What follows is a response to a query from
my last posting: ‘How do you brighten the mind?’ The question isn’t an unusual
one, and that in itself says something. Despite hundreds of years of human
development, improvement in terms of health, communications, opportunities for
travel, let alone a deluge of commodities, the mind often remains a gloomy or
barren space. If ‘space’ is even the right word for the multi-layered tangle of
pressures, imperatives, anxieties and dead-ends that people find themselves
experiencing. Ultimately, this can only be solved by releasing the mind from
the message of the external senses. But on a more mundane level, this isn’t
personal, it’s social. Depression is the number one life-inhibitor in the
developed world, and number two as a global average (some places haven’t caught
up with us, yet).
It was in the twentieth century in the wake
of industrialization that an objectless gloom first seems to have hit home as a
feature of western culture. Maybe because by then mainstream society had fully
taken in the two main psychological themes of industrial development, both of
them being dead-ends. One theme is that you have to make your own way through
hard work in a competitive world that measures you in terms of productivity;
the other is that material goods will provide you with happiness. So the heart
is divided between self and others, and between its internal values and external
comforts – it has to sacrifice empathy and contentment for getting ahead and
getting more. These themes are the grim message of capitalism, which has become
socialized into a lifestyle and therefore seems ultimately true. The latter of
those themes has a limited truth: adequate housing with improved sanitation is
certainly good and pleasant, but there comes a time when more basic needs are
met and the ease that they grant is replaced with the incitement to get the faster,
more advanced ... you name it. And consumer excitement is never going to ripen into
contentment. In fact its reaching out drains the mind by latching well-being
onto objects that can only provide brief happiness. Consumerism also requires
people to keep up with the trends, thereby supporting the first message: you’re
in a race in an ungenerous world.
To truly brighten the mind rather than
dress it up with new stuff, is about refuting those two messages, and the
isolationist view that they support. Because, however socialized we may be, we
are still humans, and that means that our nervous systems have mirror neurons,
and that means that we affect, remember and care for each other. No matter what
the external senses present (and it is just a presentation), we are not
self-contained units. Someone you know dies, and you feel it; someone inspires
you and you learn. This is just the nature of mind; isolationist view is downright
wrong. Unfortunately the economically-driven society runs on it. This and its
resultant anxiety and depression are therefore what you have to meet. However,
the point is that if you cast that view off, the mind returns to a natural
brightness. It’s not that far away, nor do you have to be outstandingly
brilliant.
Returning the mind to its natural
brightness, rather than dressing it up, is a perspective-changing practice. It
sets you free from the distraction industry and the commodities fever because
you don’t need their stuff. The brightened mind is also the place for
meditation, insight and release – but it isn’t initiated by meditation; in fact
until you have put aside the twin messages, it’s unlikely that meditation will
do much more than make you more attentive and calm. This isn’t at all bad, but
a lot of meditators that I meet aren’t happy about their meditation; they feel
they haven’t achieved the goals that they’ve heard about, and maybe they need
more effort; or they’re looking for the right system, one that will give them
the results they’re looking for. When you review these complaints, you can see
that they are meditative formulations of the two isolationist messages: the
self who has to work, and the glittering new thing that will do the trick. This
is isolationist view with its ‘not there yet’ heaven.
In traditional Buddhist training
isolationist view (aka self-view) and its messages is tackled at the outset of
Dhamma-practice through the cultivation of giving (dāna), morality (sīla)
and renunciation (nekkhama). These
are pāramī, ‘furtherances’ that are to
be kept going as an ongoing complement to whatever meditation one is doing and
not being good enough at. The understanding behind pāramī is that erasing the self-boundaries is the basis of
practice, not just a refined insight at the end of the Path.*
The preparation for these, and for all
cultivation, has to be reflection, the ability to pause the streaming on of the
mind and get it to look into cause and effect – that is the effects of
one’s actions and the bubbling up that set them going. Ordinarily a lot of our
actions are automatic, programmed responses and reactions; the result of
high-speed, high-density lifestyles. The effect of this on the heart is a kind
of blur, in which we don’t really see where we’re coming from. So part of
mind-cultivation is just to look into the heart and start highlighting and
selecting mental actions so that you can then benefit from reflecting on them.
