Interview
with Danish Yogi in Hpa An
16th
April 2013
(Part
– 1)
Q : What is the true nature?
Sayadaw : There are two kind of original truths in nature. One is ever new impermanent nature and the other one is constant permanent nature.
Because
of not knowing the original truth there is misunderstanding as my mind, we
think of ourselves as reality, we think our wisdom as real, we think what we
know (our knowledge) as real. This is because of not knowing the original truth.
In order to know the original truth we have to meditate, we have to use our
life and use our intelligence not for our sake.
Using our intelligence for our sake is not doing good deeds.
Using
our intelligence not only for few people but for all, not for a limited number
of people but for all who are doing good deeds. What we should do is to meditate,
to take precepts and to work for other people. And beside this, while doing so
we should not pay attention to the mind or to the body or taking them as
reality.
We
should not pay attention to the result, to the time or to the place. Paying
attention is because of attachment. In order to be free from any attachment we
should try to abandon our habits.
There
are a lot of habits in everyone. We are using our habits. We accept ourselves
and habits as being reality. This is a wrong idea.
We
should do good deeds. We should try to
be able to abandon our habits. In order to do so, we must not think about
ourselves. We must just use our life and our intelligence but without paying
emphasised attention to our intelligence, without grasping to ourselves and to
other people.
It
is possible for everyone to pay emphasised attention to the right understanding
and focusing on the right understanding. The right understanding is to do-only,
neither to be attached nor to reject. It is possible not to forget this right understanding
and to do good deeds as much as possible.
If
you forget the right understanding, you will do good deeds with wrong
understanding and with the idea of ‘I’. The truth is not something, not
someone. Just ever new impermanent nature. In order to know the ever new impermanent
nature, you must try to abandon paying emphasised attention to living beings
and non-living beings.
If
you watch your mental actions, you will see that your mind is working with
living beings and non-living beings and it is always busy with something or
everything, someone or everyone. That is our old habit.
While
doing good deeds you must not use your old habit and in this way you are doing
good deeds in the right way. Doing good deeds with our habits is not following
the middle way. Doing good deeds without placing central emphasis on someone or
something is following the middle way.
You
must control your mental actions and you must control the action of your mind
with right understanding. If you cannot control your mind it will use its old
habit which thinks everything as real, individual, emotion, feeling, thinking and
knowing as being real. This is not the right understanding.
If
you are doing good deeds without the right understanding, there is mistake. My
teaching is specialized in doing good deeds without mistake. In order to
correct your mistake you must try not to obey your desire. ‘I want to do like
this’, or ‘I want to stay here’. This is
our desire. It means that the mind is
grasping to the place and to the method. This habit is wrong. You can stay
here, you can do what you want but you must try not to grasp to something or
someone.
Created
truths seem to be real because of not knowing the constant impermanent nature. ‘I’, ‘you’, men and women, all are created
truths. They are alive because of not knowing
the original truth. We all are created
truth. We are living in a created life.
Created
one is not original. It will appear at one time and disappear at one time.
The
original truth is always the constant, no beginning and no end. The original
truth is always true, never changing.
To be continued…..