http://en.watsanamnai.org/index.php?lay=show&ac=article&Ntype=15&Id=539213630

Greetings
I´m going to Thailand again. My background is mainly Goenka and Mahasi´s.

I heard about Mahasati training, and last weeks I have been reading books and watching videos about it, and I really have very good intuition about this vipassana approach: the idea of constant moving-stopping and open eyes instead closed seems very powerful for mindfulness and (like L.P.teean said) for insight about nama-rupa processes.
Many times I felt in my previous retreats like a sensation of artificiality about staying so still so many hours, due to the nature of life is movement.
I also have this intuition many times in daily life: to resolve dukkha it is all about staying within in the body, because sati can not stay at the same time present in any movement (abdomen movement as well of course) and mental inner world (and this one "resolves" itself, like Pransky and other say in Psycholgy of Mind approach)... I hope you can understand what I mean in my english.

The link above is very very interesting with the technique well explained.
I am thinking about trying in the Bangkok monastery.

Anyone who has practiced can give me some feedback?

I would thank also any theoretical commentary abou this vipassana approach.

Thank you so much

Hi Jose, 

Thank you for writing in English. I personally think your intuition about trying the Mahasi approach can be useful if it means you can practice sincerely.

Many times the experience in retreat can raise aversion, disgust, anger, attraction for, and huge doubts about one's peers and teachers on retreat.

Therefore, sincere interest --- perhaps this is your "very good intuition" --- is what carries a person through the hard and strongly affective days of retreat as well as the tremendous supports of reminding oneself to have metta (friendliness) and karuna (compassion) for oneself and for others. (However, don't let sincere interest place you in a position of actual abuse, as sometimes that does happen in teacher-student roles. Respect also your own red flags about a site/teacher/community. You can always go back on retreat if you leave one prematurely out of concerns for abuse.)

Best wishes on your trip. I don't know about that place but I'm sure if you keep asking around, you will get helpful feedback.

Thank you.
There is not feedback, I think it is because Mahasati is still little known (even in the web dhammathai.org (the main web with information of meditation in Thailand) no information).
Nevertheless Luang Por Teean said that with this simple practice one gets Nibbana in 3 years... so It must be powerful.
Greetings

In Thailand, monks and meditators tried many different techniques. There are two traditions that use the hands movement. One is taught by Luang Pho Teean, and prior to it is Achaan Dhammadaro’s teaching. See chapter fourteen of Living Dharma, of Jack kornfield.
Both teachers passed away, but there are still a lot of practitioners in these two traditions, with new interesting developments as well.
Note: Achaan Lee Dhammadaro and Achaan Dhammadaro are two different teachers, of different traditions.

Well, since you’re coming to Thailand (it has been my home for thirty plus  years and I organized the first courses of Goenkaji here), and if you are not in a rush with your schedule, you could drop by to where I meditated for the moment, just a four-hour drive from Bangkok. This place is a huge resort owned by a nice man who is also vice president of Thai tourist authorities, and a Dhamma practitioner. He has given a nice house to me, very secluded to stay and meditate. The place is amazing, with a swimming pool surrounded by mountains to do swimming meditation instead of walking meditation… Very refreshing, the best way to bring your noting practice back on the perfect track ha ha.
And I have been thinking of slowly making it a place where Dho people could come, meet and practice very seriously. So you could be the first one to give it a try. Just drop a message...

Yes, one more thing I wish to add about the practice in such an ideal surrounding, I eat every other day a unique meal at five or six PM, steamed veggies and nuts seeds and beans, and that makes all the difference in going deep deep into the practice.
 I know it is not Daniel’s cup of tea to fast, but here in Thailand, the strong influence of the great Thai masters from the forest tradition really compels us to try and to experience the priceless fruit of it….
I would sometime arrive at the morning meal at Luang Ta Maha Boowa’s monastery to find out that only a few monks had came for food and Luang  Ta  would  smile and say a few words of praise about it.
So I can say that having a meal every forty eight hours makes all the difference in a deep retreat, so much that you cannot come back to the one meal a day kind of boring rhythm!
(Luang Ta means holly grand-father)

Hey Jose, how did/has the mahasati practice go? I've been working on it the past two months and now am getting automatic 'embedded' awareness of body movements... strange/interesting thing. I think in the books they say that once you reach the point of full body auto awareness people hit the A&P insight (their term for it is Roop-Nahm, but it's a bit different from the mahasi stage with similar name as far as I know)
*as a side note I have a friend who spent 8 months at panditarama and didn't get past the A&P, but with the Teean method had a lot more success for whatever reason-- he's a non-returner I believe.

