WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT MINDFULNESS ANYWAY?

Mindfulness is no longer the flavour of the month. I’m not entirely sure why that is the case but, as the Bible says, ‘To everything there is a season’ (Ec 3:1).

Now, don’t get me wrong. Mindfulness is still very popular and it’s taught and practised everywhere. Anyway, to get to the point, some people say to me, ‘What’s so good about mindfulness anyway?’ Hence, this post.

Mindfulness is really nothing extraordinary. It is certainly nothing mystical or otherwordly, whatever the latter means. Mindfulness is simply living with awareness—and with the awareness of one’s awareness. How often do we get in our car and drive from place A to place B. We drive along certain roads. However, is it not the case that all too often, when we get to our destination, we have no recollection of going down Road X or Road Y. Our awareness while driving was intermittent and there was little or no actual awareness of our awareness.

Mindfulness is being grounded in the here-and-now.
Golden Jubilee Bridges over the Thames. London, United Kingdom. December 2018.
Photo taken by the author.

Mindfulness is the direct, immediate and unmediated perception of what is. By ‘direct, immediate, and unmediated’, I mean that our perception of both internal and external reality is no longer filtered (‘mediated’)—and in the process distorted—through such things as our beliefs, conditioning, analysis, interpretation, and judgment. Mindfulness helps us to not identify with, or build up a resistance to, those mental images in our brain that deflect us from the task of being and remaining in direct, immediate and unmediated contact and relationship with what is happening in us and outside of us.

Mindfulness is being grounded in the here-and-now, in what is. Mindfulness has nothing to do with ‘expanded consciousness’, so-called higher orders or levels of reality, and supposed notions of transcendence. Mindfulness is grounded firmly in everyday reality—the only reality that there is—that is, in the one order or level of reality in which we all live and move and have our be-ing-ness. I am sure you have heard of the words, the ‘eternal now’. We have our presence, our very be-ing-ness, in the eternal now. The eternal now is that ‘present’ which is forever renewing itself in and as each new moment. The regular practice of mindfulness enables us to live more fully—and, yes, more mindfully—in the eternal now.

Mindfulness is a journey in self-discovery.
Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland. December 2018.
Photo taken by the author.

To the extent that the practice of mindfulness is concerned with knowing and understanding what is, and observing (among other things) the content of one’s consciousness—that is, our thoughts, feelings, desires, and so on—the practice is a spiritual one. By ‘spiritual’, I mean non-material or non-physical. The English word ‘spirit’ comes from the Latin spiritus meaning, among other things, breath, breathing, air, inspiration, character, spirit, life, vigour, and courage. Spirituality does not require or depend upon notions of ‘supernaturalism’. On the contrary, spirituality is all about the development of the mind, the emotions and the will.

Mindfulness is not a religion or even a philosophy but rather a way of being, a way of life, a journey in self-discovery, and an education. Mindfulness, being devoid of all notions of religiosity, is entirely experiential and unlike most if not all religions it is empirically based. When the Dalai Lama addressed the concluding session of the International Congress on Mindfulness in 2011, he reiterated that mindfulness is not a religious practice. He also made the point that all of us, whether religious or non-religious, needs to practise mindfulness every day. In saying that, the Dalai Lama is simply urging us to live with non-judgmental, choiceless awareness, from one moment to the next.

Of course, there are many tangible benefits in the regular practice of mindfulness. Changes in the body associated with the practice of mindfulness include but are not limited to a reduced heart rate, reduced blood pressure,  lowered cholesterol, reduced muscle tension, increased cardiovascular efficiency, improved circulation of blood and lymph, improved gastrointestinal functioning, reduced sensitivity to pain, an enhanced immune system, improved posture, and an overall relaxation of the body and sleep. Changes in the mind include an increased cortical thickness in the grey matter of the brain, a calmer, more patient, stable and steady mind, overall relaxation of the mind, an enhanced feeling of wellbeing, an improved ability to cope with and release stress, enhanced cognitive functioning and performance, improved concentration and attention to detail, faster sensory processing and increased capacity for focus and memory, increased learning and consciousness, increased openness to new ideas, greater responsiveness in the moment, reduced mental distractedness, increased verbal creativity, and delayed ageing of the brain.

Mindfulness is the choiceless awareness of what is.
Easter cactus (Hatiora gaertneri). Bilgola Plateau NSW Australia. November 2016.
Photo taken by the author.