The teaching is that it is impossible that a skilful action will not leave a
pleasant trace; but you have to reflect on it to detect that trace. When you
do, the function of mindfulness is to stay on that trace and let it amplify in
your awareness: which it will do. Then the pleasure of skilfulness starts
glowing. So, right action and right mindfulness work together to give a bright
result.
Bearing that in mind, generosity (or
sharing) is considered to be the first pāramī,
because this practice turns the heart around from ‘me’ to ‘we’; it’s
accessible, and is an acceptable social action. We probably already do it, but
don’t reflect on it adequately. You can give time, moral support, commodities,
Dhamma. In its straightforwardness it breaches the boundaries of the isolated
self and builds non-competitive relationships. (It’s one reason why the Dhamma
should not be sold.) But, in the developed world, in keeping with the
isolationist trend, most human services, such as healing, educating,
child-minding, are sold: the developed world has converted human skill and
goodness into a commodity. The results of that are professional expertise but
no sharing and no community; hence a reduction in psychological richness and
friendship.
To do generosity without the isolationist
shadow of whether someone else deserves it, first think of it as sharing, as
entering a ‘we’ sense. It’s not a matter of setting people apart by judging
whose worth how much. You do dāna
because with it, you think of someone else’s welfare, and you connect with them,
and vice versa. And when you reflect on that mind-state, it has a brightening
effect. Secondly it’s powerful to recollect how much has been given to you,
without having to deserve it: a body, breathing, air, daylight, warmth,
nursing, human support, intelligence etc. To linger in the feel of that – ‘where
would I be without …?’ – is
mind-blowing. The notion of ‘deserving’ is the isolated self’s claim to
supremacy and is one of the great human delusions: humans didn’t deserve to
take over the planet and use it to the detriment of other species; Europeans
didn’t deserve to take over the Americas
and much of the rest of the world – we just did it, and then justified it later
(if we needed to). But look around at what that idea justifies, and also feel
the results internally. If you linger in the deserving mode you’re going to
start judging others and yourself, and end up with a crabby mind. Generosity blows that word away; it’s joyful.
Morality (sīla) is to be cultivated in the same light. It leaves a good
feeling, helps others and gives you reliable friends. The isolationist take on
that word renders it as righteousness (I’m better than) shadowed by guilt and
punishment (could do better): it creates comparisons and divisions and a crabby
mind. But this is far from the point. As Ajahn Chah commented: ‘…If other
people’s sīla is not perfect or they
do not behave like good monks, it is not your job to be judgemental. You won’t
become wise by watching and blaming others. The Vinaya [discipline] is a tool
to assist you in developing samādhi-bhāvana
[meditation]. It is not a weapon for finding fault or judging who’s good
and who’s bad. No one can practise for you, and you can’t practise for anyone
else. So be mindful of your own
behaviour. This is the path of practice.’
So it may be more helpful to consider sīla as integrity: that which integrates
or makes whole. Then the result is one of
being at ease with oneself: self-respect. Sīla
is the intentionality that makes me a responsible part of a group; it supports
non-isolation. It also means that I filter my interests and desires so that I
can live without the regret that fractures the mind. When you take on five precepts and you note
at the end of the day that you didn’t abuse others or yourself, then there’s a
sense of integrity. That’s a foundation for brightening. For example, I like to
dwell in the consideration that because of sīla,
no creature need fear me. Because of sīla,
people can be free from mistrust with regard to me. I don’t break confidences,
I don’t tell lies. Because of sīla, I
don’t sell out; I’m not merchandise. It gives dignity, whilst in the money-driven
world people become commodities.
Dāna and sīla also provide the
foundation for extending goodwill. About
which much can be said, but not now.
