Muni's PlayHere are my notes from https://ashintejaniya.org/books-dont-look-down-on-the-defilements
Expectations create anxiety and can lead to aversion.
Dealing with Dissatisfaction
Try to recognize dissatisfaction, to fully accept it, and to watch it very alertly. During this process of observation and exploration of the experience of dissatisfaction, its causes could become clear. Understanding the causes will dissolve the dissatisfaction and will help you to recognize them if they come up again. You will see more and more clearly the harm dissatisfaction causes to the mind and the body. You will become more mindful of your judgmental attitudes and gradually abandon them. In this way you are developing skills in dealing with defilements.
Working with Defilements
Don’t look down on the defilements; they will laugh at you!
Look out for the defilements. Get to know the defilements that arise in your mind. Observe and try to understand them. Do not attach to them, reject, or ignore them, and do not identify with them. As you stop attaching to or identifying with the defilements their strength will slowly diminish. You have to keep double checking to see what attitude you are meditating with.
A Natural Learning Process
Always bear in mind that mindfulness meditation is a learning process during which you get to know the mind and body relationship. Just be natural and simple; there is no need to slow down unnaturally. You simply want to see things as they are.
There is no need to make an effort to concentrate. Concentration will naturally grow with practice. Our objective is to become more and more mindful. The more continuous your mindfulness is, the sharper and more receptive the mind becomes.
The Observing Mind
Don’t forget: the object is not really important; the observing mind that is working in the background to be aware is of real importance. If the observing is done with the right attitude, any object is the right object. Do you have the right attitude?
Be Aware Intelligently
Be Aware Intelligently: Mindfulness meditation is more than just observing things with a receptive mind. You cannot practise it blindly, mechanically, without thinking. You have to use both knowledge and intelligence to bring your practice to life.
The Meditating Mind
The meditating mind must be simple, not complicated. You can use any sensation as the main object to bring the mind to the present moment. The main or primary object helps you to keep the mind aware, in the present moment. It is something you can always go to when you are not sure what to observe. However, you do not have to stay with that main object all the time. It is perfectly alright if the mind’s attention moves to other objects such as sensations, hearing, even a wandering mind, as long as you are aware that the mind is now aware of these new objects. It is also fine if it knows several objects at the same time.
Checking for Tension
Keep checking whether you are relaxed or not. If there is tension, first relax, then check your attitude. If there is resistance, feel the resistance and observe it. Be simple and just watch what is happening.
Walking Meditation
Be aware that you are walking whenever you walk. You do not need to walk fast or slowly, just walk at a natural pace. You can watch what the mind pays attention to, or just have an overall feel of the sensation of your whole body walking. If the mind settles on particular sensations or body movements, that is alright too. But remember, you do not have to focus on one object continuously; in fact you should avoid doing this if it makes you tense. You can also notice hearing and that you are looking to see where you are going. Try not to look around as it will distract you. However, once your mindfulness has become more continuous, you need to learn to be aware whenever you look at something. This ability to be aware of seeing comes with practice. As long as you are not skilful at this, seeing will tend to distract you, make you lose your mindfulness.
Eating Meditation
When you eat, do not hurry. When you are eager to eat you will lose mindfulness. So if you become aware that you are eating quickly, stop eating and watch the eagerness or the feelings that accompany it for a while.
Daily Activities & Personal Time
Your personal time and activities are also very important times to be mindful. You tend to lose your mindfulness most easily when you are on your own. …
It is important that you regularly check whether you are relaxed or tense; … When you find yourself tense, watch the tension. …
If you get tense, it indicates that your mind is not working in the right way. Inquire into the way your mind has been working. If you do this often enough during the day you may prevent a buildup of tension. With practice you may also become aware of the reason for your tension. Do not forget to observe tension!
Pain and Equanimity
Being able to bear with pain does not mean you are equanimous.
Working with Thoughts
It does not matter whether thinking stops or not. It is more important that you understand whether your thoughts are skilful, unskilful, appropriate, inappropriate, necessary or unnecessary. This is why it is essential to learn to watch thinking without getting involved. When a thought keeps growing no matter how much effort you put into trying to simply observe it, you are probably somehow involved in the thought. When this happens, when thinking becomes so incessant that you can no longer observe it, stop looking at the thoughts and try to watch the underlying feelings or bodily sensations instead.
Attitude Checks
No matter whether you are sitting, walking, or going about your daily activities, ask yourself now and again: What is the mind doing? Thinking? Thinking about what? Being aware? Being aware of what?
Pain / Unpleasant Sensations / Emotions
It is like when you are angry with someone; if you look at that person again and again you will become even angrier. So never force yourself to observe pain; this is not a fight, this is a learning opportunity. You are not observing pain to lessen it or to make it go away. You are observing it – especially your mental reactions to it – in order to understand the connection between your mental reactions and your perception of the physical sensations.
There is a direct link between your state of mind and pain. The more relaxed and calm the observing mind, the less intense you will perceive the pain to be. Of course, if your mind reacts strongly to the pain (i.e. if you experience pain as unbearable) you should change your posture and make yourself comfortable.
So if you want to learn how to deal with pain skilfully, try this: From the moment you start feeling pain, no matter how weak it is, check your mind and body for tension, and relax. Part of your mind will remain aware of the pain. So check for tension again and again, and relax. Also check your attitude and keep reminding yourself that you have the choice to change your posture if you experience too much pain, as this will make the mind more willing to work with it. Keep repeating this until you no longer feel you want to watch the tension, the fear, the desire to get up, or the unwillingness to stay with the pain. Now you should change your posture.
We usually try to bear the pain longer and longer, i.e. we work on increasing our threshold of pain. However, in this process we neglect watching the mind and we are not really aware of our mental reactions to the pain. We fail to realize that developing a high threshold of pain does not mean that the mind is not reacting to the pain.
Understanding the difference between equanimity and being able to bear with pain is really important. Mindfulness meditation is not about forcing but about understanding. Real equanimity is the result of true understanding of the nature of liking and disliking through observation and investigation.
Remember that you are not looking at the reactions of the mind to make them go away. Always take reactions as an opportunity to investigate their nature. Ask yourself questions! How do they make you feel? What thoughts are in your mind? How does what you think affect the way you feel? How does what you feel affect the way you think? What is the attitude behind the thoughts? How does any of this change the way you perceive pain?
The less you focus, the more you see.