As a spiritual practice, living mindfully makes us more aware of who we really are. By self-observation we gain invaluable insight into our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We become more directly aligned to the flow of life of which each one of us is a part. That can only be a good thing. Let me read these words from Sayadaw U Janakābhivaṃsa, a Theravada Buddhist monk from Myanmar and a leading authority on meditation and mindfulness:

Why should we observe or watch physical and mental processes as they are? Because we want to realise their true nature. [That] leads us to the right understanding of natural processes as just natural process. ... When our body feels hot, we should observe that feeling of heat as it is. When the body feels cold, we should observe it as cold. When we feel pain, we should observe it as it is—pain. When we feel happy, we should watch that happiness as it is—as happiness. When we feel angry, we should observe that anger as it really is—as anger. When we feel sorry, we should be mindful of it as it is—as sorry. When we feel sad or disappointed, then we must be aware of our emotional state of sadness or disappointment as it is. 

In short, mindfulness is simply living naturally and realistically—and with choiceless awareness of what is … from one moment to the next. The influential Indian teacher and lecturer J. Krishnamurti spoke of 'meeting everything anew, from moment to moment, without the conditioning reaction of the past, so that there is not the cumulative effect which acts as a barrier between oneself and that which is'. That, my friends, is what living mindfully is all about. So, if you're not into mindfulness, you're not truly living from one moment to the next.

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Is there a ‘secret’ to successful living? I have come to the view that there isn’t. Certainly, there is no one thing that must be done, or not done, in order to live a happy and fulfilled life. However, having said that, there is one thing which seems to me to be of great, even paramount, importance. It is this---live in the now. The now is the portal through which we experience the present moment, indeed every moment.

All too often we ‘live’---if you can call it living---in either the past or the future. We all know that is not the way to live, but we all do it. Many books have been written in recent years about the importance of living in the now … so many books that you would think it is a new idea. It’s not. All the great religious teachers spoke of the importance of living in the now, as did others such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. I love these words from Seneca:

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Marcus Aurelius had much to say about the importance of living in the present moment. He wrote, ‘When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.’ He also gave us this wonderful advice: ‘Confine yourself to the present.’ Yes, more than half of our problems would vanish---indeed, die from atrophy on the altar of life---if only we confined ourselves to the present.

Buddhists have had much to say over the centuries about the importance of living in the now, that is, from moment to moment. How many of you have heard of Layman P'ang? Not many, I suspect, but that’s OK. The important thing is what he had to say about successful living, for it should help you greatly.

Layman P'ang (Páng Jūshì [Ch]; Hōkoji [Jp]) (740–808) [pictured left] was a highly respected lay Buddhist monk in the Chinese Chán (Zen) tradition. A bureaucrat, he worked for the Chinese government of the day. He studied with a Zen teacher named Shítóu Xīqiān (Sekitō Kisen [Jp]). It is written that Shítóu asked of Layman P’ang, ‘How have you practiced Zen since coming here?’ P’ang is said to have replied, ‘My daily activities,’ by which he meant activities such as drawing water and chopping wood. Yes, it’s in those little, daily activities of life---even the most humdrum things of life---that we are to practise truth principles. And that’s where we find truth itself. Don’t look for it elsewhere. You’re wasting your time if you do.

P’ang wrote much on the subject of ‘empty-mindedness,’ that is, on the need to develop what I call ‘a mindful mind of no-mind.’ Sounds goobligook? Well, in a way it is. You see, what we are talking about is a state of mind that is transrational. Anyone who meditates regularly will know what I am talking about. Listen to these words of P’ang:

The past is already past. 

Don't try to regain it. 

The present does not stay. 

Don't try to touch it.

From moment to moment. 

The future has not come; 

Don't think about it 

Beforehand.

Whatever comes to the eye,

Leave it be. 

There are no commandments

To be kept; 

There's no filth to be cleansed.

With empty mind really 

Penetrated, the dharmas 

Have no life.

When you can be like this, 

You've completed 

The ultimate attainment. 

There’s a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step fellowships, ‘Let the past stay in the past.’ That’s damn good advice. The past is already past. It’s gone. Yet it is an undeniable fact that most of our thinking pertains to matters in the past. And almost all the rest pertains to hopes, expectations, and fears about the future. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Worse, because so much of our thinking pertains to the past, we are conditioned to act ‘out of the past,’ so to speak. We do not act rationally but rather on the basis of misbeliefs that are grounded in our conditioning, which is the past.

