One of the topics at the recent Vipassana Teachers’
Conference that I attended at Spirit Rock, California was mindfulness. Or
rather the ‘Mindfulness’ phenomenon: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy,
Mindfulness-Based Childbirth, Mindfulness for Sports people, Mindfulness for
Businessmen, and Mindfulness in the Military. A calm collected emotional state
and a clear present-moment attention can have many applications to improve how
a human being functions, and mindfulness is commonly understood to provide just
that. In terms of its popularity (in the
West at least) it has outgrown, and often doesn’t even acknowledge, its ancient
Buddhist parent with all her religious views. Understandably so: ethnocentric Buddhism often doesn’t
present much one could call mindfulness – or even Dhamma.
However, some of the Vipassana Teachers, including myself,
expressed their concern – what about mindfulness as a Dhamma practice aimed at
liberation? What about mindfulness based on right view? Rather than teaching
soldiers to be more calm and collected, wouldn’t instructions in ethics and
kamma be more to the point? And as Mindfulness required some sort of
certification (one nun mentioned that she had been prevented from attending a
patient in a hospital because she didn’t have evidence of Mindfulness
training), who does the certifying? And how qualified are the teachers? I mused
over the thought of impending turf-wars over whose mindfulness was best: that
gleaned through years of sitting up straight and watching the breath, or a form learned in a classroom without relinquishment or pain. I also noted an underlying
irony: the Vipassana movement itself stepped away from the Theravada tradition in
a similar way about forty years ago, and, uncertain of how much of its parent’s
attitudes and culture to embrace, only acknowledges those roots when it seeks
some. We seem to be negotiating the same tensions: trimmed-down and secular
versus overblown and traditional, Puritan versus Catholic, all over again.
Later on we did explore the meaning of mindfulness in
Buddhism: is it a technique of noting, a moment-at-a-time, phenomena that arise
within an unwaveringly focused attention? Finding the rigour of this approach
too rigid and stressful, some teachers have espoused a less object-centred
approach of tuning into awareness itself – an approach that is backed up
in Tibetan Dzogchen practice, or in Advaita Vedanta, but which finds less
secure ground in the Pali texts of Theravada. Which is confusing for those
seeking Theravada/Pali roots.
One problem to me seemed to be that of taking the method
through which mindfulness is applied microscopically, a method taught by
acknowledged masters such as the Mahasi Sayadaw and Sayadaw U Pandita (and a
foundation for the major early Vipassana teachers), to be mindfulness
itself. But to swing the other way and
to say the mindfulness is just about being aware in the present, seems to miss
a salient feature of what the texts (and the practice) are about. Mindfulness
entails more than being choicelessly aware in the present moment. Take for
example: ‘he possesses the
highest mindfulness and skill, he recollects and remembers what was done long
ago and spoken long ago.’ (M53.16). Here, the mindful practitioner,
keen to follow the teachings, brings them to mind to act as a frame of
reference of his/her present experience.
So mindfulness has a
referential quality; it connects present-moment experience to a frame of
reference. The teachings on the four establishments of mindfulness exemplify
this. Mindfulness of body, feeling, mind-state and ‘essences’ (more on that
later) in the ‘establishment of mindfulness’ suttas (M.10, D.22) – is a referential
practice, referring bodily experience to the body, feeling to the realm of
feeling, the current state of mind to the domain of mind, and mental essences –
potentials such as ill-will or goodwill that support mind-states – to
themselves, just as they are. Why? Because in this way, which is called the ’direct path… for the disappearance of pain
and grief …for the realisation of nibbāna’ one isn’t referring
them to ‘my self’ and ‘how I should look’ and ‘why is my mind in this state?’
and so on. Nor is one distracting oneself, spacing out, or suppressing
mind-states. This reference, bare or judgement and self-representation is of
course at the heart of mindfulness as a therapeutic tool: it clears out the
mis-reference of judgement – of feeling bad about one’s body and so on. In the
practice of the four establishments, mindfulness replaces the agitation and
reactivity of self-view with clarity and calm. That steady calm allows
mind-states to unravel to the great ‘unbinding’ of nibbāna.
Reference to an
object in and of itself is then part of what mindfulness offers. But in Buddhism there’s more to it than that.
