Interview with Sayadaw U Pandita: Instructions for the practice of Vipassana meditation (Part 2)

  • 2018

We do not practice meditation to obtain the admiration of anyone. Instead, we practice to contribute to the peace of the world.

Sayadaw U Pandita

We continue with the interview with Sayadaw U Pandita about Vipassana Meditation . In the first part, the teacher taught us about meditation in a sitting position. In this, we will discuss walking meditation and the concepts of concentration and inner vision ( insight ).

Vipassana: Walking Retreat and Meditation

25. What is the schedule during a retreat?

During retreats it is common to alternate periods of sitting meditation with periods of formal walking meditation of around the same duration, one behind the other throughout the day.

26. How long should a period of walking meditation be?

The standard period is one hour, but 45 minutes can also be.

27. How long should the path of retreat participants be in walking meditation?

For walking meditation, retreat participants choose a path of about twenty raisins, and then walk slowly back and forth through it.

28. Does the practice of walking meditation help in daily life?

Yes. A short period — about ten minutes of formal walking meditation before sitting down — serves to focus the mind. In addition, the consciousness developed in walking meditation is useful for all of us, as we constantly move our body from one place to another in the course of a normal day.

29. What mental qualities develop in walking meditation?

Walking meditation develops balance and precision in consciousness as well as longer duration of concentration.

30. Can one observe deep aspects of dharma while walking?

You can observe very deep aspects of dharma while walking, and even achieve enlightenment.

31. If you don't practice walking meditation before sitting, do you have any disadvantages?

A yogi who does not meditate walking before sitting is like a car with an exhausted battery. He or she will have difficulty turning on the engines of mindfulness when he feels.

Vipassana: Sitting Meditation and Full Consciousness of Movement

32. During the walking meditation, what process should we focus our attention on?

Walking meditation involves paying attention to the process of walking.

33. When walking fast, what should we notice? Where should we pose our consciousness?

You are moving fairly fast, make a mental note of the movement of the legs, "left, right, left, right, " and use your awareness to pursue the real sensations along the leg area.

34. When you move slowly, what should we notice?

If you are moving slowly, notice the elevation, movement and support of each foot.

35. Both walking slowly and quickly, where should we keep our mind?

In any case you should try to keep your mind on the sensations of walking.

36. When you stop at the end of the path of meditation, what should you do?

Pay attention to what processes happen when you stop at the end of the road, when you stay stopped, when you turn around and start walking again.

37. Should we look at our feet?

Do not look at your feet unless it becomes necessary due to some obstacle on the floor; It is not advisable to keep the image of your foot in your mind while trying to be aware of your sensations. You must focus your mind on the sensations themselves, and these are not visual.

38. What can people discover when they focus on the sensations of walking?

For many people it is fascinating to discover when they manage to have a pure and vast perception of physical objects such as light, a shudder, cold or heat.

39. How is walking usually labeled?

We usually divide the walk into three different movements: elevation, movement and support of the foot.

40. How can we make our consciousness more precise?

To support a precise awareness, we clearly separate the movements, mentally labeling at the beginning of each movement, and making sure that our consciousness sustains it clearly and powerfully until it ends. A minor but important point is to begin to notice the support of the foot at the moment when the foot begins to lower.

41. Are our knowledge about conventional concepts important for meditation?

Consider "elevation *". We know its conventional name, but in meditation it is important to penetrate behind the conventional concept and understand that the real nature of the entire lifting process, beginning with the intention of lifting and continuing through the process itself, which involves many sensations.

42. What happens if our effort to keep our attention on the elevation of the foot is too strong, or alternatively, too weak?

If our effort to keep an eye on the elevation of the foot is too strong, it will exceed the sensation. If our effort is too weak it will not meet the objective.

Vipassana: Developing Concentration

43. What happens when the effort is balanced?

The precise and appropriate mental objective helps to balance our effort. When this is balanced and our goal is precise, mindfulness will establish itself firmly on the object of our consciousness.

