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A few salient points in finetuning your meditative experiences for deepening of understanding and realization of Realities Hor Tuck Loon

Related Information 2015.12.12@Shwe Oo Min Meditation Centre, Yangon, Myanmar Recording: Tianhang Chinese Translator & Transcriber: Karuṇā Therī (Xiaofei) Original version transcribe on 12 Dec 2015 This Edition: 2nd revised edition (edited as of 17 Feb 2016)

Preface his talk was kindly shared by a Malaysian yogi, Hor Tuck Loon, who has practiced meditation for over 30 years and learned Satipaṭṭhāna under Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s guidance for over 12 years. This text sets out a few salient points in the workings of Satipaṭṭhāna, which will be of great benefit both for beginners and yogis who have had years of practice. Tuck Loon said that whatever mistakes from his talk are purely from his current level of misunderstanding. We rejoice with his merits of Dhammadāna. Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!

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Words of translator he recording of this text came from the Dhamma discussion on 12th Dec, 2015 at Shwe Oo Min Meditation Centre, Yangon, Myanmar, in which Tuck Loon gave the following practice sharing to the Chinese Group. Tuck Loon said, any error is his own. I would like to appreciate Tuck Loon and Lai Fun for their amendments and elaborations to make the text more accurate and complete, so that readers will not misunderstand. May I share my merits to all beings in 31 abodes and may they gain merits equally with me. May I attain path and fruit wisdom and Nibbāna soon. Sadhu!

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Karuṇā Therī (Xiaofei)

e have been with this teacher (Sayadaw U Tejaniya) for 12 years now. I’m referring to myself and my wife. We have been practicing vipassana for over 20 years by way of another method, but in this center we have practiced for more than 12 years. It is a very profound teaching. Not easy to comprehend. But once you comprehend and develop it correctly, the result that comes from the practice is very profound. One of the obvious differences in many other techniques (as compared to this one) is that, there are a lot of ‘doing’, a lot of personal effort, which is the inherent nature of our mind. When we come into this teaching, we learn about ‘non-doing’, or ‘non-interference’, which is the opposite of the ‘doing’ nature of the mind. If you cannot cross this barrier, then you will not be able to fully comprehend what Sayadaw is teaching. Because previously most of our results comes from ‘doing’. Hence when we are taught to shift into ‘non-doing’ mode, we try to ‘do’ ‘non-doing’, which becomes a ‘doing’ again, and that is not beneficial. And because of that, many yogis couldn’t understand what the teacher is trying to point to. For example, just a few days ago, I was in Sayadaw’s kuti. One yogi was going through some difficulties and Sayadaw was sharing with the yogi, “Just know is enough.” The yogi said, “I hate ‘just know’, I need to do something.” ‘Just know is enough’ sounds like a kind of ‘doing’, but actually it is simply to notice (with right information working in the background). When the teacher says ‘non-doing’, he is referring to not doing anything to the object that is being known, not at the knowing mind that is being aware, which is awareness. There is a knowing mind and there is an object (which can be either mind or matter) all the time. The ‘non-doing’ is towards the object. Don’t do anything to the object. When you focus on the object, you are doing ‘something’ to the object. To elaborate on this, you are either holding on to the object, resisting the object or even trying to ignore it. Notice. Clearly, there is always a

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tendency of doing something to (reacting to) the object that is being known. It is very important for the teacher to ask us to pay attention to the attitude of our mind; of how we relate to the object. So if you find that the attitude is wrong, what would you do? When you notice your attitude is wrong, it becomes an object, we are not supposed to do anything to it. Because the training is: don’t do anything to the object. Now when you notice this attitude is wrong, what attitude is present? So the right attitude is referring to the mind that notices the wrong attitude. (Yogi: I think when the new mind is non-interfering only then can it be called the mind of right attitude.) Yes. So now my question to you is: how does the mind come into the non-interfering state? For by nature, the mind is constantly engaging or interfering with the object. The mind’s tendency is always to do something about it. Hence, what is it that changes the mind to the non-interfering state? The teacher usually asks yogis questions pertaining to their experience, which is very important, as he wants us to know why it is happening, so that we don’t just go through the experience blindly but instead, investigate and realize the workings of the mind. If you don’t know why or how, you will keep on trying to get to this similar experience at random and it can be very stressful. If you know why (e.g. the causes), you will know how to develop it. I will explain so that you can understand the whole mechanics of how it works. When the teacher first invites us to have right information that ‘mind and matter processes are nature’, it is very important. Even though you may not realize at this moment that mind and matter processes are nature, but it is a very important information for us. When you have more and more realizations, it will become more and more true to you.

