Author: Teoh Kian Koon

Short Notes for Brother Teoh’s April 11 2019 Thursday class  

1. Brother Teoh encouraged kalyanamittas to report their meditation as by reporting you can be guided in your understanding and others can learn too. When you can be mindful and heedful throughout the day, it can help you settle down very fast during your formal meditation. Anapanasati is developed very fast too. It is normal for thoughts to arise if you still have mental hindrances but if you are aware of them through understanding you will not be affected by it or drawn into it. Just let things be and relax then the thoughts will slow down until mind returns to its original state ofsilent inner awareness.
2. Sister Eng Bee reported her meditation as follows: during sitting her mind was clear and she was mindful and aware most of the time. There was hardly any thoughts. Her awareness was very clear. Then she recall her intention to ask Bro Teoh a question.
3. Brother Teoh explained that before you meditate, you already have the intention to ask that question, that is how it can condition such thoughts to arise. This is termed as subtle ‘accumulation’. As you have the intention to ask that question, it is already in your memory or subconscious mind. When you are quiet, these thoughts then arise as response to memory. As you meditate, you will be able to see other thoughts that you have held on to unknowingly from your heedless living. Just a little attention given to a thought or any life situation, due to habitual tendencies, it goes into your subconscious and gets accumulated, which then arise later on when there is conditions. But when you are aware with understanding, it does not get accumulated.
4. Meditation is to train the mundane mind in sati then to stabilize it to realize Passaddhi (the tranquility and stillness of mind). Passaddhi needs to be very stable so that you are always aware even after you are out of your formal meditation. When your mind enters sati, everything you do, you are in sati. Your hearing, seeing, smell, taste, touch, etc. are all in sati. When this happens it is important that practitioners do not fall intocomplacency. Instead develop continuity of mindfulness i.e. to master the skill to do it consistently even after the meditation retreat. Thus agood daily religious routine is essential to stabilize our cultivation. When there is clarity in every sense experience, there is no accumulation butonly a flow of pure awareness within life. There is joy arising due to the clarity and understanding, but if you are not careful it can lead to complacency. The mind is just aware most of the time. Aware, aware, aware…
5. When you are still under training, precepts are important to keep because you reap what you sow and you must not be complacent or getoverexcited when you experience some good results. You can share with others but only on what you understand and experience. To realizefruition of cultivation, the cultivator needs further contemplation andreflection. Fruition gives rise to understanding that enabling you to share with others easily. Prior to this, you only understand but could not express it clear to others as yet. As you cultivate, sharing arises by itself after your understanding has stabilized. Unless you have cultivated before in the past, you would have to go through the normal cultivation process step by step. You can only understand up to the level you have developed them in the past. From there, you will continue with your cultivation to progress accordingly following the training established.
6. Master Hui Neng heard the truth of: ‘the mind must have no dwelling’ and awaken right away. This can only happen to those who have developed their past understanding.
7. Buddha says “heedfulness is the path to the deathless, heedlessness is the path to the dead. The heedful do not die, the heedless are as if dead.” With heedfulness, you can see the arising of thought and if you are caught by it, you can come out of it if you are aware and heedful. You can also develop the ability to see your subtle accumulation and attachment to sense experiences, if you are ever mindful.
8. Human beings have given undue importance to many small things in life and end up accumulating these things via their own likes and dislikes,thus making them restless and agitated most of the time. But withheedfulness and yoniso manasikara, the mind develops wisdom and does not stir anymore thus it can be at peace with whatever life situation. There is joy in life, no more panicking/reacting/getting overexcited. You understand the causes and conditions behind all these emotional arisingbecause you do things with awareness/sati. Thus you are able to live theheedful life from moment to moment and have clarity of mind to understand deeply the dhamma arising while in midst of life itself.
9. True dhamma can only be realized while in the midst of life itself, not from theory in the book which are mere words, concepts and thoughts. The dhamma on the 3 evil roots of Greed, Hatred and Delusion are usually taught as words and concepts whereas in real cultivation youexperience them and you are fully aware of them while in real life without words. When you can ‘see’ them arising within your form and mind and how they make you evil – that is true cultivation. No more theoretical dhamma. Just like the finger pointing at the moon – the finger is not the moon. To realize the moon one must gaze beyond the finger. Similarly the dhamma points to truth. To realize the truth one must not cling to the dhamma which are mainly words. Real dhamma only arisewhen your daily mindfulness is very stable. When you can ‘see’ it clearly in life you transformed from within, leading to real awakening. Then you will come to understand that life itself is our greatest teacher for things are just the way they are and Truth which is beyond word is everywhere. Living beings tend to use words which tend to camouflage the real seeing.
10. Before the views, conditioning and thoughts get involved, you can see thing as it is. But your memory’s views, opinions and conditioningintervene very fast to distort your pure seeing. All that you know areknowledge, words and concepts arising through memory and thoughtsand these are not real understanding. The real understanding lies inknowing their movements leading to the understanding of the law of dependent origination or 12 links (paticca samuppada) teaching.
11. Dhamma is an understanding which is not rigid – unlike knowledge because everything is in a state of flux and Life is always a dynamic flow which is not static. Hence it can only be understood via wisdom.

