mindfulness meditation is not about seeking unique experiences. Wisdom does not have the desire for specific things to happen.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 94)
Yawning
As soon as there’s a little intention to yawn, there are already changes in the body. When there’s real mindfulness and sensitivity, you’ll see. Just as soon as the intention to yawn (in the mind) comes, there’re many changes happening in the body already. You haven’t even opened your mouth (to yawn) at this point.
(Translated excerpt from Burmese Q&A, Laura Zan)
You tend to lose mindfulness most easily when you are on your own.
(cartoon by Hor Tuck Loon)
Do not forget. Be aware. Keeping that in mind, you have to keep checking the mind. What is the mind doing? Is it aware? Does it know? What does it know? How much can it know? There needs to be an alertness to knowing objects. This means knowing when hearing happens, when contact happens. The mind is alert when the mind knows objects as contact happens.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 94)
(photo by Russian Yogi, Retreat at SOM, Spring 2012)
Why are you talking? Is it because it’s important [topic]? Of course you’ll lose mindfulness if you go on talking when it’s not important. Speak only when it’s necessary. There’s no need to talk when it’s not necessary – but you’ve going around talking when it’s not necessary. If you just watch, you’ll see when the little desire to talk arises. Just be mindful of when you want to talk. I’m not telling you to control yourself, but I am asking you to maintain awareness… There’s already a kind of self-restraint when there’s awareness. So when the desire to speak arises, the mind has time to decide whether what it wants to say is necessary, whether it ought to be said or not, whether it’s important or not. If it’s not important, you won’t say anything of course.
(Translated excerpt from Burmese Q&A, Laura Zan)
Wisdom is there when there is right awareness. However, if the awareness is too focused, there’s no chance for wisdom to come in. That is why we don’t force, focus, control, or restrict. We don’t try to make anything disappear. We are just aware of all that is happening and all that is passing away. There is no expectation or discontentment.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 94)
The meditating mind must be a Dhamma mind. Be calm, comfortable and relaxed, with peace, faith, and intelligence. That is how you should be practicing.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 94)
(photo by Hor Tuck Loon)
How do you know when you’re awake? What wakes up: the body or the mind? (Yogi: the mind wakes up). Waking up happens when the mind becomes aware of objects. Is the mind aware of these objects when you’re asleep? No—that’s why you’re asleep. (Laughs) In sleeping there’s no knowledge of these objects. As you wake up you become aware of these objects—that’s waking up. When you get up, what do you get up with first? Do you get up with your head or your feet first? Maybe you get up with your knees first. (Laughs) If you’re aware while you’re getting up, when do you lose awareness? When you walk to the bathroom, are you aware? How about changing? How do you wear your longyi*? I once asked a 60-year-old yogi whether he folded his longyi on his right side or the left side and he replied that it was the left side. When he actually demonstrated for us, it was on his right side! (Laughs) People really don’t know themselves too well. They’re going about their business for sure, it’s just that they don’t really know what they’re doing.
*longyi: Burmese traditional wear for men
(translated excerpt from Burmese Q&A, Laura Zan)
Yogi: If all there is is awareness and the object of awareness, and we don’t take responsibility for this process that we’re watching, how about intention? It sounds fine not to take responsibility during our sitting meditation but out in the world, we have to act, and we have intention. So how do we hold, how do we view intention, cetana? Is this just another object of awareness so we observe it?
Sayadaw: Just to explain responsibility and self. Because I think the mix-up happens when we think I’m doing things. So, as far as meditation is concerned, they’re all objects. But it is a process of cause and effect. Yes? Every cause in the present moment gives rise to another effect. So although there is not a self responsible, but any intention, cause, condition in the present moment is going to give its result. And then although there may be one set of conditions here, and another set of conditions here, and they interact, in the interaction, there is cause and effect again. So although a self is not responsible for it, there are resultant effects. You cannot escape those.
If we believe that whatever occurs in the present moment and has no effect in the future, that’s one wrong view. If we believe it’s continuous, permanent and lasting and we give it a self to it, that’s another extreme of wrong view. The only thing that can explain what is truly happening is the principle of cause and effect, which explains the relationships between different processes and one process and another.
So at a gross level, if we think of it as a person, and we think the person dies and that’s it, that’s one kind of wrong view. If we think the person dies and it’s the same person being born again, that’s another wrong view. So the (odd) thing is that there’s a chain of causes and effects in a lifetime, and maybe that lifetime ends. And when there’s no cause for the effects to end, the nama-rupa continues in another lifetime, in another form and they’re related through the cause and effect chain. But you cannot say there’s a person…there’s no entity that’s continuing.
So it’s like one moment of mind. When it’s over, the next moment of mind arises. They are completely different minds, however, there is an effect passed on from the first mind to the next arising mind.
Trying hard to solve a problem won’t make it go away.
(cartoon by Hor Tuck Loon)
