A More Relaxed Way to Meditate | Alexis Santos
Dan Harris interviews meditation teacher Alexis Santos, a student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, about a relaxed, natural meditation style. This approach emphasizes the mind's attitude and open awareness over rigid focus, aiming to reduce suffering and build momentum in daily life.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Introduction to Relaxed Meditation and Alexis Santos
Introducing Sayadaw U Tejaniya and His Natural Approach
Shift from Focused to Open Awareness Meditation
The Importance of Checking the Mind's Attitude
Understanding Awareness as Not Difficult
Dan Harris's Experience with the Relaxed Retreat Style
Developing Awareness Momentum in Daily Life
The Role of Wisdom and Skillful Mind Qualities
Sayadaw U Tejaniya's Three Yogi Jobs for Meditators
Applying Open Awareness and Right View in Daily Practice
Sayadaw U Tejaniya's Background and Teaching Style
5 Key Concepts
Attitude of the Mind
This refers to the mental habits and disposition with which one approaches any activity, including meditation. Recognizing whether the mind is wanting something to happen or stop happening, or if it's relaxed and open, is crucial for understanding the quality of one's experience and reducing suffering.
Awareness Momentum
Awareness is like a light switch that is often off by default. By regularly and lightly 'tapping the swing' of awareness (e.g., asking 'Am I aware?'), one can build momentum so that the light switch stays on more often, leading to sustained mindfulness in daily life.
Right View (Wisdom)
Initially, right view is an intellectual understanding that whatever is happening is a natural process, arising from causes and conditions, rather than being personal or fixed. This perspective helps meditators approach experiences, even difficult ones, with a more skillful and less reactive attitude.
Any Experience as Basis for Awareness
Instead of limiting meditation to specific objects like the breath or body sensations, this approach posits that any experience—thoughts, emotions, sights, sounds, or even tension—can be a basis for developing awareness. This means meditation is not confined to formal sitting but can be practiced throughout daily life.
Moha (Delusion)
Moha is a form of delusion characterized by not clearly knowing something as it is. For example, simply seeing without being aware that seeing is happening is a state of moha. Developing awareness of sensory functions, like seeing or hearing, helps to overcome this delusion.
6 Questions Answered
Sayadaw U Tejaniya is a Burmese monk and meditation teacher who emphasizes a natural, relaxed approach to practice, focusing on understanding the mind that is doing the knowing rather than just the object of attention. He encourages meditators to open their awareness to the whole picture of their experience, including all emotions and mental states.
Unlike practices that primarily focus on a single object like the breath, Sayadaw U Tejaniya's style encourages opening awareness to whatever is arising in experience (sensations, emotions, thoughts, sights, sounds) and, crucially, to notice the 'attitude of the mind' that is aware, rather than getting engrossed in the object itself.
Checking the attitude in the mind reveals how one is relating to the present moment, exposing mental habits like wanting or aversion. Recognizing these movements of the mind helps one see how they lead to tension and stress, allowing for the development of wisdom to let go of unskillful patterns.
Awareness itself is not inherently difficult; it's always available. The challenge lies in remembering to be aware, as the mind often gets absorbed in experiences or forgets to check in. Simple reminders or 'taps' can easily bring awareness back to the present moment.
You can integrate this style by regularly asking yourself questions like 'Am I aware?' or 'What's the attitude in my mind right now?' throughout your day. This light touch helps build 'awareness momentum,' allowing you to be more present and learn from any experience, regardless of whether you're formally meditating.
When awareness gains momentum and becomes more sustained, it allows one to observe the functioning of the body and mind more clearly, leading to an understanding that everything is constantly changing. This insight helps reduce suffering caused by grasping onto pleasant experiences or resisting unpleasant ones, fostering a more skillful way of living.
26 Actionable Insights
1. Avoid Over-Efforting in Meditation
Do not try too hard or over-effort in meditation, as this is guaranteed not to make progress and will lead to suffering, especially for Type A individuals who try to ‘win’ at practice.
2. Prioritize Mind’s Attitude
Understand that the attitude of the mind doing the work of knowing is more critical than the object of attention itself, as focusing too much on the object can obscure the nature of awareness.
3. Check Your Mind’s Attitude
Periodically ask yourself, ‘What’s the attitude in the mind right now?’ during meditation to recognize mental habits like wanting or aversion that determine the quality of your experience and lead to suffering or well-being.
4. Apply Three Yogi Jobs
Simplify your meditation practice by applying Sayadaw’s ’three yogi jobs’: cultivate right view (seeing things as nature), check if awareness is present, and develop continuity with light, untiring effort.
5. Cycle Core Meditation Questions
Practice by relaxing the body, then cycling through questions like ‘What’s the attitude in my mind right now?’, ‘Am I aware right now?’, and ‘What is being known in the mind right now?’ to cultivate a relaxed, improvisational awareness.