Same answer I gave on another thread:



The dynamic meditation is called mahasati. It was developed by Luang Por Teean when he was a lay person. He got quick results, and his disciples say that it builds sati/awareness quickly. He ordained, but his style is much more zen than theravada. He bowed to lay people as monk, he talked in riddles. Very interesting character.


Here are some links:


http://awarenesswithmovement.com

http://www.mahasati.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vczom5qjrPY&ab_channel=dhammatube - In this video, Bhikhu Nirodho talks about Luang Por Teean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulz1vymcjQ0&ab_channel=dhammatube - The same monk talk about Teean's illness and death. Very intersting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow4ffdfw0BI&ab_channel=xolotlana - In this video, Ajahn Tong shows the formal sitting practice.


I higly recommend the following books: 

Normalty, One That Feels, Manual of Self Awareness (Luang Por Teean)

Out of the Cave (Luang Por Somboom)

Watching, Not Being (Luang Por Khamkeean) - One of the main disciples of Luang Por Teean

Akaliko - Luang Por Jarun

Bright and Shining Mind - Kampol Thongbunnun - This is a guy who suffered an accident and became tetraplegic. He used the movement of his one good hand to build up awareness.

Spiritual Tips for Meditators - Luang Por Khamkeean and Phra Paisal Visalo - Very accessable book.


Here are some quotes from the books:

One That Feels:

This book is by the guy that developed the method.

Page 10 - "The method to develop the total awareness that can end dukkha, as I understand it, and as I believe the Buddha taught, is to practice in our daily life."

Page 12 - "Magga (the noble path) is the way of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha. The way of practice is to be aware of thought.
 [...] Those who don’t know try to stop dosa – moha – lobha, they try to fight and suppress it, but one that knows just has sati to watch the mind and see thought. [...] You should not pay so much attention to the movement, but use sati to watch conceptual thought. Just passively see the thought; do not "stare" at it. When thought arises, let it pass away."

Pages 18/19 - "First, the method that led me to find real calmness. Without paying any special attention to any point, I just do the movement, and just have sati (awareness) knowing all postures and all movements, such as standing, walking, sitting, lying, bending, stretching, and all
the movements. When I have practiced in this way, and have awareness of all my movements, panna (knowing) arises within myself."

Page 24 - "To see our own mind clearly, without being caught up in its movement, to watch thought without trying to do anything with or about it,
simply seeing it and letting it go, this is the way to freedom from dukkha."

Page 52 - "Be simple, and just move, one movement at a time, and know. When you don’t know, let it pass; when you know, let it pass. Sometimes you know, sometimes you don’t know: so it goes – but know. When the body moves, know it. When the mind moves, know it. This practice is a twenty-four-hours-a-day practice, so relax and just be natural, just be normal. Set up the mind to really practice, and practice
comfortably."


Spiritual Tips For Meditators:

Page 130 - "Briefly speaking, mindfulness brings the mind back to the activity or meditation object. Once your mind is with the object, you have awareness, you know and you see clearly."

Page 134 - "It is important for you to keep your mind in balance, to not watch or concentrate too closely nor to let it loose to all distractions. This will enable your mind to be aware of the mind, to be aware of the body, not only of your hands, but the whole of your body and also its surroundings."

Page 135 - " For the beginners, do not be confused with what I said. Be aware of your body first. Do not pay much attention to the mind or to the thoughts because you have to go step by step. You may be aware of your surrounding at the same time, of the noise or whatever; just be aware with mindfulness."

Watching, Not Being:

Here he talks about the experience of awakening. Pages 66/67 - "This is nature, this is the law of nature; it has nothing to do with reasoning.
One doesn’t know exactly how the lock is opened: it is the DHAMMA, it really is the law of nature and it is beyond speculation.
It is as if the body, feelings, perception, volition and consciousness have a job, they have their duties and they are diligent at doing their duties. But it is a job that is bound to fail, just like little children playing with sand: they are diligent to build sandcastles but it won’t be long and they are destroyed. But now they work together, they stop together, they come to a halt at the same time and everything returns to nature. The body, feelings, perception, volitional formations and consciousness go back to nature, there is a separation, they go their own individual ways.
At first, one still tries to connect them but it is no use: it is like trying to connect two different things with each other: It may look like they are connected but they are not, they are separated: they have returned to nature and they can’t become one in the same way that a rope that has been cut can’t be put together. There are just ‘movements’ left. It is the end of self. There isn’t anything further to do."

