From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qdgNmCn3xgY

Context: Throughout this transcript, Bhante Vimalaramsi is the speaker unless otherwise indicated.

[Music]

when I was practicing so much great to

pass on I'd told you have done a lot of

retreats actually if you string all the

retreats that I've done together it's

probably years worth of retreats in 20

so after doing the same thing over and

over and expecting a different result

when I got back to Malaysia and started

actually studying that's when this book

came out in 1995 and I was at I was with

Kate Reed on Ananda and he or somebody

there was a lot of excitement when this

book came out somebody said how would

you like a copy I'd like to donate it to

you son yeah I'd like a copy soon as I

got it I started reading what it was

saying without having the the suti manga

in my way and I started understanding it

very very well

very deeply I could understand what the

suitors were saying and I saw that the

instructions and meditation weren't the

same everybody in and practicing any

kind of Buddhist meditation

they have a an idea of what craving is

but it's just a surface idea and finding

out about that relaxed step I was doing

mindfulness of breathing when I found

this because I immediately when I

started going to the suitors I started

understanding what it was saying and I

went to the anapanasati suta and I

started reading the instructions and

they weren't anything like the

instructions I had been given for 20

years so I started sitting down and

trying to figure out what does it mean

that tranquil is a bodily formation I

was teaching them Retreat

loving-kindness at the time and I just

got done giving a Dhamma talk and as I

was walking back I was thinking about

what does it mean to relax a bodily

formation and I thought you know I've

always had this tightness and tension in

my head I wonder if that's what it's

talking about

so I relax the tension and tightness in

my head and I watched and I didn't have

any thoughts coming up my mind was

really clear and alert and then I came

back to the mindfulness of breathing

in breath relaxing on the out-breath now

I tried relaxing on the in-breath and

the out-breath

with this relaxed step of letting go

that tightness in my head and every time

right after I use that relaxed step I

was blown away because my mind was so

clear and I started thinking well okay

so I got back to my room and I decided I

was going to sit down and practice this

and see what happened I wound up sitting

an hour and a half for two hours and I

went deeper in that time than I had ever

gone before and I was considered in

Burma I was considered a very very

advanced student and I went deeper so I

got pretty enthusiastic about that and I

was starting to do it a lot and that's

when I took off for two weeks to go to a

cave in Thailand and I would get up in

the morning I would go out on the homes

round I would heat watch they take a

shower sit down with this book and just

read suit this until around noon then I

would sit from how probably around 1:00

o'clock until 11 or 12 o'clock at night

and I get

do the same thing again and after two

weeks I was gaining so much insight and

understanding by reading these things

that I couldn't quit could promised I

was going to come back in two weeks

and I came back only because chief monk

sent somebody to get me after three

months but I got a whole lot of deep

understanding because I was doing that

so being able to cognize and I was used

to having pains come up in my body when

I was sitting and I saw what how the

importance of letting that pain neither

by itself and relaxing and letting it go

completely just let it be there it's

fine that it's there it didn't matter it

didn't matter how intense the pain was

eventually all those pains went away and

I didn't have any more problem with that

I could sit for sometimes long periods

of time three hours four hours five

hours without moving and in Thailand

that's really something if you can do

that

monks find out taeyeon sitting for hours

Wow

because I'm kind of said they want

things they wanted me to teach them

but there was a problem with the

language barrier they spoke Thai and I

didn't basicly what it boiled down to

but when I'm telling you these kind of

things and how to do them and talking

from my direct experience and I know

what works

I really do even though you might not

like hearing what I have to say it does

work and the closer you can follow these

and directions of faster your progress

becomes so I know you might have painful

feeling arises or you have restlessness

of some sort or another arise well okay

let it be there it's not yours

you didn't ask it to come up hindrances

are your friend there coming to show you

where you have an attachment if they're

showing you where in the past you broke

a precept and that guilty feeling of

breaking the precept is why you did you

take it personally so keeping the

precept is a real important part of the

practice

you