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.
When the mind sees again what is already familiar, the knowledge only becomes clearer. Wisdom deepens and you become more attentive and energized. Your understanding and field of comprehension expand. There is no end to knowing, as it is never complete. There should be no such thing as “I know,” because it is never enough. You start to see things from multiple angles: You see two sides, mundane world and ultimate reality, mind and object, cause and effect.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 92)
(picture made in Swayambhu/Kathmandu)
Vipassanā wisdom can’t be comprehended simply through intellectual thinking. The ordinary mind can’t bring about insight through intellectual thinking. Vipassanā insight is not something that can be conceptualized through images; it is a wholly new understanding and insight of principles or nature.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 92)
(photo by Austrian Yogi, Inle Lake, December 2007)
As you continue to practice, observe when awareness is present and when awareness is absent, when wisdom is present and when wisdom is absent. Wisdom naturally understands what is beneficial and what is not beneficial. You are practicing to learn to watch the mind and body. Insights will grow according to your understanding and what you can know. What is more beneficial: To have awareness or to lack awareness, to develop wisdom or not develop wisdom? You can investigate and analyze this for yourself.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 91)
Understanding the Noble Truth of Dukkha (2)
Whatever is happening is dukkha. Don’t look at what is happening with aversion or you will become depressed. The Noble Truth of dukkha is discerned by the wise mind and is totally opposite to the kind of dukkha one feels. The understanding of the truth of dukkha is wisdom. The mind feels strength, energy, freedom, and detachment with this understanding. The mind is devoid of craving and defilements. Whereas the experience of dukkha is exhausting, the true realization of dukkha is free from attachment and free of defilements.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 91)
(photo by Austrian Yogi, Shwedagon Zedi Daw, Yangon, December 2010)
Only when the mind does not perceive experiences as pleasing will it understand the Noble Truth of dukkha. As long as the mind perceives experiences as pleasing, then the Noble Truth of dukkha is still far from being understood.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 91)
(photo by Malaysian Yogi)
Curiosity and interest (3)
Do you want to know? Please check yourself. The fact that you all came to practice means that you do want to know. You are meditating here because you wish to know the truth, to discover reality. Your key reason for being at the center is to give yourself the time to become aware of the mind and body. To see the connections and relationships between the mind and body and making a habit of seeing these connections is what you have come here to practice. The mind gets energized through this wholesome desire for learning and the wish to understand.
Keep it simple! It’s good if there is knowing; it’s not good if there is no knowing. There is a Burmese saying: “Ignorance is worse than being deprived.” But far worse than being ignorant is not wanting to know!
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 88)
(photo by Burmese Yogi, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand)
The mind just needs to be interested. Attentive curiosity and interest are important. You can’t make anything arise or disappear through craving or aversion, so be aware of whatever is happening. Try not to forget what is happening. Remember that having expectations indicates there is some greed in the mind. Be aware of all the arising, all the passing away. Work very simply and remind yourself to be aware. If you see, just be aware that you are seeing. That is enough.
Let whatever happens happen. The things that are happening are just nature.
Remind yourself that they have nothing to do with you. Those who understand natural laws can understand their principles. Understanding natural laws very clearly is wisdom; he who understands these laws understands nature.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 88)
It has been some time that you’ve been observing this mind and body. How much more do you understand now? How deep is this understanding?
A fellow yogi observes objects. I also observe objects. Can we have the same levels of understanding of these experiences? Is it possible for someone who has just started practicing to have the same level of understanding as someone who has been practicing for a long time (in the right way)?
The practice has stalled if the current level of understanding is about the same as the previous level of understanding. Knowing and wisdom should not stand still but always be advancing. As much as knowing and understanding increase, so too does one’s skill in the practice of meditation. This means the meditation is thriving.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 85)
(photo by Austrian Yogi, Yuang Waterfall, Southern Laos, January 2008)
One yogi related that his sitting meditation was improving day by day and so he wanted to sit more frequently for longer periods.
Why does this yogi think this way? Actually, what should happen is that instead of wanting to sit more, the yogi should want to practice more consistently and continuously in any posture. Instead the yogi connected the “good” meditation to the sitting and so paid more attention to the posture. It’s difficult to recognize the mind at work when paying more attention to the object and to what is happening.
Mistaken ideas regarding meditation come about from not being able to see the workings of the observing mind. We may not recognize that the pleasant feelings or what we may consider “good sittings” are all effects resulting from their own causes and conditions (which we failed to notice). Only the kind of wisdom that has an expansive, aerial, birds-eye-view of both mind and objects happening together and their processes is able to understand cause-and-effect relationships. Wisdom further builds up and strengthens with each new understanding that completes the picture.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (pp. 83-84)
Be prepared for the unexpected - this practice is never straightforward.
(cartoon by Hor Tuck Loon)
There is a lot of delusion when people are healthy. People only begin to pay attention when they get sick.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 79)
(photo by Hor Tuck Loon)
If we only pay attention to objects, that is only half the picture and understanding will be incomplete. Our field of awareness must expand to include objects, the observing mind, feelings and more. This expanded field of awareness comes about from waiting and watching with patience and intelligence, not from focusing on objects in hopes of seeing something. That is why this expanded awareness is so important.
Wisdom steps aside as a detached observer to the entire process that is happening on its own. On the other hand, focusing as a way of observing has more of a feeling of sticking to an object. So of course, the field of awareness would be very narrow. That is why I remind you to neither force nor focus.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 80)
Do you think something is “good” or “bad”? Or do you have a real understanding that something is good or bad? Real understanding rejects what you once perceived as good or bad and just sees it as it is. Understanding also removes wrong concepts about something.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 79)
(photo by Indonesian Yogi, Retreat with SUT, BrahmaViharaArama, Bali July 2011)
You (the mind) are an independent observer, studying this anger from the side, as it is happening with the view that this is also dhamma nature, not your anger or that you are angry. What are the different characteristics of anger? How does it work? What happens in the mind? How does an anger-motivated mind think? You study and learn every single time, down to the smallest detail. There is no way for the defilement to intensify if you observe it every time it arises. It can’t rear its head.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 77)
You need to understand anger deeply. In order to do that, you need to build up sati, samādhi, and paññā and to watch and learn, every time anger arises. You want to know the nature of anger and everything related to this phenomenon. What happens in the body and what happens in the mind when this defilement arises? What kinds of thoughts come up? What is the nature of anger?
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhamma Everywhere (p. 77)