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Why does the teacher introduce ‘nature’ as information from the beginning? Why? Because whatever we act, speak or think, we do it with a strong identification of “I, me, or mine”—which makes them personal. Our automatic wrong view of our world is that this process of mind and matter is ‘me’. I’m looking at me. I know me. But we can’t practice Vipassana using that point of view. Instead, when we recognize that mind and matter processes are nature, we won’t view things as right or wrong straightaway or try to seek or interfere. Because ‘nature’ means things happen on their own accord. So without this right information, it is impossible to develop ‘non-interference’. We interfere because we think we can do something about it. If we truly know it is nature, we won’t do anything to it anymore. Because one of the right view on ‘nature’ means the experience already took effect on its own. In other words, the ‘nature’ is not there to attack you or to make you wrong, it is a mere happening due to cause and effect. Effect means there must be causes for anything to arise, hence it’s all nature of cause and effect taking place. So can you accept that defilement is nature? If you really really understand nature, you will be surprised when defilement arises, you cannot view wrongness in it because you have a very deep understanding that it is just nature arising. In our past method of practice, emphasis was not given on this, hence we kept on trying to target our defilements and want to make them disappear. Because we don’t have the right information, when we notice a defilement, we target it. As such, unknowingly we are promoting more defilements by doing so. So why is defilement nature? It was Sayadaw’s one reply which took me by surprise that changed my previous direction of practice to his method. I have always been very puzzled about this so I asked “how is it possible for the mind to have no anger?” I have been practicing for

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over 20 years with another technique, but I still find anger in my mind. I thought I didn’t practice hard enough. I was very curious why is it so. I used to seek for that clarification whenever an opportunity arises while meeting with any new teacher, but many a time the reply I received is not fully to my satisfaction. It is as if it is not a complete or correct reply yet. Probably not precise. Somehow I just seem to know. I do not know why I knew. So when I came here in 2002, that was the first question I asked of him: “how is it possible for the mind to have no anger?” His answer was so clear that I suddenly felt as if I woke up after over 20 years of meditation. I realized that I have missed something in all of these 20 years of practice. It was a very simple answer which I may have read before but it didn’t strike me until that time when he spoke of it. The other teachers never mentioned it from that angle before. Or maybe they mentioned it but I didn’t hear it from that perspective. But it was never emphasized. This salient point which I’m going to share is the hallmark of Sayadaw’s teachings. He just spoke of one thing. He said, ‘Right View.’ For me at that point, right view and meditation technique are two different matters altogether. Because many a times when we meditate, we don’t give any attention to right view. We keep on meditating to get results. If you have been developing other practices before, you will notice that teachers rarely emphasize on right view. Normally, they will give you a technique or instruction to meditate on. Technique and right view are different matters altogether. But when you start to have more and more right view, you will begin to notice, right view IS meditation. You are naturally meditating correctly instead of chasing for results. Without right view, you cannot be meditating wisely. In fact, our purpose of meditation is to develop wholesome minds to mean eradicating defilements. But if you have wrong view, how can you eradicate defilements? Because defilements arise from wrong views!

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If your meditating mind is already having wrong views, when you notice the defilement and try to eradicate the defilement, you are promoting more defilements in the mind. So if you notice anger as an object, this is not really defilement. It is a past defilement because it is an effect. The new defilement is actually on the meditating mind, not on the object. It is this meditating mind that is generating new kamma, not the object. So that’s why the teacher keeps on asking us to check the attitude. You will be surprised to know, just by checking your attitude is enough. In fact, his checking attitude is meditation. Because the defilement arises due to wrong attitude, wrong view with regards to the objects. So if you find the attitude is wrong, what do you do? When you are able to notice it as wrong attitude, it is the right attitude that is able to notice it. Whereas, if this wrong attitude is not correctly noticed as a kind of nature but instead being judged, that new mind is having wrong attitude. That comes back to my question: “why defilement is nature?” Because defilement is effect. They are effects of wrong views. Even though you don’t like the defilement, it will keep on coming up because the wrong view is the problem (the cause), the defilement is just an effect. If you have the wrong view of the defilement, this will naturally lead to more greed, anger, or delusion. It will never end until right view arises. Now my question to you is: “why do we have wrong views?” This is a very important question. A lot of people don’t like to hear that we all have wrong views in the mind, we wish to hear that we have right views. It is important first to know why we have wrong views. (Yogi: Moha. Everyone of us is born from moha.) Why? Why is everyone here born from moha, why? (Yogi: Kamma.) Yes, when you said ‘kamma’, it is true because it

