The Mp3 recording from Wednesday 25th March 09 when Venerbale Sayadaw U Jotika stopped off in Bangkok to give a (much too rare) public talk, hosted by his publisher DMG Books is posted below (English only segments)
Sayadaw will be back in Bangkok at the end of June ’09. If you enter your email in the CONTACT page you will get a notice of any event if we can get one organised.
Sayadaw is a hugely respected master from Burma, whose Dhamma is lyrical, simple and precise. There are several books of his teachings, notably the superb Map of the Journey and the book Snow in the Summer which is available online. While online versions are free, the proceeds from the printed versions are forwarded and used to help the suffering people in Myanmar. This was a very special opportunity to meet with a tremendously inspiring teacher.
*****
The event was in English with translation into Thai, but through the wonders of modern computing it was a relatively painless process to cut the Thai parts and create an MP3 of just the English sections; posted below.
The talk was based on some verses from an old anonymous Samurai poem, which served as a launching point into some beautiful dhamma. In fact, this topic will be the basis of Sayadaw’s upcoming book.
Venerable Sayadaw will see this post and all your comments, and is very interested to hear your own reactions to the stanzas – what they mean to you. He has asked that, if you listen to the talk, you pick out whichever of the stanzas has struck you in anyway, and explain why. You can also leave any other messages/comments.
The verses referred to (use google for the full poem):
I have no parents; I make the Heavens and the Earth my parents.
I have no home; I make mindfulness my home.
I have no life or death; I make the tides of breathing my life and death.
I have no divine power; I make honesty my divine power.
I have no friends; I make my mind my friend.
I have no castle; I make the immovable mind my castle.
I have no sword; I make absence of self my sword.
The file is for free distribution, but rather than offering for download elsewhere please use this page as a link so that comments can be forwarded to Sayadaw. Click image below :
Personally, being one who is homeless and without any family anywhere, the most poignant part of Sayadaw’s talk was the “Mindfulness is my home” line.
The Buddha gave a simile – that a ship out at sea carries small birds along. When land has disappeared for many days one of the birds is released. If it sees land it flies in that direction, and the ship can follow. Otherwise it will return to the ship. The Buddha said this is like some religious seekers – they seek truth elsewhere, but keep returning to him because they cannot find solid ground.
As one who is completely homeless, many ideas, wants, dreams, intentions … invade my mind, but the only solid ground I can always return to is mindfulness. I have been sick, excited, tempted, bored – every state possible, but always mindfulness is the only ‘home’ I can find in my mind.
Parents, friends, home, power these all creates attachment, craving for attention and affection. By negating all these afflictions, one is really detached, could progess in the spiritual quest, otherwise the mindfulness only partial and induced state of mind which wavers between likes and dislikes constantly.
As a samurai one attaches to his sword for his power and honour, once he relinqueshes even the sword shows that he is beyond likes and dislikes.
In the modern days, even the monks who are supposed to renounce family, succeed but somehow get attached to the temples and monestaries to build more and expand. Constanly bless the followers who constantly hanker after wealth and power which encourage the greedy to seek the divine power. I hope this poem would appease one and all to be more mindful and make the mind strong to overcome greediness.
Dear Venerable Sayadaw, Supporters & Dhamma Friends,
I am really appreciated to get the information about this post from one of my dhamma friends. I am one of Sayadaw’s disciples who have never seen him before but always close to his teachings and ways of approaching towards dhamma.
It was a long time ago that I have known about this dhamma talk, “Mindfulness, the abode” which was delivered in Burmese language by Sayadaw.
Anyway, it will be my great pleasure that if I can reproduce again and present Sayadaw’s updated talk to my dhamma friends through my two hosted blogs, http://vimuttisukha.blogspot.com and http://vimuttirasa.blogspot.com.
At the same time, I would like to request to the owner of this site for the permission to reproduce this dhamma post in my blogs.
I would like to give my bow respect to Venerable Sayadaw and say thank you so much to the post owners for distributing this dhamma information.
with thanks and regards,
Vimuttisukha
(ps. I would like to invite all of you to visit “http://vimuttirasa.blogspot.com”, The Flavour Of Liberation. It is a place of the collection of all daily dhamma posts by Dhamma Bloggers around the world.)
GREAT = Gratefully received email about teachings!
Our present life span is “just like that” and it can never be shortened or lengthen as such.
But we can expand its width with loving kindness, respect, virtues, compassion and wisdom.
We learn to live well with the laws of Dhamma and Kamma and should not try be ignorant to waste our goodness to live in such a way like spelling “live” backwards which means “evil”.
According to Mangala Sutta the first blessing is:
“Associate with the wise ones and disassociate with the fools!”
Level 1. The unwise need to learn from the wise and should not join and follow the ways of the fools.
Level 2. Practise with the wise ones and help the fools to improve yet not affected or influenced to do their foolish ways.
Level 3. Association with the external world needs more purification internally within ourselves. Wise ones and foolish ones are labels from the judgement of our heart. The new born babies come with past kamma and merits together with innocence before they learnt new lessons with the influence of their upbringing styles and causality of “Panca Niyama”.
