Dhamma Everywhere

The following is excerpted from Awareness Alone Is Not Enough (PDF) by Sayadaw U (Ashin) Tejaniya

YOGI: The other day you were talking about the importance of seeing and hearing versus sight and sound. I still don’t understand. Can you explain this to me?

SUT: Don’t pay attention to a particular sound. Just be aware that you are hearing. Hearing means that you know that the mind knows the sound, that you are aware of the sound and the knowing mind. If you are aware of your hearing you can be aware of many different sounds. If you focus on one particular sound you will get caught up in concepts, i.e., thinking about what causes the sound, the direction it comes from, etc. and you cannot be aware of the mind. So don’t pay attention to the objects of hearing but to the process of hearing. The same goes for seeing.

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YOGI: If I am listening to someone and I feel like I am paying attention to what they are saying, responding to them as best I can, do I also need to be aware of the fact that listening is happening, or that conversation is happening, or that I am sitting in a room, or that I hear sounds, etc.? When I tried to do that I felt that I was all over the place, that I was fragmented.

SUT: When you are not very experienced, you tend to go to the objects. When you do that, when you try to be aware of as much as you can, it will feel like you are all over the place.

Start by paying attention to your feelings. It is really important to know how you are feeling while you are listening or talking. Are you reacting in any way? Simply be present with that, just stay with whatever you are feeling. You will notice that whenever you get the feeling of being stable and collected, the mind will start to expand and you will become able to notice other experiences without even trying. It is almost like the objects come to you when the mind is in a calm and receptive state. Yogis who understand how their minds work can just be in this receptive state of awareness and be content with whatever the mind knows.

YOGI: Is it wrong practice to be listening and then to remember to be aware of that fact that you are listening?

SUT: I would not call it wrong practice; I just think that it might be difficult at first, when you are not yet skillful at being aware when interacting with others. When you are listening, what is listening, how are you listening?

YOGI: I am using my ears and I am also using my mind.

SUT: That’s the key; it is the mind which listens. We just need to notice what the mind is doing.

Is hearing the same as listening?

YOGI: Hearing is passive and listening is active.

SUT: Yes, even when you are not trying to listen, you can still hear. Even if you aren’t trying to look, you will still see.

So when you aren’t trying to pay attention to your experience, can the mind still be conscious of it?

YOGI: Hmm….my initial answer is: it depends…

SUT: OK, say you were listening to something, and usually you pay attention to your breath but now the mind has slipped away and feels something on one of your hands. What would you be paying attention to?

YOGI: I think to my hand.

SUT: Yes. There is no need to bring the mind to any place. The mind is doing its own work; you just need to recognize what the mind is doing. If you want to understand ‘nature’ [the word U Tejaniya uses instead of anatta, not-self], you just have to let things happen naturally. Bringing our awareness ‘back’ to something is making a personal effort. For a beginner this might be necessary, but after some time you don’t need to do this anymore.

Instead of listening to a sound, we should be aware that hearing is happening. In the hearing there is a knowing of the sound—that’s what is called hearing. So everything is there. I am speaking now and you are listening to me. Are you hearing sound which is coming from me or are you hearing sound which is already your experience, which is already with you and not ‘out there’? So just by staying with yourself you can know everything.

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YOGI: I am a little confused about being aware of seeing. I was just looking out the window and I could see that the mind is putting labels on things, that it is using concepts all the time. This is happening naturally. With all this going on automatically, how can I see things as they are? How can I be aware of seeing itself?

SUT: There is no need to get rid of what the mind naturally does. The mind is reality and you can recognize that it is doing its work. Perception is one of the functions of the mind and you cannot stop that from happening. It is enough to recognize that perception is a function of the mind and to remind yourself not to identify with the process.

When we look at our five physical sense doors, it will be very obvious that touching, smelling, and tasting occur in the body. Why is it that we perceive seeing and hearing as happening ‘out there’? Actually, seeing and hearing happens right here too. But we believe in the concepts that the mind is using; we believe perception which perceives a distance.

So how can we recognize the reality of seeing in seeing? When you pay attention to what you are seeing, you just see concepts such as shape, color, distance, size, etc. But reality is said to have no color, no size, and no form! How can we become aware of this reality?

The key is in recognizing the knowing mind. Can we recognize that we know? Does knowing have color, size, or form? We need to recognize this mind. What does it know? It knows its object. The object is reality, the reality behind concepts.

Without understanding we cannot know reality, however hard we try. Awareness sees the concepts and understanding knows the reality.

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YOGI: I find it much more difficult to be aware of seeing and hearing than to be aware of body sensations. Why is that?

SUT: Everyone has this problem. Smell, taste, and touch are perceived as happening inside the body but sight and sound are perceived as happening outside. This is because we beileve in the concepts of ‘out there’, ‘direction’, etc. In fact what we hear and see is also happening inside; in a sense there is no outside world. Everything we experience happens in the mind. The world is a creation of the mind. So there is no need to look outside; everything is happening right here in our own minds.

(You can download this and other teachings from http://sayadawutejaniya.org)