Here he talks about rebirth. Very different approach for a theravada monk. Pages 146 / 147 - "In the scriptures it is mentioned that a Stream-enterer and Once returner (first and second stages of Enlightenment) are people who still get ‘reborn’, that is to say, after death they are reborn in order to strive to be an ARAHANT (fully Enlightened one) in the future. But I understand the word ‘rebirth’ to mean thought, interest or whatever causes interest. When one has overcome that, one doesn’t go back and think about things many times.
For example, the eye sees a form or the ear hears a sound: as soon as one perceives it in one way or another, one reaffirms it
and thinks about it again and again until, for example, craving and lust arise.
For a Non-returner there is only one life (this one), which refers to thoughts that sneak in just once, and they won’t go back to think
about old stuff. They have realization and power: having thought once, it fades; they don’t return to it and so there is no ‘rebirth’.
The word ‘birth’ doesn’t mean being born from mother’s womb; that kind of birth happens only once; everybody knows that.
But ‘being born’ here, is the birth and death of NAMA-RUPA (in other words, the endless arising and passing away of the feeling of self).

The BUDDHA said: ‘Before I attained insight-knowledge, I wandered around through SAMSARA (the round of transmigration), for countless lifetimes; I searched for ‘the house-builder’, that is to say: craving, the thing that creates ‘being’. Being born is suffering each time!’.
The words ‘countless lifetimes’ stand for the arising and passing away of NAMA-RUPA. The collected birth stories of the BODHISATTA
(a being striving for BUDDHA-hood), refer to this. It doesn’t mean that the BUDDHA was born as a rabbit or whatever in previous lifetimes, but there is nothing wrong with that explanation. The ‘birth’ of a Non-returner is a thought arising which they immediately leave behind and annuls, so that nothing remains. It doesn’t have value for him or her and no KAMMA is created. Such a one is not a servant of thought, they are free.
They relate to things as being ‘me’ or ‘mine’, only very little. Those things drop off. We discover and see these things without anybody telling us."


Here he is talking about the formal sitting practice, a series of fourteen movements. Page 243 - "If we would count we would get fourteen times: fourteen movements, fourteen moments of awareness. Make it into a rhythm but don’t count. Know, know, know. Know each second. Don’t do it too slow. When you lose it come back. Feel the hands. Don’t lose it, don’t concentrate, don’t count. Know each time, as separate movements. This kind of knowing is not a continuous state, that would be tranquility meditation and one won’t see thought because it doesn’t arise. But this kind of knowing is just knowing for a moment, from moment to moment. We are not afraid of thought: we’ll get to see whatever arises and we’ll return to awareness. Awareness is not thought, it is an experience."

Page 245 - "Everything is an opportunity to know. Blinking the eyes and breathing can be known. Apart from the formal rhythmic meditation, you can train with this and with that. Sometimes too much formal practice can make one weary. We should change the posture then.
Adjust yourself a bit. If we have been in the same posture for too long we should make some change. Start anew. Make awareness prominent. A movie maker doesn’t stay with one scene for too long."

Enjoy!

Maybe some Chinese attempt to pre-empt traditional Southern Buddhism?

The basic practice is a sort of "moving meditation", a Chinese specialty (e.g. DaoYin, TaiJiChuan, modern "QiGong", etc.)

There's a lot of Chinese in the monastery website, and the overall flavor reminds of the piety, devotion (and perhaps fanatacism) of FaLunGong?

The original movements were developed by another teacher somewhere in Isan, Thailand--- LP Teean used the same movements but dropped the 'moving' 'stopping' noting that was used by that teacher and then the story is he progressed from ground zero to Arahant (the end of suffering) in three days (after trying other techniques like 'buddho' recitation, anapana, and others for many years) The movements are just the means to build awareness enough so that the 'knowing' grows and automatically penetrates the thinking mind.

There is nothing special about the movements with regards to 'energy' and all that like you find in qi gong. They just teach plain, but continuous awareness--- you can do whatever movements you want. They say you can do anapana as well, but they say that people often end up getting too absorbed into the breath (hey aren't about concentration to the point of seeing nimittas and what not)--- there is less likelihood of that with awareness of gross movements  'Bright and Shining Mind' is a story about a paralyzed guy who could just move his hands and face muscles a bit... and then made a lot of insight progress.

