The Buddha’s Discovery: Observing Sensations for Awareness

Question: Why do you want us to observe sensations?

Goenkaji: Because this is exactly what the Buddha wanted us to practice-awareness of vedanā (sensations).

It was a great discovery of Buddha, which was not known to the people before the time of the Buddha. The teachers before the time of the Buddha, at the time of Buddha, and after the Buddha didn’t know that we react to vedanā.

The teachers before the Buddha and at the time of the Buddha were advising people not to react to the sensual objects that come in contact with the sense doors: eyes with visual objects, nose with smell, ear with sound, etc. “When sensual objects come in contact with your senses, don’t react by judging them as good or bad; don’t react with craving or aversion.” This was their teaching.