MINDFULNESS IS SIMPLE: JUST BE THE PRESENT MOMENT

Here’s a simple description of mindfulness, without all the ‘bells and whistles’. Mindfulness is the presence of choiceless awareness of the content of the present moment from one such moment to the next. Here's an even simpler description. Mindfulness is ... you ... as the present moment.

Why ‘choiceless’ awareness? Listen to these words from the Indian spiritual philosopher J Krishnamurti:

Choiceless awareness -- do not condemn, do not justify. Awareness works only if it’s allowed free play without interference.

To understand, surely, there must be a state of choiceless awareness in which there is no sense of comparison or condemnation, no waiting for a further development of the thing we are talking about in order to agree or disagree -- don’t start from a conclusion above all.

Awareness simply isn’t awareness when we are engaged in judging, analyzing, interpreting, filtering, condemning, comparing and contrasting. The moment we do any of those things we are no longer living in the now. To live in the now all likes, dislikes, opinions, views, biases, prejudices and predilections must be forsaken. There can be no compromise on that matter.

‘Xinxin Ming’ is a poem attributed to the Third Chinese Chán (Zen) Patriarch Jianzhi Sengcan (Chien-chih Seng-ts'an) [pictured below]. The essence of the poem is this: our true self (‘true mind’), which is self-existent be-ing-ness, is perfect as it is. 

However, as soon as we form a liking or disliking to some person, thing or idea, or form a view or opinion of any kind, we create a ‘false self’ -- a ‘false view’ or ‘false mind’, in the language of ‘Xinxin Ming’ -- with which we tend to identify, and which we mistakenly believe is our true self. Our ‘false views’ obscure the true mind's inherent perfection. Here are some quotations from ‘Xinxin Ming’ that illustrate the point I am trying to make:

Any degeneration of your previous practice on emptiness [the true nature of things and events] arises because of false perspectives. There is really no need to go after the Truth but there is indeed a need to extinguish biased views.

Do not dwell in the two biased views. Make sure you do not pursue. The moment you think about right and wrong, that moment you unwittingly lose your true mind.

The Great Way is not difficult, just don't pick and choose. If you cut off all likes or dislikes, everything is clear like space.

Now, I do not think that it is humanly possible to give up all our views, opinions, likes and dislikes. However, let’s face it. Do we really need to overlay those things on our moment-to-moment experience of life? The moment we do that, we are no longer living in the now. Instead, we are back in the past and in the mental realm of conditioning. To experience the now in all its directness and immediacy we must look, really look at the right-here-and-now. We must listen, really listen to the right-here-and-now. We must smell, really smell the right-here-and-now. We must taste, really taste the right-here-and-now. And we must touch, really touch the right-here-and-now. We can do none of those things properly—or even half decently—when we are stuck in our own headspace. Being right-here-and-now, and experiencing right-here-and-now requires us to … drop, let go and desist our ‘false mind’.

The Diamond Sutra says, ‘The past is ungraspable, the present is ungraspable, the future is ungraspable.’ The past is gone. It is ungraspable. The future is not yet here, so it too is ungraspable. But how is the present ungraspable? Well, we are not in the present. If we are, where is it to be found? Point to it, please. Grasp it. You can’t. It’s impossible to measure the present, see the present, or define it. It cannot be pinned down. The so-called present moment, ever so short and ephemeral, has its unfolding in and as the now. The now is the portal through which we experience the present moment, indeed every moment … but only one moment at a time. It is always the present moment. 

Here’s something else that is terribly important—we are the present moment. Yes, the present moment is what, in truth, we are. And the present moment is---our ‘true mind’! In truth, you are the present moment. It is not something happening around you. It is you. The present moment requires your consciousness and awareness in order for it to be what it actually is--the present moment. Without your full and total presence (that is, choiceless awareness), the moment you experience will not be the present moment. It will be a past moment, or some anticipated or hoped for future moment, but it certainly won’t be the present moment.

These are my favourite lines from ‘Xinxin Ming’:

Words! The Way is beyond language,

for in it there is

no yesterday

no tomorrow

no today.

Stop picking and choosing. Abandon your false mind. Just be the present moment.

BUDDHISM AND THE PLURALITY OF ALL THINGS

Image of the Buddha in the garden at Asakusa Kannon Temple
(also called Sensoji), the oldest temple in Tokyo, Japan.
Photo taken by the author.

One of the reasons I embrace Buddhism is this---Buddhism, at least in its more early, uncluttered forms, espouses a realist view of ‘things as they really are.’ I like that, for I am at heart a realist, an empiricist, and a naturalist. I reject all supernaturalistic views of reality.

Buddhism, consistent with an empirical view of reality, affirms that whatever exists are ‘occurrences’---or ‘situations’---in one space-time. Things exist ‘in situations.’ This is known as situationality. Further, at any ‘point’---for want of a better word---in space-time there is always (yes, always) a plurality of space-time interacting situations or occurrences (‘complexes’). Indeed, there are literally countless such pluralities, and all these situations exhaust the whole of reality. There is nothing else ... or supposedly 'beyond' or 'above' all this. Things may be distinct---indeed, they are---but they also connected in space-time, and these connections are very real. The Buddha reportedly said:

Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute.

Situationality and plurality---such is the nature of reality. Never forget that!

The third Zen patriarch Seng-Tsan described situationality and plurality in this way:

One thing, all things:

Move along and intermingle,

Without distinction.

Truth---reality---is never static but always dynamic. The Buddha is also reported to have said that ‘things are different according to the forms which they assume under different impressions’. One could substitute the word ‘situations’ for ‘impressions’ without distorting meaning. Here is a typical saying attributed to the Buddha:

The thing and its quality are different in our thought, but not in reality. Heat is different from fire in our thought, but you cannot remove heat from fire in reality. You say that you can remove the qualities and leave the thing, but if you think your theory to the end, you will find that this is not so.

The author at Asakusa Kannon Temple (Sensoji).

People waft smoke over their bodies from the bronze incense burner
before worship. Some believe that the smoke can heal
or prevent illness. I'm skeptical---naturally.

 

Buddhism recognizes the existence, at any ‘point’ in space-time, of a plurality or multiplicity of interacting factors that can, at any time, produce a certain effect. We are talking about a complex, ever-changing, dynamic system whose parts are mutually dependent. In the ‘Fire Sermon’ (Aditta Sutta), the Buddha is recorded as having said:

The eye, O monks, is burning; visible things are burning; the mental impressions based on the eye are burning; the contact of the eye with visible things is burning; the sensation produced by the contact of the eye with visible things, be it pleasant, be it painful, be it neither pleasant nor painful, that also is burning. With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you that it is burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it is burning with the anxieties of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair.

The ear is burning, sounds are burning, … The nose is burning, odors are burning, ... The tongue is burning, tastes are burning, ... The body is burning, objects of contact are burning, ... The mind is burning, thoughts are burning, all are burning with the fire of greed, of anger, and of ignorance.

The Fire Sermon presents, albeit in a highly lyrical way, a plurality of multiple situations that are in continuous process. That is causation---processes continuing into one another. Such is life ... wandering, wandering, waxing and waning. We live and die from moment to moment. 

The Vietnamese monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh uses the expression ‘InterBeing’ to refer to this state and process of interdependence. It is important, however, to note that Buddhism is not monistic. No form of Buddhism affirms that all things are in reality one. Nevertheless, a single ‘logic’ applies to all things, for all things exist in the same ‘level’ or plane of existence and observability.

All of this is very profound---but also very simple. Delightfully so. Truth is like that, you know.

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