Don't Look Down...

  This morning we met with another one of Myanmar's Buddhist leaders that runs a monastery with about 1,000 monks studying under him. We met with Ashin Tejaniya http://ashintejaniya.org/ who talked about the importance of meditation. He said mediation should be practiced all the time; that the mind has good qualities and bad qualities and that to cultivate the good quality of the mind, that practice is required. That meditation is watching where the mind goes and being aware of both your body and mind; that if you learn about the process you can lessen suffering and anger and lessen delusion. As delusion becomes less, wisdom comes more often. Life becomes the practice and practice becomes your life. Resilience is built to handle life situations that come up and awareness is cultivated. That through practice and awareness, you can see the action of the mind. That by resisting the action of the mind, a lot of needless energy is wasted. Practice can take place anywhere you are; being aware of your mind, body and surroundings.He said that silent meditation is good for beginners to block out external sights, sounds so you can be aware of the mind and observe your thoughts, be aware of your feelings; but with the practice, awareness can be cultivated anywhere you are. That the problem was not enough practice for recognizing your thoughts; seeing without looking and hearing without listening.  He said Mindfulness is not only about Buddhism, a good mind will foster wisdom and there is no need to worry about it being Buddhist or any religion. He cautioned about using meditation for craving aversion, that by holding back; you will not understand the mind and you will not reach awareness.

  Later in the day we went to see a reclining Buddha and another Pagoda that reportedly had four hairs from The Buddha's head.

  We walked around downtown Yangon and saw some historical buildings in disrepair and saw people out celebrating Burmese independence day today from Britain. A very full day from 6:30am to 6:30pm. Tomorrow we are off early to fly  to the Northern part of Myanmar to tour Pagan and Mandalay in the coming days.

Dave