Question: Dear Sayadaw, I don’t have any question but I just want to tell you to take some rest, you look tired and you should not work all the time like this. It is my pleasant required Master.
“If you know about attachments and habits, if not, your knowledge is not complete. If we see about attachments, the more we take rest the more we want to take rest. This is cause and effect. Taking rest is necessary but if we are attached to take rest, we need to take rest more and more. In this way, we also wasting our time. Another thing is about our habit. If we take rest, it will become our habit, that is why we need to take rest often. That habit is necessary but we can change. It is possible not to take rest intentionally, deliberately, or forcefully. We can take rest naturally it is no side effects. If we take rest intentionally it will become our habit and we will always need to take rest. If we understand the nature of body and mind, we have our resistance in our body and mind.
We feel tired when we are doing something new, we feel tired easily both, body and mind. When we feel tired we cannot do actively, the mind becomes less active and finally, we will fall asleep. By doing continuously when we feel really tired we will stop by itself in both, body and mind. This is also the nature breaker which does not damage our life and our health. That nature is complete but we used to rely on scientists, doctors, medicine… In this way we are destroying our natural resistance or safety because on rely on the scientist we have to sleep 6 or 8 hours a day, we have to eat often. In this way we are destroying our all resistance or protection. If we can be mindful ourself, we can know our own protection or resistance. But most of the people are busy with job, education, sports, music, games… that’s why they are unable to be mindful. That’s why they need to rely on scientists, doctors, or medicine. I am not rejecting science, medicine, or physician. If we being attached to them we will reject the nature protection or resistance.
Before I meditate, I used to take care of myself but I am not complete in knowledge, intelligence, and ability. That is why I cannot protect myself, so I need to rely on medicine, doctor, scientist. But when I meditate, I came to understand the nature of body and mind. It is working by itself. If we are doing something beyond our limits we feel tired and then we cannot continue to do. At that time we will take energy drinks and vitamins to continue our job, in this way we will destroy the natural protection of body and mind. We can also use energy drink but we must not reject the nature of body and mind. In this way, we should know more knowledge which science and nutrition and also about cause and effect and impermanent nature, the nature of body and mind. All it can prevent by itself, it can survive by itself, we should understand it. And then we should try to use it, in the right way, to be used only.
Compare with scientist and doctors the nature is complete, so if we can rely on nature, we will stop when we cannot do, we will sleep when we feel tired, we will continue working day and night. But we should not take energy drinks. If we cannot continue, it will be stoped by self. We will feel asleep when we feel too tired, and then when we charge full, you will wake up and continue. It is what I am using, I would like to do like this. I’m also teaching others I would like to do like this. That’s why no need to rely on the customs of the society, we have our own safety, break limits, we no need to go to the beach to relax, no need to see the museum, no need to listen to the song just be mindful ourselves. We can continue our job, we can do our responsibilities continuously.
If you think about the habit, there are many bad habits in living beings. Most of the habits need to be changed, to be stoped. To be able to do like this, we have to do good deeds by dealing with Buddha, Dhamma, and Shanga. In this way, the habit of the laypeople, the habit of the child, old men, the habit of the men, the woman can be stoped. Sleeping or taking rest intentionally is also a bad habit of human beings. So if we can remove this bad habit we will have more time to do, we can do more, we can understand more. What you understand is right, that is good. Therefore, you can also understand what is the nature of the body and mind. You can also listen about the nature of the body and mind, the nature of habit, attachment.
If you follow us, you can understand more clearly. We have been traveling one trip after another.
We are not thinking of taking rest. We rarely think of taking rest, only for sometimes, we feel really tired so we need to take rest, we need to stop. But most of the time the whole group no need to take rest, people can take rest in time while traveling. I have been traveling continuously, that is why my habit is changing. I have not exact time to sleep, I may no have a stable amount of food to eat. That makes me imbalanced but It is no need to take rest. Even if I am feeling tired, I will continue to do and it will disappear. Because I understand the habit, we can change the habit. If we sleep 4 hours a day it will become our habit and if we sleep only 3 hours a day, we will become sleepy. If we sleep 6 hours a day, we maybe feel sleepy if we only sleep for 5 hours.
It’s concerned with the habit, not concerned with taking rest. Trying to do good deeds whether we feel tired or not is better than taking rest. We are taking care too much about ourselves that why we have strong attachments on ourselves. It is difficult to detach but this practice intent to detach from that attachment. The mind is the most important if we cannot understand like this we cannot do. If we understand we can do. If we do we can understand. If we do not do we cannot understand. If more and more people understand like this we can correct the mistake of the society.”