44. What mental factors must be present to develop concentration?

It is only in the presence of these three factors — effort, precision and mindfulness — that concentration develops.

45. What is concentration?

Concentration is the collection of the mind: the aim. Its characteristic is that it prevents the awareness of becoming diffuse or dispersed.

46. ​​What will we see as we get closer and closer to the process of lifting the foot?

As we approach this process of lifting the foot, we will see that it is like a line of ants walking on a street. From a distance the line may appear to be static, but from close we will see how it starts to shake and vibrate.

47. As we get closer, what will we see?

From closer the line is divided into individual ants, and we see how our notion of the line is only an illusion. Now we perceive more precisely the line as an ant behind another which in turn is behind another.

Vipassana: The Interior Vision process

48. What is the "Inner Vision"?

The "Inner Vision" is a mental factor. When we look precisely at, for example, the process of lifting the foot from the beginning to the end, the mental factor or quality of consciousness called "inner vision" approaches the object of observation. The closer this factor gets closer, the clearer the true nature of the foot lift process can be observed.

49. How is the progress of the inner vision?

It is a wonderful fact about the human mind that when the inner vision is awakened and deepened through the Vipassana, or "practical meditation of the inner vision, " the particular aspects of the truth about existence tend to be revealed in a definitive order. . This order is known as the progress of the inner vision.

50. What is the first inner vision that meditation practitioners commonly experience?

Meditation practitioners understand, not intellectually or by reasoning but more by intuition, that a process such as the elevation of the foot is composed of different mental and material phenomena that occur together, as a couple. The physical sensations, which are the material. They are connected but differ from consciousness, which is mental.

51. What is the second inner vision in classical progress?

We begin to see a complete succession of mental events and physical sensations, and to appreciate the conditionality that relates mind and substance. We see the great freshness and immediacy with which the mind causes the substance, as when our intention to raise the foot initiates the physical sensations of the movement, and we see how the substance causes the mental, as when a very hot physical sensation generates the desire to mobilize our walking meditation to some point with greater shadow. The inner vision of cause and effect can take a wide variety of forms. When he wakes up, however, our life seems to be much simpler for us than ever before. Our life is nothing but a chain of physical and mental causes and effects. This is the second inner vision in its classic process.

52. What is the next level of inner vision?

As we develop concentration, we see more in depth that these phenomena of elevation processes are impermanent and impersonal, appearing and disappearing one by one at fantastic speed. This is the next level of inner vision, the next aspect of existence that concentrates consciousness becomes able to see directly. There is no one behind what is happening; The phenomenon wakes up and goes out as an empty process, according to the laws of cause and effect. This illusion of movement and solidity is like a movie. For ordinary perception it seems full of characters and objects, all the countenance of a world. But if we slow down the movie we will see that it is in fact composed of separate and static frames.

-.-

Here concludes this interesting interview with Sayadaw U Pandita, where the teacher gives us all the information we need to be able to perform a correct practice of vipassana meditation, one of the oldest.

Again I have had to make some decisions in translation to keep this information as faithful as possible to what the teacher teaches us with his words. Those who wish may find below the link to the original interview.

Thus, Sayadaw U Pandita teaches us that paying attention to the processes that are unfolding physically and mentally in our lives can be a difficult task, but it can bring us closer to enlightenment and a purer perception of reality.

After reading his words, we have the ability to assume the goal of vipassana meditation with greater tools. Enter this fascinating meditation that can accompany us in each process throughout our entire routine. To transport it the way we look at the world, in which we live and interact.

A constant state of greater awareness.

A state of enlightenment.

PART 1: interview-a-sayadaw-u-pandita-instructions-for-the-practice-of-meditation-vipassana-part-1 /

PART 2: interview-a-sayadaw-u-pandita-instructions-for-the-practice-of-vipassana-part-2 /

AUTHOR: Lucas, editor in the big family of hermandadblanca.org

SOURCES: http://www.myanmarnet.net/nibbana/pandita3.htm

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