Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org

teaching that the Buddha advised in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta:
“dukkhaṃ vā vedanaṃ vedayamāno ‘dukkhaṃ vedanaṃ
vedayāmī’ti pajānāti”
“When feeling a painful feeling, one knows clearly, ‘I feel a
painful feeling.’”
We instruct meditators to remind themselves, “pain, pain,
pain” for as long as the pain stays, as this will serve to inhibit
judgement and disliking from colouring one’s perception.
When one is clearly aware of the pain as simply “pain”, the
aversion to the pain will be replaced with simple
understanding of it as it is – pain and nothing more.
When thinking pleasant or unpleasant thoughts, we instruct
meditators to simply recognize them as “thinking”. When
moving the body – standing up, walking, sitting or lying
down, even with the rising and falling of abdomen during
breath, meditators are taught to simply remind themselves
of the movements as they are, using a word or mantra to
focus the mind on the essence of the experience.
When you like or dislike something, you can remind yourself,
“liking”, or “disliking”. When you feel tired, bored, worried,
scared, confused or whatever, you can conquer the emotion
in an instant if you can simply remind yourself of the essence
of it, as “tired”, “bored”, etc. Simply looking at each state –
mental, physical or emotional, and seeing it for what it really
is, nothing more, nothing less, not judging it, but coming to
understand clearly that it is no more than an existential
phenomenon that arises out of nothing and ceases without
remainder, is enough to free one from the power of all
addiction and aversion, all suffering and stress.
Once one sees reality for what it is, recognizing what are the
causes and what the effects, one will quickly clear out all
garbage from one’s mind, all of the bad habits and behaviour
from one’s being, recognizing for oneself that they lead only
to one’s suffering. Intellectual knowledge can never do this
for you; if you do not show yourself the truth through
meditation practice, it will ever be mere belief with no lasting
benefit.
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