I wouldn't say the teachers/teaching is 'fanatical'. It's all pretty plain 'be aware as frequently as possible'. LP Teean was compared to Hui Neng because he was an illiterate guy who also had super quick progression to enlightenment--- he didn't have much of an intellectual background in Buddhism either, so he spoke about dhamma in pretty simple terms. Anyway, I've been to the two big monasteries in that tradition Wat Sanam Nai and Wat Pa Sukato... very chill centers.

Thanks Thiago,

I've read all those books except for 'out of the cave'--- never saw that one before. I dropped by Wat Sanam Nai today. I'm headed to Myanmar tomorrrow --- will dabble some more with the technique at Shwe Oo Minn center.

Have you reached the point of full body awareness before? Just curious... the awareness is starting to creep over me haha.

Do you know where to find 'Out of the Cave' on the internet? Wasn't seeing it in a few google searches.

Sure it's artificial. But intentionally so. By sitting still with your eyes closed, you remove all possible ways of distracting yourself. The inevitable result is that your pain rises to the surface, where you can connect with it.

The "story" of the 3-day attainment of Arahant (by the Thai teacher as well as the Chinese one) as well as the testimonial about the paralyzed person ring like a sale-pitch.

The use of movements in Daoist DaoYin, NeiGong, etc. are also about cultivating pure awareness, and liberating the mind. That second paragraph could as well be a characterization of Mahasi training, the movements being those of abdomenal breathing and walking, as also the emphasis on more and more closely observing the phenomena arising, and with increasing momentary rather than absorption concentration.

All in all, sounds like something perhaps to "dabble" with rather than rush-in and take overly seriously.

Hmm, whatever you'd like to believe.

I do have a close friend who has had very good results with the technique. Like I said before, he spent 8 months at Panditarama prior to picking up the Teean method (which is a very well known technique in Thailand --- not some obscure, random one) and had a lot more success with this method.

I've also been working with the movement awareness and am now getting automatic body awareness. Basically, if you were to turn your head while moving an arm while blinking your eyes, you would feel all those simultaneously with natural, spontaneously arising awareness (not focused awareness). When automatic awareness arises you dont have to try and see anatta--- it feels as though the movements are being done by the body and not you. The focused awareness on the otherhand tends to always have that 'you' feeling--- when you ask a normal person if 'they' are blinking their eyes and they will say of course im blinking... watch me do it--- theres usually that self-volition feeling there. In some methods you have to 'try' to see anatta. Automatic awareness on the otherhand will pick up every single blink you had never noticed before. Another advantage of this automatic awareness is that the scope of awareness will widen so you are sampling/knowing more 'data' all at one time and it isn't as biased as focused awareness where you are 'doing' the focusing (which is almost always being motivated by greed in some subtle or less subtle form). The goal is to 'chain' the automatic awareness of the body to the mind eventually... so all four foundations of mindfulness will be sampled more simultaneously and cause and effect will be clearer.

Yeah I agree it's not thattt different from Mahasi. The emphasis is on the momentary concentration. Only difference would be that during sitting meditation they dont try to focus on small sensations, they don't label, and they don't try and see the 3 characteristics (they just say work on awareness and the 3 characteristics become obvious) Also, in the Teean method you move to watching thought/the mind more following the A&P.

Hi, Nik! I'm not on the level of full body awareness 24/7, but I my awareness is pretty constant. My daily practice is rubbing the fingers. I feel the sensation and let go, almost to the point where the awareness is gone, then I "refresh" it rubbing the fingers again. It is almost like I'm working out with weights at the gym: I lift, then rest a little bit, lift again, rest, an so on... Several times I get the feeling that my thoughts are kinda disconnected from me, like I'm listening to a radio or something, but I still struggle when I face strong emotions. I find necessary to do a little bit of samatha to rest when they are overpowering. The thing that was hardest to get was that the practice is not about focusing on the body, but just to use it as a tool to keep awareness constant so that I can watch the movents of the mind. I took me a long while to get it.

The book is attatched.

If you don't mind, could you elaborate on your experiences when you visited the monasteries?

Metta and a great practice for all!

Sweeet, thanks for the book.

Wat Pa Sukato is a nice, foresty monastery to practice at. Was mostly all Thais when I went--- they were very accomodating/friendly (same with Wat Sanam Nai). There wasnt a teacher at Wat Pa Sukato that spoke very good english (at least when I was there), but there is one at Wat Sanam Nai who did.