So we need to “Avoid evil, Do good and Purifiy our minds!” as we watch mindfully our thoughts, speech and actions from the moment we wake up early in the morning till we retire in the night.
The past is done; let kamma come and go. Do not own them forever.
The present is yours; be the best we can be.
The future may not be certain; the present is our choiceto be morally self-reliant before conditioning and graspings take over.
Happy New year to all who rejoice the auspiciousness of truth and love of goodness (no harm and hurt) to share with others and oneself!
Sadhu x 3 with the blessings of the Triple Gems!
Dear Sayadaw,
The most insightful line to me is ” I have no home; i make mindfulness my home”.
it is about nothing and everything. Enlightenment starts with the mind and ends with the mind.
The line explains Buddha’s teaching in a nutshell.
I really hope to be the first to read Sayadaw’s new book – My mind is my home.
saddhu and metta.
goh
Sayadaw Phaya,
It has been about ten years that I become one of the readers.
I can find myself change a lot in comparing before. “A School Called Life” gave me a great concept of living . I try my level best.
I usually remember the words you teach in books when I’m in trouble.
I feel deep sense of gratitude to you whenever I’ ve overcome them in peaceful means.
Please may I request you to propagate your teachings of Dhamma to all over the world in order to have the spiritual wellbeing of people.
With due respect and regards,
PPA.
Dear Sayadaw
My name is called Sai Lao(in SHAN), I was born in very small town in Shan State, called NamLan village. In 1995, when I`m 9 grate, my parents are very poor, every one my friends they went to the big city, and study at city, like Mandalay or PyinOolwin(May Myo), all in friend only me left in the town and continue study in my town. At that time i feel so hesitate between my friends because of poor life, at that time I went to Mandalay with my father, in here i want to say about my father a bit, my father is a track driver, at Mandalay in some books shop , the sale man introduce me to read the book you wrote, it already 13 year ago , from there i don`t feel hesitate because of poor and to study, after i rate you book, i have a lot energy and brave my self, from there i went to Yangon and find the way to continue study, now i study at University in Japan, before went to japan i study at Singapore about two year for diploma course, now at University, actually i don`t have money and also my parents also can`t support me, but i have a brave and find away how to get the money and how to earn for school fees? every thing until to today because of you books and you Dhamma talk is so power full and give me a lot energy to survive my life, one day i hope to see you face to face and share about how to define about the life, in my experience, if have a chance please reply me a mail or letter i will happy and thank a lot.
Really respect and Best regards,
Sailao
a while in japan
Please email me your email. I would like to make a small contribution for your studies. Thanks for expressing yourself so well and wish you continued success in life. The dhamma is the best protection – even though having formal education does help in getting on in this world. BEST WISHES.
Dear Sayardaw U ZawTiKa,
I would like to pay respect and refuge to Sayardaw firstly.I read most of dhamma books written by Sayardaw who explained “about the level of Beings” in one of the dhamma book.
Before I thought a person who is rich money or famous, honorable, possess a lot of good things, that can make to stay a good living and happy life and also standard of Living getting high. When I found sayadaw tayar I look only outside world.
After I read sayadaw’s book the grate concept of Living is Mindfulness and we need to make our mind self perfection and spiritual well being.
It is the grate concept of living.I have to look the inner world / life .I understand and I ‘m trying my level best.
When I felt lonely I remember Sayadaw teach “my mind is my best friend”.
I tried to make mindfulness about to know myself.
Sayadaw Dhamma talk give me pleasure and Dhamma books give me reduce stress.
When I try to do as Sayadaw Dhamma teach , I felt peace if mind .
Sayadaw can teach dhamma simple and easy to understand way of spiritual wellbeing of people the nature in the modern world .
Really respect and take refuge to Sayardaw be healthy and be peace of mind.
For a While
Singapore
Thanks for all your comments.
400 people have downloaded the talk so far, and 900 visits to this web page have been recorded. Venerable Sayadaw’s writings have certainly touched the lives of many people.
Sayadaw has read all your comments and sent the following note :
Internet connections are intermittent at best in Myanmar, so he can only visit this page occasionally. But he will see all the comments.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY VEN. SAYADAW PHONE PHONE U JOTIKA!!
May you be healthy, long life and serve the Sasana’s responsibility with all of your efforts and give the splendid light to our fellow human beings.
yours respectfully,
Vimuttisukha
ဘုန္းဘုန္းရဲ ့ (၆၂) ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ ေမြးေန ့မွသည္ အသက္ရွည္ က်န္းမာစြာျဖင့္ အမ်ားအက်ိဳး၊ သာသနာေတာ္ရဲ ့အက်ိဳးကို စြမ္းစြမ္းတမံ ဆက္လက္ေဆာင္ရြက္နိဳင္ပါေစေၾကာင္း တပည့္ေတာ္ လိႈက္လိႈက္လွဲလွဲ ဆုမြန္ေကာင္းေတာင္းအပ္ပါတယ္ ဘုရား။
ရိုေသစြာ ရွိခိုးဦးတင္ ကန္ေတာ့လ်က္
ဝိမုတၱိသုခ
thank you very much for all you did online sharing on dhamma, and i had got various knowledge on buddhism for
hi, i live in washington d.c . u.s.a
do you have plan to visit u.s.a?
if so when?