12. Hey no you, hey no me. As you awaken through daily mindfulness you will know this very deeply through wisdom and not mere words. Later on the mundane mind collapses, resulting in real seeing with clarity from ones nature. (Brother Teoh shared his experience on this). Please do listento the audio recording to develop the clear, beautiful and deep understanding of the dhamma shared on that night.
13. Thought is limited and egoic. Pure Awareness shrinking into a small spaceto form a thought upon perception by the mundane mind. The small space receives the content of consciousness (memories, views, opinions and conditioning) inputted via our brain to form a thought. Thesubconscious and the unconscious have all the trapped phobias, scars of memories, insecurities, etc. accumulated previously. These then trigger off fear and causes suffering. BUT you are the pure awareness beyond the thoughts, that spacious awareness without a center.  So who fear? What fear?
14. Insecurity is not easy to root out because it is tied to the self and onesnon understanding of the law of karma. Why are you insecure? Thought which is egoic tends to project itself and creates insecurity via the atta (self). Understand that Law of karma only manifests through conditions so we should trust our karma to give us real security. Thus without such understanding, the sense of insecurity will be there. It is a false conceptwhich deluded living beings cling on to. Wisdom is needed to root this out.
15. You need to cultivate until your awareness is so clear and stable that you can see the subtle greed, hatred and delusion that arise. Only then youcan root them out through wisdom. They come through mental accumulation borne of self-delusion. Whatever you give meaning to, you will accumulate. With strong daily mindfulness and understanding, there and then we are able to see it clearly.
16. It is only a thought and thought arises and passes away very quickly so how come it has power to make you feel so miserable and unhappy? It is because the user of thought is deluded. It arises wrong thoughts tocondition your fear, worry, anxiety and all the other negative emotionsleading to suffering. However by contemplating the beautiful dhamma to understand how all these come about, you will have wisdom leading tomore joy, peace, calmness, contentment, metta, faith in the triple gem, good spiritual faculties and wholesome mind states borne of right thoughts. We will become more respectful and appreciative of life and we will have more space between thoughts leading to more moment of awareness and quietness of mind.
17. Contentment, gratitude and an appreciative mind are good virtues. When you can appreciate life and what your loved ones and nature have given you (their love and their sacrifices) you will not complain anymore. When you have contentment in life, you do not compare and crave for more things hence you will be have less suffering and more happiness as you are already contented and more at peace. Your mind becomes beautiful. You are grateful to others who have helped you. These are virtues of true cultivators.
18. Sister Eng Bee further shared that she was aware of all the many external vibrations caused by heavy rain and internal sensations of her body like her heartbeats etc. As her awareness (without words) was very clear, herunderstanding suddenly came allowing her to understand clearly that ‘all things arise due to conditions’ and they are all dependent originating. She then did the lying down meditation.
19. Brother Teoh explained that lying down meditation is good as it frees your energy build up. This will make you more aware with much clarity then all things flow as it is and you will understand condition arising, causal phenomena very clearly. When there is contact at the sense bases, sense consciousness arise. This is condition arising. All phenomena exhibit these characteristics: Empty nature, impermanence and non-self. The form and mind is like a mechanical thing. In every movement of awareness there is no one there. In the seeing, there is only the seeing consciousness, no one to see. Same with thought, hearing, smelling, taste and tactile feeling. All these are condition arising/causal phenomena. Hence there is no permanent unchanging entity within. A lot of things will happen when you have a stable daily mindfulness. Not until your daily mindfulness has stabilized the real meditation has not started yet.
20. The Buddha said, ‘strive on with heedfulness’ for Heedfulness (ever mindful and constantly meditative) is the path to the deathless. As you are aware with more clarity, wisdom will arise and when your heartbeat starts to slows down trust your nature and let your awareness be. Yourvibrations will become more refined. You will detect the gateway to your nature. The Yin and Yang energies will melts and flows through your gateway to your nature as pure energy. This pure energy will opens up the nadi (minor chakras) and major chakras. When this happens, do not do anything but just silent, relax and trust the nature to do. Don’t allow the thought to interfere with your meditation. The by-product is gas. Your body system is cleansed. Pure awareness shines forth. This wisdom energy can cause the mundane mind to collapse as the mundane mind istoo gross to exist in this field of fine wisdom energy. Bro Teoh shared his above experiences in fairly great detail that night. For more detail please listen to his this audio file.

21. Awakening can happen if you listen attentively with a silent mind. Brother Teoh shared that his nature came into this world with his past vows, aspirations and cultivation thus able to understand all these. For you all to be born as humans during Buddha sasana also show that you all have your past cultivation. Brother Teoh shared that one of his very unique aspirations was to realize the highest wisdom possible whenever his nature arise.
22. In the Diamond sutra it is stated that merits accrued by those who understand its 4 stanzas and able to share them with the world is very high and very rare. To realize ones true nature (which is without thought) is very important. Enlightenment is always spontaneous and the moment you understand you awaken. It does not take time.  Either you awaken and understand or you don’t.
23. True mind is without thought whereas mundane mind is full of imagesand thinking. 
24. Brother Teoh confirmed Sister Eng Bee’s understanding that ‘all the conditioned phenomena must cease for the unconditioned to arise’. Form and Mind must cease for the realization of nibbana to arise. When it happens, the 3 areas of main consciousness at the brain, heart and Tan Tien areas returns to the gateway and shut down. It returns to the nature and completely ceases. Pure awareness is also gone. But you are not dead. There is no word to describe this. When you come out of that cessation, the 3 area of consciousness arise again. This whole process is seen clearly by the form and mind that realize that cessation. According to Brother Teoh cessation happened many times: once while in Cameron Highlands, a few times at home and once in New Zealand when he meditated with his last teacher at his house in Hamilton. (Above draft was prepared by Sister Phey Yuen)

Bye! and with metta always,