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simply means if you didn’t notice what was before clearly, the effect continues. But why? Kamma works that way. You don’t expect a change from moha to wisdom without any cause. If moha is the cause, the effect must be moha. So along the way, how can wisdom come up since moha is promoting more moha to arise? That is why you must understand why the Buddha said that if the Buddha didn’t arise in the world, it would be impossible to get enlightened. It’s true (unless Pacceka Buddha). So how can wisdom be introduced into our mind? Since our mind is continuously moha, moha, moha… (Yogi: Right information.) Yes, because of right information. Right information and right view are very connected. It is the same with our practice. If we don’t have right view, it is impossible to understand what the Buddha is trying to point to us. That’s why this teacher emphasizes right view a lot in this practice. When you have no right view, you are not meditating wisely. Even though you are closing your eyes and sitting cross-legged, you are not meditating but you are chasing for results or good experiences; you will be surprised that most of our minds are doing that. So now back to my question: why all of us are moha? ‘We don’t have right view’ is not the real answer. Because existence itself is delusion. That’s why when you become fully enlightened, existence comes to an end. That is why we are born from delusion. It’s very true. So the way we think, see, smell, hear, taste, touch, most of it—if I say most of it, you wouldn’t like to hear that, but it’s true— it is all deluded. That’s why when you get a little realization, you’ll get a shock. When I say ‘shock’, it’s a real shock, because it is totally opposite from how delusion looks at things. So when a person asks the teacher, ‘how would we know it’s a realization?’, obviously the person has not tasted what a realization is all about.

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Firstly, it is very important to understand that when I talk about realization, I’m not talking about absolute realization. A lot of people use the word ‘insight’ as ‘ñāna’, but I’m not talking about ‘insight’. I’m talking about ‘wisdom’ (paññā). It is important to remember what the mechanics of the whole journey is: there must be little little realizations happening to finally come to the big one. You don’t expect to have no realizations and then suddenly the big realization comes up. It doesn’t happen that way. You must experience more and more little ones to achieve the big ones. It’s a part of nature of unfolding this realization. So what makes realization possible? There are three steps actually. It’s very simple, but it’s very important. And this is the emphasis of Sayadaw’s teaching. In brief, ‘The Three Yogi Jobs.’ It is very important because they are the causes for you to develop. 1. Check and have Right View. 2. Right Awareness, i.e. be aware with Right View. 3. Right Effort, i.e. consistently be aware with Right View. They are all connected. If you don’t have right view, your awareness cannot be right or skilful. Once you have right awareness, you need to develop it consistently. To make it simple for you to understand, in your own normal way of practice, firstly learn to notice ‘mind and matter processes are nature’. So when you notice something and your mind doesn’t accept it as nature, what do you do? Just like the rat that came into the dining hall just now. Now if you notice it as nature, then there is no problem. But if you notice it and you find that it is not nature, what’s next? In the practice, you don’t need to do anything to the object. Your job is to check and notice whether your awareness has right view and right attitude towards the object.

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When your mind cannot accept it, remember again, your unaccepting mind is also a kind of nature. Why? Because your mind still have wrong views. Wrong views will naturally promote ‘dislike’. It is that simple. Just continuously remember to check and have the right view that mind and matter processes are nature. So 1) check and have right view, 2) be aware with right view, 3) consistently be aware with right view. When it is mature, wisdom arises on its own. You don’t need to look for it. Why? Because when you don’t have these three yogi jobs, the opposite keeps on promoting delusion. When these three yogi jobs come into the picture, they are the three prerequisites for wisdom to arise. Your job is not to worry about getting wisdom. Your job is to make sure that you have right view, right awareness and as much as you can, consistently be aware with right view. I’m using the word ‘consistent’, I’m not asking you to be aware ‘continuously’. If I use the word ‘continuous’, it will become stressful. That is defilement. If you try to be continuous, wisdom cannot arise. Just do your best to be consistent. This technique may seem difficult, but actually it’s very simple. But not easy. The whole root cause of the problem is the defilement. If you get the information right and relax, you will be surprised wisdom can arise very fast. You wouldn’t believe me if I tell you that it is not about forcefully working very hard. But for those people who work very hard, they may hear it as something wrong. As far as I know all these years, what is missing in all of us is ‘right view’. When you have right view, and naturally relax, the realization comes up very easily. Sometimes you could have a few realizations a day. In the beginning, when my wife came here to practise, because of the old method, she tried very hard. And the teacher kept on asking her to relax. But she couldn’t as the old conditioning from the previous practice was pushing her. After the first year I came here, the realizations were so profound that I shared a lot with her, but she couldn’t comprehend them clearly.