The texts present mindfulness as being accompanied by other factors – I
call them ‘friends and relatives’ – some or all of whom tag along with mindfulness
so that its motivation and application is clear, and that there is a learning
from what the frame of reference presents. For instance take mindfulness in the
eightfold path: it’s only one factor of an unfolding process which begins with
right view and leads on through right speech and right action through right mindfulness
and into samādhi
or right unification of mind. In this process the most important factor is
right view – the wise perspective that reminds us that everything we say, do or
even think has results, for good or for bad. This view is the basis and the
motivation behind cultivating one’s life: ‘there
is the result of good and bad deeds ...’ Right view affirms that we can enter on a good way through
being fully and responsibly conscious; it motivates us to pay attention. Mindfulness
then carries right view into living experience; by highlighting the mind-states
that are the causes and results of our actions, it gets the mind to see which
ones are for our true benefit.
So: ‘…when
your virtue is well-purified and your view is straight, based upon virtue,
established upon virtue, you should develop the four establishments of
mindfulness.’ (S47.15) Now, the body
isn’t virtuous or non-virtuous in and of itself, and neither is feeling, so
this instruction isn’t about object-definition but about how one attends and
why. Robbing a bank or slaughtering a chicken might require clarity, focus and
calm, but they wouldn’t be themes for right mindfulness (although there is such
a thing as ‘wrong’/miccha’
mindfulness), because they don’t reveal the ‘essence’, in this case the mental
potencies of avarice, shamelessness and non-empathy. So, for right mindfulness,
the ‘attentive’ aspect of mindfulness has to connect with felt awareness of
one’s approach and intention. Because attention, manasikāra, is amoral;
assassins can cultivate it to a high degrees. But attention is only one aspect
of mind, the aspect that is operated through manas – mind as rational,
object-defining tool. This is the function that gets tuned to high degrees of
efficiency and speed. People racing through piles of data, people rapidly
trading stocks and shares, people behind screens, scanning and taking notes
have high degrees of attention and rapid reference. But what they’re not
referring to is their own mind, mind as ‘heart’ or ‘citta’. This is the mind of feelings
and impressions and of ‘how I am’; mind as an empathic and central steady
ground. And through lack of clear reference to citta, we have rampant social
and individual disease – people losing themselves in what grabs attention;
people stressed out through losing contact with their inner ground, even to the
extent of not knowing that there is one. Because the systems and cultures that
they operate through continually emphasise that happiness and success only come
through chasing and acquiring what’s out there.
And as soon as you get and acquire, then that’s out of date – so get a
new one. This is the world of surface,
of which the touch screen is the icon: contact is instant, glassy, and lacking
depth. You just bounce from one thing to the next. In such a scenario, there’s no
inner home, just a centre that remains swampy, hungry and restless.
That’s why right
mindfulness is vital. If there is one life-saving feature that I’d say
mindfulness is about is that it connects manas the object-definer to citta
the subjective sense. Mindfulness is the
moment of holding the question ‘How am I with this?’ To use the image of a
hand: attention is like the fingers, and citta is like the palm. Fingers
can probe, twiddle and touch, but are unable to collect anything. The palm
can’t probe and inquire, but it receives, collects and fully feels what the fingers
place in it. So citta has the storekeeper’s wisdom – it wants to know
what is worth being in touch with, what can be held for one’s welfare. It
certainly needs educating, and that is the function of ‘deep’ or ‘wise’
attention (yoniso manasikāra), the attention that
refers sense data to the feeling and responsive heart of the mind. This then is
another friend of mindfulness. Deep attention draws on skilful ‘intention/volition’
(cetana), the inclination of citta.
Then, to assess that experience, to feel how a sight or sound, thought or
memory affects you – deep attention clarifies the
contact-impression (adhivacana phassa) in the heart. So when right view
and deep attention guide mindfulness, it draws manas and citta
together; and this results in a clear, ethically-attuned awareness.
As for objects: as you
attend to the experience of body, beneath the surface, curl the fingers of
attention towards the receptive palm and you have established mindfulness of
body, the embodied sense that gives you ground. As you get embodied, feeling
comes to the fore. Attend to feeling, and as you notice how it changes, this clear
comprehension (sampajañña) makes you
less reactive in the presence of pleasure or pain. Curl the attention further
back to the palm so that it’s only attending to mental impressions – and you
have mindfulness of mind-states and their essences, the connection that opens
and clarifies the heart. Eventually, when fingers and palms meet in a
sensitivity that has no aim and object other than that meeting, you have samādhi
- the mind is unified. Attention comes home, and finding that this is a
very comfortable place to be, intention settles into appreciation and ease.
