Q3: Venerable Sir, I believe you made very fast progress in your practice arousing one insight knowledge after another. Didn’t you?

问3：尊者，我相信您修行中进步神速，观智一个接一个地生起，是吗？

No, I didn’t. I could not appreciate the practice three or four weeks after I had started because I did not yet exercise enough effort. Some of the yogis here, however, even though the practice is new to them, manage to develop enough concentration and mindfulness after a week or so, to see impermanence, suffering, and insubstantiality to some extent. For me, I could not make any remarkable progress in the practice even after a month or so, let alone four or five days. I was then still at zero progress in my practice. This is because my faith in the practice was not strong enough, and I did not make enough effort. At this point, skeptical doubt called Vicikiccha, usually hinders the insight knowledge and Magga- Phala from takingplace. So it is very important to do away with such doubt. But, I was wasting my time by mistaking the skeptical doubt for productive analysis.

不是。开始三、四周我并不很认同这种修法，因为我没有足够用功。然而这里的有些禅修者虽然刚学这种禅修方法，就在一周左右的时间里致力培育出了足够的定力和正念，在一定程度上见到了无常、苦、无我。而我在一个月左右时间里禅修都没有明显的进步，更别说四、五天了。我那时禅修的进展仍然是零，这是因为我的信心不够，所以没有付出足够的精进。这种情况通常是疑盖阻碍了观智和道果的生起。所以祛除这种疑盖是很重要的。我确实在浪费时间，误以为这种怀疑是有效的分析。

I thought it was only a conventional or conceptual way of practice and not in the ultimate sense that one observes objects such as going, bending, stretching, etc. The Venerable Sayadawji taught me in that way as a basic training. Perhaps, later he would teach me how to distinguish between mind and body, etc. Later on, while continuing with this practice I spontaneously realized: “Wow! This is not just a basic training, but noting physical and mental behaviors, like going, bending, stretching, etc., are also intermediate advanced instructions, too. These are all I need to observe. Nothing else.”

我想，观察走、弯曲、伸展等只是世俗谛的或者概念性的修法，而不是究竟意义上的修法，尊敬的尊者这样教我只是一种基础训练，也许后面他会教我如何分辨名色等等。后来，当继续这样用功的时候我一下自发地认识到：“啊！这不只是基础训练，观照身心的行为如行走、弯曲、伸展等等也是高阶的指导。这些是我所需要观照的全部，而不是别的。”