6. Gently Tap Awareness Like Swing
Approach checking for awareness with a gentle ’tap’ like pushing a swing, letting it go and then tapping again later, without being neurotic, to gradually build momentum for sustained mindfulness.
7. Turn On Awareness Light Switch
Consciously ’turn on’ the light switch of awareness by checking if it’s present, understanding that with relaxed, light effort, this repeated action will eventually lead to awareness staying on more often than it’s off.
8. Integrate Awareness Checks Daily
Integrate the practice of ’tapping the swing’ (asking ‘Am I aware?’ or ‘What’s the attitude in my mind?’) throughout your daily life, even with short formal meditation periods, to cultivate sustained awareness.
9. Cultivate Right View (Wisdom)
Cultivate ‘right view’ by intellectually reminding yourself that whatever is happening (emotions, sensations, thoughts) is an impersonal, natural process arising from causes and conditions, rather than seeing it through personal preference or identification.
10. See Experience as Nature
Actively remind yourself to see all experiences as ’nature’ – impersonal processes – to counteract the default tendency to view them through personal preference, judgment, or identification.
11. Observe Change to Reduce Grasping
By maintaining awareness, you can observe that everything is constantly changing, which helps you reorient your approach to reality by slowly reducing grasping and clinging, leading to a happier and more peaceful life.
12. Practice Continuity with Light Effort
Continuously return to awareness with light effort, understanding that moments are always changing and it’s easy to drift, but this light, confident continuation will build momentum.
13. Develop Skillful Mind in All Moments
Redefine meditation as developing a skillful state of mind in any moment, even during conversations or negative reactions, as this watching develops awareness and insight into the suffering nature of reactions.
14. Learn from Any Experience
Recognize that any experience, when approached with the right attitude, can be an opportunity to develop awareness, stability of mind, and wisdom, rather than worrying about ‘getting it right’.
15. Awareness is Always Possible
Understand that no experience, regardless of its nature, precludes being aware; any experience can either absorb you or become the very basis for waking you up.
16. Recognize Awareness is Easy
Understand that awareness itself is not difficult, but we often forget to check the mind or do something that allows awareness to return, leading to absorption in experience.
17. Use Simple Awareness Questions
To re-engage awareness, ask yourself simple questions like ‘Are you aware that you are hearing?’ or ‘Can you feel your hands?’ to shift attention and realize that being aware is accessible.
18. Start with Accessible Objects
Especially when starting meditation, it can be helpful to begin by focusing on accessible objects like the physical experience of the body or breathing, rather than immediately trying to be aware of ‘whatever’.
19. Return to Directed Focus
If you find yourself totally lost in open awareness, return to a more directed style of meditation, such as watching the breath, to regain focus and stability.
20. Form Skillful Mental Ruts
Recognize that personality traits are just mental ‘ruts’ formed by repeated habits; actively cultivate ‘skillful ruts’ of awareness and understanding to change how you experience life.
21. Get Interested in Mind’s Struggle
Cultivate interest in observing the mind’s struggle, noting the difference between allowing/resisting and being aware/receiving, to learn how the mind gets caught and what happens with understanding.
22. Be As You Are and Be Aware
Allow yourself to be exactly as you are in the moment while cultivating awareness, recognizing this non-manipulative approach is profoundly healing and relaxing, even if not always easy.
23. Practice Meditation Naturally
Approach meditation in a natural way, as this can help overcome roadblocks and deep discontent encountered when practices are ‘anything but natural’.
24. Relax and Open Awareness
Relax and open your awareness to include the whole picture of your experience, encompassing all emotions, mental states, and feelings, to make the practice more accessible.
25. Value Formal Meditation Periods
While integrating awareness into daily life, also value and engage in formal meditation periods and retreats as a great foundation for deepening awareness and wise view.
26. Find Interest to Sustain Practice
Cultivate genuine interest in meditation and recognize its benefits for reducing suffering and living skillfully, as this intrinsic motivation is crucial for sustaining practice in every possible moment.
6 Key Quotes
Meditation is like a video game where you can't move forward if you want to move forward too badly.
Dan Harris
The mind that's working is more important than the thing that we're looking at.
Alexis Santos
What's the attitude in the mind right now?
Alexis Santos
Awareness itself is not difficult.
Alexis Santos
We don't need to stop these energies, but the more we direct a little bit of our mental energy towards what's skillful, what's helpful, like awareness, like wisdom, that begins to gain momentum.
Alexis Santos
There is nothing about the experience itself that precludes being aware.
Alexis Santos
1 Protocols
Sayadaw U Tejaniya's Three Yogi Jobs for Meditators
Sayadaw U Tejaniya (as described by Alexis Santos)- Have right view: See things as nature, understanding that whatever is happening is a process arising from causes and conditions.
- Check to see if awareness is present: Actively inquire if you are aware in the moment.
- Develop continuity: Practice with a light effort to sustain awareness without getting tired, allowing momentum to build.