Hi,Grateful sayadaw
I hope you are fine.
I have listened ur mp3 so my mind becomes peaceful.
I am appreciated in human life and i wanna stay meaningfully in life.I know that i am so happy and enjoyed when i am listening ur dhama.It is very important in life.
I am 23 years old and i was in the middle east which called
muslim country.i am gonna try to be the happiest man in life.
may u livelong forever
yoyar
Respect to one and all.
I am not a buddhist,just a simple guy, average person.I owe total respect to Miss Khin for having introduced me to the greatness and simplicity of buddhism.
Its very fulfilling and peaceful.
Sayadaw Phayar,
I have read your books since 1998. Your books cannot understand immediately, have to stop and think for it many times. I listen your Dhamma many times too. Sometimes I have listened one topic for 50 times to understand very well.
I listened Ah Thay Wa Na Sa Ba Lar Nan which you talked in Singapore and shared to the children whenever I open a camp for the children anywhere (already in Namatee, Kachin State; Myaing, Magwe Division; Kungyangone, Yangon Division; and will be in Naung-Oo from 26 to 28-Dec-09). To be able to share them, I have to listen many many times.
I listened Mitta Tayartaw talked in KyarKu Monastery. I love to listern and also love to follow it.
And I also love to share to people about all these Dhamma.
I met you in person twice at Mingalar Street last 6 years ago together with my elder son. We wish to meet you again, but have no chance.
I got a practice of informal meditation which taught by you. But until now the formal meditation is still difficult for me as I have no place at home and also cannot go somewhere.
When the time of abandoned by my husband in 2003, I was stay with my two sons and listened “Forgiveness” every day and night to recover my pains.
The books “Living with Tha-di” “Tha-di so te Nay Ein” “Basic Meditation””Basic Wipasana””Forgiveness”and all I have in books and in CD too. As I am older and older I prefer listening rather than reading.
I thank you for your Dhamma talks to lead me to get peaceful mind in a hard time. I am in a hard time now too, so I try to have time to listen Dhamma. But I am very weak in meditation so that I can’t recover quickly.
Whenever I read a Dhamma books I shared with my sons and let them get Dhamma thought too. The elder son is very fond of you. He wishes to stay very near by you to be able to listen all your words. But he cannot get this chance. But luckily he is now closed to U Chaykeinda and quite familiar with Dhamma.
We all wish to listen your Dhamma talks and wish to read your books. We are waiting your new books to be published.
I would like to follow Dhamma but I am not good at yet. But still trying to be closer.
My personal inspiration is “to be a peaceful minded person”
Wish you in good health.
Yours obediently,
May Aye Oo
Dear Sayadaw,
I pay deep respect to Sayadaw.
I downloaded Sayadaw’s mp3 talks so that I can upload them in my dhamma web.
I had read & listened almost the books & talks in Myanmar language until 2008.
Now I’ve been working in Malaysia & I’m also trying to distribute my favourite dhamma talks & books in my personal dhamma web (www.dhammabooks.co.cc).
May Sayadaw & all be happy & well!
SoeWinHtut
(www.dhammabooks.co.cc)
(www.trueanswer.co.cc)
Hi, Ko Soe Win Htut,
I can’t able to get through both http://www.dhammabooks.co.cc & http://www.trueanswer.co.cc as I’m hungry of U Jotika material. Kindly let me know how to get to your dhamma website.
Wish you to be well, peaceful and joyful. mg nyunt ( Singapore )
Dear Sayadaw Phayar
I have been reading your books since 1997.I like your idea , opinion very much . I have listen your dhamma tapes many. Now I have your 84 topic of Dhamma MP3 tapes and listen regularly.I have got your Photo that I take whenever I move to other place. I listen and obey your talks . I heartly want to meet with you in person .But I ‘m not lucky Phayar because I still not yet to meet with you in person. Eventhought I usually listen to your talks and pay respect to you.
I deeply request to you that to come and give dhamma talks in U.K, LONDON.
I will very happy if I get a change to meet with you in person.
I wish you to get long life with healty and give Dhamma talk to worldwide.
I pray every day to meet with you .
your dhamma thame
Aye Aye San Paudel
Currently we are reading the book of ‘ Snow in the Summer’ by Sayadaw u jotika, we are received the book as a gift for us from the one of lady who is a deeply devoted Buddhist and she is from Myanmar, Supriya nesarj may achieve Nirvana soon..
we are really appreciate this blog that trying to spread Buddha Dharama For the world.
we need to hear more from Ven. Sayadaw u jotika,
Buddha Bless you all!
National Buddhist Authority
Dear Venerable Sayadaw U. Jotika,
Well done!
Thank you very much for the beneficial wisdom that goes straight to the heart!
With Metta :-),
Dave