Practice: What is "mindfulness"?

High quality, handmade Himalayan craftsmanshp of gold-faced Buddha - Etsy

What is that? - I don't know. I just let it be.

The Buddha talked about mindfulness (watchfulness, wakefulness, vigilance, diligence, sati) as a human capacity. It is being aware of the present in a dispassionate, nonreactive, unentangled way.

How do we become entangled? We follow automatic habits (going through life on "automatic pilot" rather than actually living).

• Western Theravada Buddhist monk Ven. Dr. Analayo has looked deeply into the definition of sati: "Mindfulness in Early Buddhism" (Journal of Buddhist Studies)

Love me. I'm cold and all alone and need a hug.

Our most pronounced habit is to crave and cling, to feed our greed and lust for pleasurable experiences. For example, rather than simply observing a beautiful thing, we want (and often do) reach for it, grasp it, hold onto it. This is attachment and clinging. When it fails to satisfy us, displeases, and disappoints, it becomes unlovable, unliked. And we fall into our second habit. Imagine a cute white lab mouse (or baby piglet) sniffling and looking for cuddles. We love it until we don't.

I've had with you, you dirty fat pig! Bacon!

We have the habit of experiencing fear, revulsion, annoyance, disliking unpleasant things and experiences. For example, rather than simply observing an ugly thing, we want (and often do) push it away, grab it and throw it away, resist it, beat it, destroy it (or, fearing it, we ourselves run away). Imagine a dirty rat, greasy and growling with shifty eyes.

Our most fundamental habit, which makes these other two or three (greed, hatred, and fear, fear being a kind of hate or "aversion"), is delusion, confusion, ignorance. It is not knowing, not understanding, not seeing things as they really are. One could say our whole experience is really a hallucination -- in the sense that we are rarely if ever looking at what's actually there, rarely being "mindful."

If we were being mindful, everything would be alright, acceptable, and we wouldn't abandon ourselves or the experience of the present moment.

Could we experience a pleasant sight, sound, scent, savor, (bodily) sensation, or simulation (mental thing) and simply let it be, radically accept it, not get entangled, involved, attached, not grasp or cling?

Mindful when walking, sitting, doing, viewing

If we could, that would be mindfulness.

Could we experience an unpleasant thing (internal or external) and simply let it be, radically accept it, allow it, not get entangled (by the habit of hate or fear), involved, not resist or run away, not deny or attempt to fix or destroy it? If we could, that would be mindfulness, seeing it just as it is and allowing it, letting it be whatever it is or wants to be without "fixing" it or making it be otherwise.

(This would mean fixing ourselves to be at ease with experience rather than trying to fix experience. If we could do this, then we would really be on our way to seeing things as they really are rather than constantly imagining them to be some way or other from our expectations, past experiences, fears, anticipations, neuroses, phobias, vulnerabilities...).

Could we experience a neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant thing (external or internal) and simply let it be without being bored, trying to escape the discomfort or confusion, without trying to figure it out and be one way or another, without trying to replace it with a pleasant and "interesting" thing? If we could, that would be mindfulness -- simply seeing what really is (right here, right now) without projections, distortions, expectations, preferences, just simply letting it (this moment) be whatever it is. That is mindfulness.

So the silly and downright foolish definition or idea that "mindfulness is walking in nature with awareness" becomes clear. We are never walking in nature, not mindfully. We are usually enjoying the change of scenery, the natural beauty, the slower pace, the fresh air, the uncluttered vistas, the everything-pleasant, hating the bugs and mosquitoes, weather and inconveniences, and missing most of the scenery because we're not really paying attention to what's there just noticing what we notice and daydreaming the rest of the time. Rather than ever being "here" right now, we instead constantly abandon ourselves, leave ourselves in the lurch of unpleasant experience, run these wheels of habit and automaticity, fail to engage with the real or the now or the present moment.

We dream of the past, imagine the future, and abandon the present. The first makes us depressed. The second makes us anxious. And the third makes us unhappy because, well, there's an interesting saying that takes some getting use to:

"There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way." If we were happy by being present, everything would be happiness. If we only allow ourselves to be happy when everything is pleasant, boy, we're in for a bumpy ride in life. If we insist we be unhappy when meeting the unpleasant, we have a lot of suffering coming our way (because a lot of, maybe most, experience is going to be unpleasant or boring). That will be the painful, the dukkha (the imperfect, off-kilter, off-center) causing us a bumpy ride.

How now if instead of habitually reacting all the time, judging, jumping to conclusions, thinking we know, being sure we know, we were to look with fresh eyes? "Beginner's mind," a famous attribute of Zen in particular and mindful meditation in general, is far better than the boredom, restlessness, annoyance, confusion, and insanity called "monkey mind."

The Buddha always has a little smirk or gentle smile.

The problem is this. The antidote is instant. It is called mindfulness (sati) because in mindfulness there is no greed, hatred/fear, or delusion. There is just this, just this moment, whatever is in it. And it's okay. It's fine because we let it be. We allow it. We accept it. We radically accept and embrace it because it is and for no better reason. Now it may change. (It will change). But for the moment, this moment, whatever this moment, we LET (allow) IT (whatever) BE (is). Allow whatever is. And smile. It feels nice, and it doesn't need a reason.

Now, the Buddha in talking about sati did not leave it at that. In fact, it's hard to ever find a definition of sati. That should be clear and well understood, implicitly one supposes, because all of the emphasis is what to be mindful of. That the Buddha called catu satipatthana, the Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness to be exact or the Four Foundations of Mindfulness to be conventional.

Sure, mindfulness is best. One can never be too mind. It is good for all things, to just let them be and observe them calmly, dispassionately, objectively, unentangled. As a path to enlightenment, the Buddha spelled out FOUR things of which to be mindful, which are categories:

1. body
2. feeling
3. mind
4. mind-objects.

Buddhas teach mindfulness.

We will not be able to be mindful of any of them very well until we establish the habit of mindfulness, which runs against the stream of our other four habits (liking the beautiful, disliking the ugly, fearing the ugly, or being bored or confused by the neutral). Watch. Stay. Be here now. Don't abandon yourself or the present experience.

The Dharma (Teaching) of what it means to practice systematic mindfulness of those four foundations (which is the practice of vipassana, "insight meditation," "practicing to see things as they really are") is taught often enough at Buddhist retreats.

For now, just be mindful of all that is (right now), which is an ever-changing stream of things, always interesting if one investigates dispassionately.

There is much to see and much to learn, but not if we come at it with expectations and like we already know. A little beginner's mind goes a long way as does noble silence, not explaining, categorizing, conceptualizing, imagining, measuring, figuring, minding, or verbalizing. Just let it (this moment) be.

• Dhr. Seven; edited by Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Wisdom Quarterly

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