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During the second year she came, she still tried very hard. Fortunately, she didn’t give up. By the third year, the teacher encouraged her to go and rest, since she pushed herself too hard and coupled with the physical unease, she tired easily. Where will you come across a teacher who will ask you to go and rest? This teacher is very unique, because he knew that when you already have right view, it is not about pushing any more. In fact, the right view will do its job. On the other hand, please don’t take it wrongly. We are not asking you to go and rest. Your right view must be in place in your mind first. After her rest, the natural awareness and realization arose. In truth, if you know the dynamics behind it, it is very true. You must understand the dynamics behind it. It is not ‘you’ who do the job of making the Dhamma arise. Ask yourself this, ‘how can delusion produce Dhamma?’ The whole mind here is deluded, how can delusion wish for Dhamma? It is right view that promotes the Dhamma. So when the whole mind is deluded, what is needed is right information first. Once you have the right information, use the Three Yogi Jobs to develop the practice correctly more and more, and then realizations can take effect. So it’s a cooperation between you and the teacher. He gives you the right information and pointers. Your job is just to have right view, be aware with right view and consistently be aware with right view (the Three Yogi Jobs). When he gives you right information, it is very important that you ask if in doubt. Do not be frightened to ask him further if you are unclear. Because the moment you have unresolved doubt, wrong view is already in the mind. It is healthy if doubt propels you to ask instead of keeping silent. When you don’t ask further, you are promoting skeptical doubt in the mind. You are encouraged to ask until it is very clear. Even if he says it twice and you still couldn’t understand, you can request the teacher to simplify it to help you understand. He’ll be

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very happy to do that. Because he knows right view is very important. So your job is just to check and make sure right view is in your mind. Then the process will be very easy. If I tell you it is easy, you wouldn’t believe me. What is not easy is the defilement. The good news is that defilements can be overcome through the right view. It is very important to remember, ‘you cannot eradicate or remove defilement.’ Many of us including myself would be surprised to hear this when I don’t understand this principle. I will repeat it one more time. ‘You cannot eradicate or remove defilement.’ Many a times, if you notice carefully, you are practicing because you want to remove or get rid of defilements. That’s why I ask you to remind yourself of this over and over again. Because the moment you leave this hall, your mind will start to think of ways to remove defilements. To want to remove defilements is a wrong view. Wrong view promotes defilements. How can a defilement remove defilements? What can remove defilements? It comes back to the first question I asked the teacher: right view. So when there is more and more right information given to you by the teacher, slowly you will learn to become aware of whatever eagerness/tension with Right View and as such “relax” takes place naturally. You will also learn that mind and matter processes are nature. Each realization that arises will show you that what you have been knowing/noticing all this while is actually not correct. But do you know what is right view? Let me explain it in a simple language so you can understand. The Buddha cannot give you realization. Whatever he realized, he has to put it into words for you. When the words come to you, and when you read or hear them, they become right information. Actually if your mind have mature wisdom, if you comprehend exactly what he said, you will immediately become enlightened. That’s why during the Buddha’s time, there are such kinds of people. But our present mind doesn’t have that potential yet. So when this right information is given to us, we slowly learn to accept it first. Accepting the right

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information is a kind of right view. When you learn to explore that right information, one day when you have realization, it will confirm to you that what the Buddha said is true. So right view is not to make other views wrong. What ‘right view’ means is views associated with wisdom. So when you take in the information, you must have a little faith that this is the right understanding that I can learn to develop myself. That’s why mentioned earlier that it is unhelpful to have skeptical doubts. Because skeptical doubt is the opposite of faith. When you keep on clarifying with the teacher, you will have more and more faith when he explains it in a way which you can understand. When you understand, you tend to have right faith (saddha). And that right faith will give you natural wise effort (viriya) to develop and keep on being aware (sati). When you are more and more aware, your mind naturally becomes stable (samadhi). When maturity takes place, wisdom (paññā) will arise. These are the five spiritual faculties. When you have realization (wisdom), your faith will increase again, supporting each other. This ‘samadhi’ in the five spiritual faculties is not the concentration type. It is a stability of mind that is derived from the right attitude of non-interference. Because when your mind is non-interfering, your mind is more stable. If you notice very carefully, (you will find that) if you try to focus/concentrate, you want something out of it. Whether you like it or not, at the back of the mind, when you ‘try’ to concentrate, the mind already has a motive that it wants something, which means there’s actually greed there. So in Vipassana, samadhi is not given the priority, as it is an effect when the right view, right awareness, and right effort are in place. What is emphasized here is right view, right awareness and right effort (consistency); these are the causes for samadhi to arise. End

The Buddha cannot give you realization. Whatever he realized, he has to put it into words for you. When the words come to you, and when you read or hear them, they become right information. Actually if your mind have mature wisdom, if you comprehend exactly what he said, you will immediately become enlightened.