:: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

Written by Ubasaka Roy on 01/31/2007

MINDFULNESS (p. Sati)

My talk this evening is about ‘Mindfulness’ (or ‘Sati’, to give it its Pali name), the eighth great virtue in our weekly series of talks covering all ten virtues. Mindfulness is also known as ‘Mindful Awareness’ or simply just ‘Awareness’ but to avoid any confusion, throughout the talk, I will stick to using the word ‘mindfulness’.

Mindfulness – what it’s not!

To get a good sense of what something like mindfulness is, I often find it helpful to first consider what it is not ie the opposite state of ‘mindlessness’.

‘Mindless vandalism’, for example, is a phrase we all recognise and understand. It means to act without thinking, to destroy for no reason, to function unconsciously. The phrase ‘mindless living’ may not be a favourite of the press but we can apply it all the same. What is mindless living and how can we avoid it?

Ellen Langer is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard and in her book entitled ‘Mindfulness – choice and control in everyday life’, she identifies three classes of mindless behaviour. These three classes she calls:

Entrapment by category: A wealthy man rings your doorbell at 2:00am in the morning and offers you £10,000 if you can give him a piece of wood that is 3ft by 7ft (1.0m by 2.0m). He is wearing a fur coat, two diamond rings and has driven up in a Rolls Royce, so he’s obviously wealthy. He’s on a scavenger hunt against some equally wealthy friends and if you can give him what he wants, he’ll give you the money there and then. You know you don’t have a piece of wood that large and no timber yard will be open at that time, so you say, “Sorry. I can’t help”. The next day, whilst passing a nearby building site you see a piece of unpainted wood that is just about the right size, except that it is a door. You could simply have given the wealthy man your front door a few hours before for £10,000 but it didn’t occur to you; it was hidden from you, stuck in the category called ‘door’.

Automatic behaviour: Have you ever said ‘excuse me’ to a store mannequin or written a cheque in January with the previous year’s date. Perhaps you’ve already done that this month? If so, you’ve taken in and used limited signals from the world around (ie the female form, the familiar face of the cheque) without letting other signals (the motionless pose, a calendar) penetrate as well.

Acting from a single perspective: So often in our lives, we act as though there were only one set of rules. For instance, in cooking we – and I’m thinking particularly ‘men’ here – tend to follow recipes with dutiful precision. We add ingredients as though by official decree. If the recipe calls for a pinch of salt and four pinches fall in, panic strikes, as though the bowl might now explode. Thinking of a recipe only as a rule, we often do not consider how people’s tastes vary or what fun it might be to make up a new dish. And there are many other examples of this and the two other modes of mindless behaviour.

So that’s living mindlessly or as I personally tend to describe it, it’s living life like you’re ‘running on rails’. And having spent much of my life doing exactly that (despite my efforts to the contrary!), I feel amply qualified to have talked on this subject tonight!

So what exactly is ‘Mindfulness’?

The following definition comes from the Wikipedia ‘free encyclopaedia’ website:

“Mindfulness is the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally. Mindfulness is applied to both bodily actions and the mind's own thoughts and feelings.”
A more lyrical definition is:

“Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves.”

That comes from the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (English pronunciation: Tik N’yat Hawn) and as well as being a prominent scholar, author and peace activist, you won’t be surprised he’s also a poet, if you didn’t already know that.

Personally, I’m drawn to Thich Nhat Hanh’s brevity but at my level of practice, I need the clarity and firm direction of the longer Wikipedia definition. Perhaps you have your own favourite definition that’s different again and if so, splendid – as regards what I’ve just said about mindlessness, we don’t want to tackle such a crucial topic from a single perspective!

Mindfulness: what the Buddha taught

The Buddha, from his enlightened state, put mindfulness, plus the practice and development of mindfulness at the very heart of his teachings. That, at least, is how it seems to me.

In the fourth and final noble truth, the Buddha effectively set out a do-it-yourself instruction manual leading to the cessation of suffering and the experiences of spiritual liberation and enlightenment (p. nibbana) that go along with it. These instructions are presented in terms of the Noble Eight-fold Path and mindfulness is its penultimate component.

In his book, ‘What the Buddha taught’, Walpola Rahula states that practically the whole teaching of the Buddha, to which he devoted himself for 45 years from his enlightenment to his death at age 80, deals in some way or other with this Path. And just to recap, the eight components of the Path are respectively:

(1) Right understanding [/view] (2) right intention [/thought] (3) right speech (4) right action (5) right livelihood (6) right effort (7) right mindfulness and (8)right concentration.

Right mindfulness is also known as ‘right meditation’ and there are two forms of meditation. One is samatha meditation, which develops mental concentration. From his own study and mastery of samatha meditation, the Buddha rejected it as being too limited in its ultimate end point of giving the practitioner access to mystical states and peaceful living but nothing more.

Instead, he discovered the other type – vipassana meditation, for insight into the nature of things, leading to the complete liberation of mind and to the realization of the Ultimate Truth, nibbana. Vipassana meditation is essentially Buddhist ‘meditation’ or ‘mental culture’ (p. bhavana) and it is an analytical method based on mindfulness, attention and observation. It is also, of course, the form of meditation we practice here at the Temple.

Satipatthana-sutta

The most important discourse ever given by the Buddha on meditation is called the Satipatthana-sutta or ‘The Setting-up of mindfulness’. This discourse is so highly venerated Walpola Rahula states it is regularly recited in Buddhist monasteries and homes, with family members sitting round and listening with deep devotion. Monks too often recite this sutta by the bedside of a dying man (or presumably now woman) to purify their last thoughts.