Furthermore, mindfulness is involved with wisdom.
It may be correct to say that mindfulness is non-judgemental – but that doesn’t
mean that it doesn’t support assessment. It is in the putting aside biased
judgements and short-term impulses (‘covetousness
and grief regarding the world’) that assessment of what is really useful
can take place. So to avoid having its attention hijacked, mindfulness has to
established and made firm: one image is of a man carrying a bowl of oil on his
head with another walking behind him with a sword ready to cut his head off if
he spills a drop. ‘If even,’ to paraphrase the Buddha, ‘the most beautiful girl
in the world sings and dances in front of him, would he give her any
attention?’ (S.47.20) No, his mindfulness is firmly established on balance, the
key to clear assessment of what is really needed or true in any situation.
It’s
fortunate that the ‘head-lopping’ technique is not usually offered in
meditation retreats, but the point has to be learnt somehow. Patiently,
persistently and without getting sidetracked even by self-criticism or doubt, mindfulness
has to be established so that those fingers don’t grab hot coal. Knowing what
burns or stabs the heart, or entangles it with no benefit, is up to each of us
to find out; but for that mindfulness needs friends – ardour (atapi) and energy (viriya) –
are needed. Effort? Striving? Put it another way: right energy comes from
fullness of heart, not blind will. With bright heart we can keep mindful of citta
through all its changes, but without that persistence we don’t learn. Learning
how to support the body, and to train, encourage, gladden and soothe the mind
is the pragmatic wisdom that makes a decade of persistence worthwhile. But more
directly than that, right energy is just an expression of being fully here;
what else is mindfulness about?
Transcendence, that’s
what. In another parable (S.47.8), the Buddha presents the examples of two
cooks; both present their master, the king, with his meal – but one does and
one doesn’t notice what food the king enjoys. The one who doesn’t notice serves
the same food every day, regardless – and gets fired. The one who notices
what food the king chooses from the meal, continues to refine the meal he
prepares in line with what most satisfies his master – and gets promoted.
The parable then likens these to the way that two bhikkhus – who are both described as being mindful and
clearly comprehending – present a meditation theme to their minds. Of the
two, the ‘foolish, incompetent’ bhikkhu doesn’t note how his mind responds, so
he gets no good results; but the ‘wise, competent’ bhikkhu takes note and ‘his
corruptions are abandoned’. This makes
the point that mindfulness needs to attend to ‘the sign of the mind’. This is
beautiful: at the gate of the transcendent, citta
will present subtle signs of luminosity, ease, vastness or stillness. Any of
these may be a key to be picked up, held and explored. So we need to look and feel more deeply to
what meditation theme it picks up readily and enjoys rather than keep blindly
pushing.
This is the entry to
the mystical experience, when the heart attunes to a felt sense that isn’t
coming from the sense of self. The fine-tuning comes through another of
mindfulness’ friends, one that tastes the essences that support any mental
state. This is ‘investigation of essence’, dhammavicaya.
It has to be applied to the citta as
in: ‘What effect is this having on my mind?’ or ‘What is motivating this
practice?’ So in establishing mindfulness,
we’re encouraged to assess whether the mind at this time is ready to dwell on a
particular meditation theme, considering for example: ‘Can my mind find focus
on this aspect of breathing or does it settle more readily while walking? Or is
this the time when gentle kindness is a more suitable place to dwell?’ Through
investigation the corruptions of forcefulness, ambition, or any ego-bound
program get weeded out. They are replaced by a more subtle invitation into
Truth.
In this way, citta
educates manas in the ways of directly-experienced wisdom. And manas pays
back by casting that wisdom into concepts that form the storehouse of one’s
contemplative know-how.
Without mindful
reference, awakening, wisdom, and even kindness remain concepts and ideals that
remain out of reach. But without referring to its supportive companions,
mindfulness doesn’t penetrate much deeper than granting an improved quality of
attention. As a member of a team, mindfulness frees the mind from the burden of
self-consciousness, self-hatred and self-orientation – the shift that is
the heart of awakening. Maybe as ‘Mindfulness’
moves into the mainstream, it will naturally encourage some of its
practitioners to participate in that process. However, there’s also the danger
that, as has become the case with hatha yoga, it will be shorn of its mystical
depth and transformative power. Will it become another money-making commodity
that improves people’s capacity to work on the same treadmill as before – or
will it help to refresh its forgetful Buddhist parent?