The Dalai Lama [pictured right] was asked what surprised him the most. He said:

Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived.

Wow! That’s the truth, isn’t it? So, the ‘secret’ (except it’s no secret) is to live in the now. We cannot really live ‘in’ the moment because, as Layman P’ang says, the present ‘does not stay.’ It is so very ephemeral. But we can live ‘from’ moment ‘to’ moment, and that is the advice of Layman P’ang and almost every other wise person who has ever considered the matter deeply.

There is more good advice from Layman P’ang. Here’s another gem---‘Whatever comes to the eye, / Leave it be.’ That’s the law of non-resistance. Don’t fight against what is, nor cling to it. Enjoy the reality of the present moment, from one such moment to the next, but learn to let it go. The present moment is ever renewing itself as another present moment, then another, and then another … . To live is to let go, but before we can let go we must---‘let be.’ If we analyse, judge, interpret, evaluate, compare or contrast the present moment we are not letting be. By identifying with the present moment we end up getting stuck in the past because before we know it the present moment in question is the past.

An ‘empty mind’ is not a dull or unintelligent mind. It is a mind that it so open to whatever be the content of the experience of life from one moment to the next it has penetrated the very core and essence of be-ing-ness. It is a mind that contains no 'shoulds' or 'oughts,' that is, beliefs and misbeliefs about how life ought to be. It is a mind that, so far as is possible, is free of all conditioning. In a previous post I wrote about the ‘empty mind’:

It does not mean the absence of mind, or absentmindedness, but rather a mind which is non-discriminating, uncoloured,  fluid, unbound and free from deluded thought ... indeed, a mind where there is no conditioned thinking, desiring or controlling ... a spontaneous and detached state of mind characterized by inward silence and no knowing awareness ... a mind which effortlessly thinks what it thinks ... without there being any interference (judgment, analysis, etc) by some 'thinker' or 'ego' within the mind.

When you live moment-to-moment with such a mindset Layman P’ang says that ‘the dharmas / Have no life.’ I interpret that to mean that the teachings on the right way of living are exhausted, and have no more work to do. In a sense you have become those teachings, for you have come to fully embody them in your daily life. Yes, you have attained enlightenment. That means you have---woken up!

Here’s some more wisdom from Layman P’ang:

My daily activities are not unusual,

I’m just naturally in harmony with them.

Grasping nothing, discarding nothing.

In every place there’s no hindrance, no conflict.

That’s what is meant by an empty mind.

So, what are you waiting for? Go empty your mind.

Calligraphy [below]: Mushin (empty mind).

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HOW TO BE FREE OF THE PAST---OR WHY ANALYSIS DOESN'T WORK

COME AGAIN? BUDDHISM AND REBIRTH

Here's an interesting website … Buddhists Against Reincarnation.

I neither believe nor disbelieve in reincarnation, but I accept the idea of reincarnation as a working hypothesis. Why believe? Belief makes no difference to whether or not an idea or thing is true. No amount of belief will make something true if it is not. Anyway, as Alan Watts once wrote, "Supposing my personal existence does not continue, what of it?"

Contrary to the Buddhism of many, the Buddhism that the Shakyamuni Buddha himself espoused calls for no belief (see Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor), no dogma, no doctrine, no saviours, no gurus, no sacred or infallible books, no superstition … only a life of service and giving to others ... free from the bondage of self. In the words of the Dalai Lama (pictured below), “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.”

So, in the words of J. Krishnamurti (see this talk of his), I embrace and explore the idea of reincarnation as “a means of self-discovery … not to find a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer but as a means of understanding [myself].”

Reincarnation is certainly an interesting idea. It makes much more sense to me than resurrection. If true, it helps to explain a number of life’s mysteries and apparent injustices. However, what actually reincarnates? The soul? I have trouble with that one. Some reincarnating ego? Ditto. Anyway, Buddhists speak more in terms of “rebirth” than reincarnation.

On the website mentioned above there are reproduced the following excerpts from Chapter 53 of The Gospel of Buddha, which is a compilation of ancient texts published in 1894 by that great student of comparative religion Paul Carus (pictured below):

There is rebirth of character,
but no transmigration of self.
Thy thought-forms reappear,
But there is no egoentity transferred.
The stanza uttered by a teacher
is reborn in the scholar who repeats the words.

