ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Thank you for joining us for today’s meditation. If you’re looking for a classic Meditative Story, we invite you to explore the rest of our library.

It’s one of those cliches you hear when you have kids: “oh they grow up so fast.” But when they’re tiny and you’re wrestling diapers and hoping the ratio of food in stomach to food across the kitchen floor is at least 1:1, it doesn’t feel like things are going quickly at all. Then, you blink and suddenly your youngest — whose first days feel just like yesterday — is starting school. I guess they’re cliches for a reason. With the back to school vibe floating through our house and through our neighborhood, it has me contemplating how learning works — how something moves from being a thing we just hear about, to something we know deeply for ourselves.

Sophia, my youngest, is starting school for the first time this week. We’ve got all the uniform ready — a rather smart royal blue tartan number with matching blazer. We’ve got the pencils, the pens and the erasers and the backpack, all meticulously labeled. She’s ready to go, but I’m not sure I am.

I remember Arne, our eldest, going to school for the first time. Such an open, gentle and friendly soul, I was worried that it would be a bumpy ride. It did take a little while to settle, and lockdowns in his first year certainly didn’t help. But when he did find his feet, he used them to take off. He’s loved school, in a way that is a delight to witness and support. 

Sophia’s very different to her brother. Arne is a classic learner — amazing memory, interested in everything, a nonstop reader, happy being self-directed, and especially happy throwing himself into something new. Sophia is brilliant in her own way. She’s got a strong sense of justice, loves rules, and when faced with something new, will always want to watch other people doing it before trying it herself. 

No doubt, there’ll be tears when my wife Lucy and I drop Sophia off for her first day, but I suspect they won’t be hers. She’s our baby, so her starting school is as much a landmark for us as it is for her. One phase of our life closing, and another emerging. 

Part of starting school is learning about learning. Schools have changed so much in the decades since I’ve been a student. And so when the schools held a workshop for parents of new children to find out more about how learning works in those early years, I jumped at the chance. 

Thankful for how my years of seated meditation have led to flexible knees and hips, I sat in the kids chairs in one of the classrooms, with the other, less comfortable parents, learning about learning. How numeracy is introduced to four and five year olds, and the different forms it takes. The approach to basic literacy and why play is so important in helping the lessons stick.

All this has got me reflecting on how learning works, and me being me, I’m thinking about how learning works in mindfulness and meditation. So to continue the story, we’ll have to move from a leafy suburb in the West End of Glasgow, to a meditation center, just north of Yangon (previously known as Rangoon), in Myanmar.

I spent four weeks at the Shwe Oo Min Meditation Centre back in 2007, and it was probably the period where I learnt the most about mindfulness in my whole life. It was so dense, but brilliant. Yes, the food was bad and yes, the conditions were fairly basic, but it was fire. And a lot of that was down to the way the lead teacher taught.

He’s called Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and while the cliche of a Burmese meditation teacher is that they’re really strict and serious and pretty relentless, Tejaniya is totally different. A moon-faced, middle-class guy, who ordained late in life, and open about his history of depression, Sayadaw U Tejaniya is a total boss. This week has had me thinking about my time with him, so today I’m going to share what he told me about how learning works when it comes to mindfulness, and we’ll do a little practice alongside that. Sound good? Good. 

There’s three types of knowledge, Tejaniya told me. Well, told us really, since he always did discussions in small groups while we sat together on the floor.

First, there is knowledge you believe, because you hear it from someone you trust. A great teacher or even someone like me might say something like, “When we resist the difficult, it’s the resistance that is actually the most painful.” It sounds sort of wise, so you’re like hey, that sounds cool. You might even write it on a postcard and keep it near your desk. You might even say it to other people in your life. It’s a kind of knowledge, a kind of learning, but it’s only Level 1. It’s Level 1 because you’ve taken it as read. You believe it, because you heard it from someone with some kind of position or authority, but that’s it.

The second kind of knowledge is when you think something through. You take that same idea: “when we resist the difficult, it’s the resistance that is actually the most painful.” You chew it over in your mind, tease apart the meaning, get interested in what is it that it’s really pointing to?

Let’s do that now. Let’s think it through. Let’s take some time to reflect. Thinking can get a bit of a bad rap in mindfulness circles, as if the aim of mindfulness is to move beyond thinking — haha good luck with that! So let’s take that idea: when we resist the difficult, it’s the resistance that is actually the most painful. And using the human miracle that is our ability to reason, let’s pick apart its meaning to understand what it means.

Great. That’s Level 2 and it’s super important. It means we intellectually understand something about our mind and its patterns.

The third kind of knowledge comes from directly experiencing the thing for yourself. Observing when we encounter something difficult and how our resistance arises. Then shining our awareness on that resistance to notice what suffering comes along with it. Softening that resistance, and noticing if the suffering is more or less, even with the difficult still around.

That might sound quite theoretical still. So let’s do the practice. Let’s feel it for ourselves.

Whatever posture your body is in now, take a moment to scan your awareness through it.

There’ll be an area of sensation that’s most calling to you, due to some kind of tension or holding. Got it? Good.

If you can, and only if you feel okay to do so, drop as much of your awareness into that difficult sensation — the area in the body which feels unpleasant or difficult.  

And when we are in contact with the difficult, we have a tendency to push it away. It makes total sense. So notice now if you can also sense that pushing away, that resistance. It might feel like some tension or holding around the edges of the original tension. Or it might be more of a mental thing. 

If you can resolve the difference between the original difficult sensation and the resistance towards it, try to soften that resistance. You can do it in different ways, but a good one is to relax into the difficult sensation — to allow it. And when you do that, the resistance can drop away, or at least reduce. 

Give it a go. Remember, this isn’t just about believing it because I’m saying it. And it’s not about just believing it ‘cause it sort of makes sense. It’s about seeing it for yourself. If Level 1 is knowing it through your ear, and Level 2 is knowing things through your brain, Level 3 is about knowing things through your heart, your guts, your core. You know it, because you’ve seen it. You’ve felt it deep down in experience — over and over again — that it’s part of how you move through the world. That’s Level 3. And that’s where the transformative stuff lives. That’s where wisdom lives.

I’ll admit, this isn’t easy to get the first time. The way the Level 3 learning works, it’s taking the chance to see it for yourself again and again. So that’s my invitation.

Sophia, you’re going to do great at school. You’ll experience all three levels of knowledge in your own way. In the first few years, there will be a real emphasis on play-based learning. That’s another thing Sayadaw U Tejaniya was big on — having fun. Because if practice is fun, then you’re more likely to do it, and things are just more likely to land.

So have fun. Pick up all sorts of stuff and most importantly, find your own way. I’m proud to be your dad and excited for what you learn and how you’ll learn it.

And you… have a great week ahead. And if you get the time, take a moment to reflect on how you learn best, and what changes you might be able to make so that your environment, your work, your home, are set up to give you the best chance to learn. And have fun with it.

‘Till next time.