Sīla also offers the dignity of restraint, which ripens into the
world-changing inclination to lessen the amount of stuff one has to look after
– and this allows you the time to cultivate the reflective practices that
take you into the heart of the Dhamma. Lessening is nekkhama, the third root practice, translated as ‘renunciation’;
combining that with wise reflection gives rise to contentment. But this is not
asceticism: renunciation is the natural result of prioritizing what one values
over what the world in general sees as valuable. Values, such as honesty, kindness and
generosity are innate; they are a part of what we’re born with. As you develop
them, they can include a wider range of humans and animals. Non-separation. And
you receive the benefit of a rich heart; one that doesn’t cost others anything
but improves their lives. Everyone knows that at some place in themselves. But
values get blocked by valuables: in essence, money, gold, credit, with the
status and the power that they offer. It seems at first that one gains through
such things, in terms of commodities, status, and admission into a social
circle. But there’s also the fear of loss and the need to update; and perhaps
the human quality of the circle of the elite isn’t that nourishing. But one
thing is obvious: the ones who gain out of valuable commodities are those who
deal in them. So although enough of the money is slushing around in the public
domain to keep people in the game, a disproportionate amount of it is going
into a relatively few pockets. An elite
of eighty people has the same amount of money/credit as the lower 50% of the global
population. Valuables exclude and divide.
The messages of these root practices isn’t
anything new or even exclusively Buddhist. But to develop reflection takes
practice. Essentially the isolationist view is held by one aspect of mind –
they used to call it ‘left brain’ – the manas
function of determining objects, measuring surfaces and rearranging them. This
separates us from what we’re attending to, for these functional purposes. Reflective
practice is about perceiving experience from the subjective feeling sense, citta, the heart sense; this doesn’t
separate. And there is an embodiment requirement for that, one that has to be
developed. The various dissociative effects that I mentioned in my last
posting, and which are societal and systemic, close people’s bodily awareness
and even constrict subtle musculature: the body becomes a case. Now certain
muscle groups are related to particular psychological and emotional effects: it
doesn’t take a genius to acknowledge that a tight chest or belly are defence
strategies; they cut off feeling. So if one is living with such a body, then a
lack of emotional richness is going to be the result – whether you intend
to be defensive or not. And the contrary: you’re going to experience the world
as a less stuck and alien place if your upper body opens up. In detail: the
musculature that runs from the breastbone diagonally and upwards to the top of
each arm is associated with uplift, being held, and joy. If mindfulness of
breathing is properly cultivated, this musculature will flex and brighten the
mind. This is also the area that gets energized with chanting, especially
devotional chanting when the hands are held in prayer position so that the base
of each hand is in touch with the breastbone. Now, whether you do these
practices (recommended of course) or not, this is the area to be focusing on
when you cultivate intentions and actions to do with dāna, sīla, nekkhama. And even when you’re not, if you take a walk
in a park or a garden if you centre your awareness at that place with the
suggestion of simply meeting the world, nature will support your sense of non-isolation
and assist a brightening of the mind. To
summarize: with actions of value, you should embody them, run them through your
nerve-endings and get the chemicals flowing.
There’s a difference between separation,
which is a necessary function for wise discernment (who wants to share a pool
with a crocodile anyway?) and isolation (the well-being of other creatures is
not my concern). Relative separation is necessary because the heart doesn’t do
that – your two-year old would probably cuddle a grizzly bear without wise
supervision. So what wise or deep
attention does is to scan the senses and decide which of their messages are
superficial (the bear does have thick fur) and which are more important (it has big
meat-eating jaws). You get the meaning and abide in your wise heart.
The value of meditation is to enjoy that
place and what it is aware of: as that mental basis refines, the brightening
calms and is experienced as a subtle luminosity. It’s like the subtle light
that you experience when you close your eyes, but keep looking; or the subtle
sound of listening, ‘the sound of silence’. As one calms, the hazy movement of
visual and auditory signals steadies. There is a bodily approach to that:
within your bodily sense, as a background to the sensations and energies, there
is a basis that feels both light and steady. And, as the bodily sense and the mental
sense are sympathetic, reference to that opens the heart into a serene
space. This takes you out of the divided
world of the senses: you begin to understand that your normal sense of body is
just a presentation, not the only thing there is. So there’s the hint: if consciousness can
come out of stuck presentations, or even refrain from presentations and be
‘non-manifestative’ (anidassana), that’s
where freedom lies.
In itself, brightening can get exciting and
destabilising; when you access these effects and become familiar with them, you
find the quieter luminosities more attractive. But throughout the process, it’s
good to remember that a natural inner brightening is the reliable sign of
Dhamma. You enter from where you are; subtle or everyday. This is because all
true approaches bear the same light of wisdom: the freedom from isolationist
view.
****
* You can download a book on the topic of Pāramī at http://forestsanghapublications.org/viewBook.php?id=81&ref=deb
