What is the meaning of Thabarwa?

"Thabarwa is complete. Thabarwa, or Nature, is complete. It will represent both the original truth and the created truth. Non-living beings and living beings are created truth. The earth, the sky, the universe, the infinite universe, all these non-living beings are created truth. Cow's, dogs, all these are living beings. All living beings are also created truth. They are nature. Nama, rupa and nibanna are original truth. They are also nature. Both created truth and original truth are nature, Thabarwa. So Thabarwa, the meaning of Thabarwa is complete. Thabarwa or nature is complete so I chose that name.

The United States only represents the living beings and non-living beings, not the truth of ever new impermanent nature. That is why the United States is not complete. People here are also not representing the truth. We all need a place and the complete wisdom. This is why I chose the name Thabarwa Nature Center, to fulfill the needs of the people, living beings and non-living beings.

I was welcomed by the people here, which is why I could visit and buy the land here. I got the support of the people because I support the people. If I don't support the people, they will not support me. This place was created by the help of people, so I need to use this place for the people, for all in need. This is the right and most suitable way to use it. If you understand, you just need to do like this, and the more you do the more you will understand it. Simple but deep. Not like this, not like that, no limits. My teaching represents limitlessness. The words I use have limits but the meaning behind is limitless. You need to find out beyond the words or language."

What does Doing-Only mean? (People misunderstand it as non-caring.)

"Doing-Only does not represent living beings. It represents the truth, which is why there are no words for it from the human beings. Like in Myanmar, there was no car, so we used to call it just 'car' like in English, in Burmese language. In English it is C-A-R and in Burmese it is Kagyi-yecha-wissanalomba : ကား]. We have to use the same pronunciation but with different letters, because we have no word in Burmese for car. So the truth, doing-only, is not the action of people or animals, not the action of living beings. This is why doing-only is the nearest word to represent the truth. I am not speaking about the word doing-only, I speak about the truth, which is more than doing-only. It is doing-only without attachment. It doesn't represent careless doing. We need to detach. Caring represents attachment. We want to take care of someone. We want to care because we are attached to taking care of someone or something. So we need to do good deeds and do our daily activities without attachment, because we also have attachment to limits. We need to detach both from the limits and from attachments. Meditation is beyond the intelligence of human beings, so it takes time to understand about meditation or about mindfulness and detachment."

How does Buddhism define suffering?

" If we see from the side of living beings, including animals, life means food, life means coffee, music, art, money, fame, power, love. For some people love is life, money is life. For some people medicine is life; they are alive with medicine. For some people family is life. Without it they cannot live their lives. For some people friends are life. They cannot live their lives without friends. Some people will be friends with cats or dogs. Without friends they cannot live. For some people life is freedom. They love freedom. For some people life is philosophy or ideas. Without philosophy or ideas they cannot survive. So this kind of life is incomplete.

The truth is that all living beings are suffering, suffering for their life, suffering love, suffering drinks, suffering food, medicine, freedom, power, earth, music, sport, joy, smile, suffering the smile. In fact they cannot understand their own suffering. Suffering is the action so the truth is suffering. The life is suffering from living beings and non-living beings, suffering something or someone. This is the truth. Without suffering there will be no life. If there is life, there will be suffering. Suffering good, suffering bad. For some people life is anger. For some people life is greed. For some people life is ignorance. They are suffering ignorance, greed and anger. If we cannot understand our own suffering we can never be free from suffering, so the truth is suffering. Because of attachment on suffering we cannot be free from suffering.

For me, I am used to dealing with warm weather, so whenever it is too cold, I have to suffer it. I sleep with dislike. I don't want to suffer cold. I want to keep myself warm when I sleep. That is also suffering. But I didn't know my suffering. Only when I meditated I knew life is suffering. Hot and cold are not much important if we understand the truth of suffering. We need to detach from suffering. We need to know our own action of suffering at the present moment. And then we need to detach. If we can detach our life will be real freedom. Freedom from suffering. If we don't know about suffering we cannot be free from suffering. Time will change, place and situation will change, but suffering will not change. If you are not suffering happiness or joy you will be suffering sadness or sorrow. This is sure." 

Sayadaw, I think westerners can't understand what it means to suffer happiness.

"Suffer means.... They like food, smoking, drinking, all this is that they want to suffer the taste of food, the taste of happiness. We want to see and taste the adventure movie because we want to taste the adventure. We want to see the movie of ghosts or unseen creatures because we want to suffer. We want to suffer fear."

Doesn't it mean just feeling then?

Feeling is just feeling but In English suffering means something negative.

"Both good and bad should be mindful of and detached. Both suffering and feelings need to be detached. Because of attachment, feeling is not good. Suffering is also not good. Like for example we want to be good, to be healthy, to be skillful. This is also attachment on good things and actions. Because of attachment we cannot understand the real good thing, which is permanent nature. We think good people, good, rich, clever, long life, or health as the truth. People in the society think that to have work, fame, health, all these are true, that good food, good people are true, but this is wrong. These are just created truth, not real, but people think these are real. They think sickness, poorness, stupid are bad. If we think life is good we may also think that no life is bad. If we think earning or having is good, then we think having nothing is bad. Because we misunderstand that life is good, we think sickness is bad. This is why we misunderstand health or good health is good. This is suffering, suffering something as good and suffering something as bad, suffering that someone is good and the other opposite someone is bad. All these are sufferings. Attachment is suffering. It will take time to understand. Only when you are mindful while you are happy you may understand that it is because of attachment for suffering good things as real. We can use good things but we should not attach on these things. The real good things are mindfulness and detachment. Because people are not mindful while doing what is good or speaking what is bad."