01/07/2026
Be With Whatever Is
You don’t select objects; just be there and aware. You don’t try to experience past experiences. You don’t try to get anywhere. Don’t encourage thinking, encourage seeing. You develop a sharper awareness if you watch the passing away closely.
Real happiness is not wanting anything.
Don’t lie down too long; it makes you lose your sharpness. If you have to rest, maintain some mindfulness, keep sharp, alert, awake, and balanced. Do not encourage sleeping.
If you get lazy, motivate yourself; self-motivation is very important.
Thinking makes you lose awareness.
Note ‘ego, wrong views, comparing, competing.’ Have no thoughts or words about what you are knowing. You already know.
When meditating, the mind is taking a rest from concepts. It gives no name to what is experiencing. It only knows what is happening directly without any thoughts.
It is necessary to look and know the state of the mind. Know what you can experience directly. There is no need to justify or stop what you are feeling.
Don’t let memories affect you or the present moment.
If you want freedom from the process (mind and body), you must see what the process is first. Do not depend on externals - material things for your peace of mind, depend only on your own mind.
Do not think of thoughts or wandering mind as a disturbance. That is just another object.
It’s not worth getting upset about anything at all!
When you meditate, it is important to keep your mind on paramattha (movements, sensations of body and mind etc.)
If you don’t, the mind can still become calm and concentrated, but you cannot feel reality, you won’t be able to develop deep insight.
We CANNOT directly experience concepts; only by experiencing the quality (hardness, coldness, heat, softness, stiffness, pressure, heaviness, tension, pain) we are experiencing directly without thinking about it.
Growth is a process of trial and error.
Life is a series of experiments until the day we die! Tension is excessive energy. ...
Note the interpreter, the explainer, the one who reacts, in the mind when these thoughts come, just be aware of them and that you are interpreting (car sound, bird,) and they will go away gradually.
If you don’t interpret, react, and explain for a long time, something strange happens again: It seems like you are not experiencing anything very well. Your experience is not very strong anymore. This is normal.
When you are meditating, whatever is happening right now is your object of meditation. Be ready, be present, an object is always there.
Do not expect what will happen next, do not try to create experience, or to make your meditation experience better, just be with whatever is happening completely. That’s the most important aspect of meditation.
Be with whatever is.
Meditating is very-very simple. Are you willing to be simple?
- Cittanupassana
- photo: Shwe O Min Sayadaw