The discourse is set out in four sections known as ‘the Four Foundations of Mindfulness’ and these deal with respectively (1) The mindfulness of the body (p. kaya) (2) The mindfulness of feelings and sensations (p. vedana) (3) The mindfulness of the mind (p. citta) and (4) The mindfulness of various moral and intellectual subjects (p. dhamma). If you want to read it or simply get a flavour of it, the Satipatthana-sutta is included as a 10-page appendix in ‘What the Buddha taught’ but it is not a quick read and the version included is an abridged one.


Mindfulness in action

All of us here tonight have had varying degrees of exposure to the mindfulness of breathing done during sitting meditation, where we mentally label each in-breath and out-breath. So, each time we breathe in, we think eg ‘rising’ and each time we breathe out, we think ‘falling’. In this type of vipassana meditation, the breath serves as a tether, an anchor for us to bring our awareness back to the present moment.

By residing more frequently in the present moment, we begin to see both the inner and outer aspects of reality. Inner reality may unfold as we see the mind continually chattering with commentary or judgment. By becoming aware of the mind’s continual commentary, we have the ability to really notice those thoughts and decide if they have value. Most often, mindful people realize that ‘thoughts are just thoughts’ with no real weight or meaning. People are then free to release a thought (ie let it go) when they realize the thought is not concrete reality. They are then free just to observe life and not get caught in the commentary.

As one observes inner reality more closely, one finds that happiness is not a quality brought about by a change in outer circumstances. Rather, one realizes happiness starts with releasing attachment to thoughts; therefore releasing ‘automatic’ reactions toward pleasant and unpleasant situations or feelings.

However, the key point here is that mindfulness does not have to be constrained to a formal meditation session. It’s an activity that can be done any time; without having to sit or even focus on the breath. It can be done simply by bringing the mind to focus on what is happening in the present moment, while simply noticing the mind's usual ‘commentary’. One can be mindful of the sensations in one's feet while walking, of the sound of the wind in the trees, or the feeling of soapy water while doing dishes. One can also be mindful of the mind's commentary: ‘I wish I didn't have to walk any further; I like the sound of the leaves rustling; I wish washing dishes wasn't so boring and the soap wasn't drying out my skin" etc.

Once we have noticed the mind's running commentary, we then have the freedom to release those judgments: "washing dishes: boring" may become "washing dishes: washing dishes". In this example, one may see that washing does not have to be judged "boring"; washing dishes is only a process of co-ordinating dishes with soap and water. Any activity done mindfully is a form of meditation, as watching the mind can be done during any time.

The simple words of Thich Naht Hanh take us back to the immediacy of every moment, when he says:

“If I am incapable of washing dishes joyfully, if I want to finish them quickly so I can go and have a cup of tea, I will be equally incapable of drinking the tea joyfully. With the cup in my hands I will be thinking about what to do next, and the fragrance and the flavour of the tea together with the pleasure of drinking it will be lost. I will always be dragged into the future, never able to live in the present moment.”

Our lives may be very different, yet we can still benefit from applying such a simple philosophy. How often do our minds stray from the present to the future where plans lay waiting for us or to the past where we replay conversations and meetings in our minds over and over again. Thich Naht Hanh is not unaware of the Western lifestyle predicament when he says:

You may ask how you can nourish awareness while washing dishes, binding books or working in a factory or office. I think you have to find your own answer.

He then gently reminds us of mindful living by adding:

‘Do whatever you can to keep the light of mindful awareness shining within yourself’

Conclusion

I began this brief talk by considering what mindfulness isn’t, then what it is, what the Buddha said about it and lastly how one can develop mindfulness in the course of everyday life.

I hope you found it enjoyable and informative and at a minimum, you will have a better understanding of the following classic Zen story, if you haven’t heard it before:

A disciple asks the master, ‘Master, how do you put enlightenment into action?’ How do you practice it in everyday life?’. ‘By eating and by sleeping’, replies the master. ‘But master, everybody eats and everybody sleeps’. ‘But not everybody eats when they eat and sleeps when they sleep’.

And as a final thought to leave you with, I would just bring to your attention the opening of Ellen Langer’s book on Mindfulness which I referred to earlier. The opening goes:

‘One day, ten years ago, I conducted an experiment which was to change the whole way I think about life. It opened me to new ways of thinking about many aspects of our daily existence, especially things most of us take for granted.

On that day, the elderly residents of a nursing home were each given a choice of house plants to care for and were asked to make a number of small decisions about their daily routines. A year and a half later, not only were these people more cheerful, active and alert than a similar group in the same institution who were not given these choices and responsibilities, but many more of them were still alive. In fact, less than half as many of the decision-making, plant-minding residents had died as had those in the other group. This experiment with its startling results began a 10-year research programme into the powerful effects of what my colleagues and I came to call mindfulness and of its counterpart, the equally powerful but destructive state of mindlessness.’

So as a Buddhist, if you ever feel you are unlikely to achieve enlightenment this time round and as a result, are tempted to give up your meditation and mindfulness development efforts, my advice to you is “don’t!”. Because by keeping going, there’s an excellent chance you’ll live longer and that might just be enough extra time for you to reach the end of the Noble Eight-fold Path!


Roy Allan
30 January 2007


Information sources for this talk:

Mindfulness – Choice and control in every day life	Ellen J Langer
What the Buddha taught	Walpola Rahula
Teach yourself Meditation	Naomi Ozaniec
www.wikipedia.org

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