Thy self to which though cleavest is a constant change.
Years ago thou wast a small babe;
Then, thou wast a boy;
Then a youth, and now, thou art a man.
Is there an identity of the babe and the man?
There is an identity in a certain sense only.
Indeed there is more identity between the flames
of the first watch and the third watch,
even though the lamp might have been extinguished
during the second watch.

Then there is this excerpt from the Samyutta Nikaya in which "rebirth" is said to be the result of the "process of becoming", a process which leads to "old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair":
 

"Just so, Ananda, in one who contemplates the enjoyment of all things that make for clinging, craving arises; through craving, clinging is conditioned; through clinging, the process of becoming is conditioned; through the process of becoming, rebirth is conditioned; through rebirth are conditioned old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Thus arises the whole mass of suffering again in the future.

"But in the person, Ananda, who dwells contemplating the misery of all things that make for clinging, craving ceases; when craving ceases, clinging ceases; when clinging ceases, the process of becoming ceases; when the process of becoming ceases, rebirth ceases; when rebirth ceases, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair cease. Thus the entire mass of suffering ceases."

Hmmm. Interesting. If the Skakyamuni Buddha actually spoke these words, then query whether he did believe in rebirth in the sense in which the concept is ordinarily understood in Buddhism. The Buddha used the image of a flame being passed from one candle to another and then to another, before proceeding to question - and doubt - whether the flame on the final candle was that of the first candle. Huston Smith, that great authority on the world's religions, refers to this process as one in which "influence [is] transmitted by chain recation but without a perduring substance". Another metaphor used by the Buddha to describe this process of "influence", in which one human life has consequences - often far-reaching ones - for others, is that of the bells. Each life is a note sounded in an open room, causing similar instruments to vibrate with the same sound ... all the way down the "corridors of time" ... until at last the note is swallowed up in one universal harmony.

Thus, any "rebirth" is entirely in the form of influence ... or, perhaps, enduring character. (As an aside, we all know that the influence - for "better" or for "worse" - of a person lives on after their death, whether in the actual lives of other persons or otherwise [eg in the so-called "race mind" or the "collective unconscious"].)

Anyway, the historical Buddha was never one for metaphysical speculation. If asked about the matter of rebirth, I am sure he would have said something like this, “Does it really matter? The important thing is this present life now? How are you reincarnating now?”

I am also reminded of the words of Dhyana Master Hakuin (see The Cloud Men of Yamato): "How wondrous! How wondrous! There is no birth-and-death from which one has to escape, nor is there any supreme knowledge after which one has to strive."

In other words, if you are thinking about rebirth, you are thinking about "I" and "me". Forget about the "I" and "me" altogether ... then you might just have a chance of actualizing Nirvana.

Here is some very good advice from the Buddha that I have lived by. It has served me well throughout the years, and it makes perfectly good sense:

Believe nothing because a so-called wise person said it.

Believe nothing because a belief is generally held.

Believe nothing because it is written in ancient books.

Believe nothing because it is said to be of divine origin.

Believe nothing because someone else believes it.

Believe only what you yourself judge to be true.

As I see it, the really important thing is this … have you been reincarnated today? Each day, and every minute of the day, and from moment to moment, we are being reincarnated in a different form. The practice of Mindfulness keeps us aware of this fact, and enables us to watch, with bare detachment and choiceless awareness, our body, mind and its contents “transmigrate” from one moment to the next.

“Rebirth of character” … that is what all true religion is about, despite the views of some who would have it otherwise. Even the Apostle Paul spoke of the need to be transformed by the renewing of one’s mind (see Romans 12:2). Unitarians of yesteryear taught "salvation by character", which is something very similar.

It is written that the Shakyamuni Buddha said, "But if there is no other world and there is no fruit and ripening of actions well done or ill, then here and now in this life I shall be free from hostility, affliction, and anxiety, and I shall live happily.”

“Here and now in this life … .” That is what Mindfulness is all about … the here and now. How alive are you? How aware are you? Is there hostility, affliction and anxiety? Are you happy? How will you ever know these things if you live mindlessly?

When Buddha was asked whether he was God, he replied, “No.” He replied the same way when asked whether he was the son of God, a prophet, and so forth. What was he then? “I am awake,” said the Buddha. The essence of Buddhism, in two words, is ... "Wake up!"

Come alive! Wake up! Reincarnate!