MINDFULNESS IS MORE THAN JUST STAYING ALERT AND BEING PRESENT

Far too many modern writings on the subject of mindfulness over-emphasize the importance of staying alert and awake and being fully present in the now. Of course, those things are not unimportant. Indeed, they are of great importance. However, there is much, much more to mindfulness than just those two things.

There is a phrase often used in writings on mindfulness—‘choiceless awareness’. I often use that phrase but I was not its originator. I think I first heard the phrase used in the talks of the Indian spiritual teacher J.Krishnamurti [pictured left] but I can’t be even sure that he was the originator of the phrase. Actually, it doesn’t matter who first used those words. The important thing is what the words mean.

Choiceless awareness. The word ‘choiceless’ is of paramount importance. The task before us is to be aware of whatever may form the content of our awareness. The content—thoughts, feelings, memories, images, bodily sensations and so forth—is constantly changing. To be choicelessly aware is to be aware of whatever may be our internal and external experience. We cease to label that experience, or any part of it, as good or bad or indifferent. It just is. Such is life.

The American Buddhist monk Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu [pictured right], in a short essay titled ‘Mindfulness Defined’, writes:

Equanimity means learning to put aside your preferences so that you can watch what's actually there. Patience is the ability not to get worked up over the things you don't like, to stick with difficult situations even when they don't resolve as quickly as you want them to. But in establishing mindfulness you stay with unpleasant things not just to accept them but to watch and understand them. Once you've clearly seen that a particular quality like aversion or lust is harmful for the mind, you can't stay patient or equanimous about it. You have to make whatever effort is needed to get rid of it and to nourish skillful qualities in its place by bringing in other factors of the path: right resolve and right effort.

Equanimity is a beautiful word. It even sounds lovely. Equanimity is defined as a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. Serenity is another word meaning more-or-less the same thing. When we are disturbed by someone or something, our equanimity comes goes out the window. In order to have equanimity we must learn to simply stay with what is. We must learn to look, observe, and be prepared to ‘watch what’s actually there’. That means we must ‘put aside [our] preferences’. Ordinarily, we choose to be aware of some things and not others, and we refuse to watch those things we label as bad or even indifference. True mindfulness is staying with whatever may be the content of our moment-to-moment experience, without labelling or judging that content as good, bad or indifferent.

All this requires patience, as Ajahn Thanissaro points out. Patience is not something we develop overnight. I know that. I am 61 years of age and I am still trying to learn to be more patient. That’s where mindfulness practice can help. As we practise mindfulness we become more patient over time. I still need a lot more practice. I hope I live long enough.

Ajahn Thanissaro provides a helpful working definition of patience—‘the ability not to get worked up over the things you don’t like’, and ‘to stick with difficult situations even when they don't resolve as quickly as you want them to’. We all know that we are upset not so much by what happens but by our reaction to what happens. It’s our reaction that hurts us, and often our reaction is automatic and self-defeating. We all need more patience. The next time you find yourself upset, may I suggest that you do the following. Watch what’s happening. Stay with it. Follow it through. Self-observation leads to self-knowledge, and self-knowledge leads to self-cure. If you can stay with and simply observe the content of your experience, rather than run away from it, and not label or judge that content, you will gain insight into the workings of your mind. You will come to understand that you have always been your own worst enemy, for you, and you alone, are the originator and cause of your self-defeating behaviour.

Letting go is very important, but so is sticking with difficult situations that we would rather not face. Life just is.

Ajahn Thanissaro refers to ‘right resolve’ (also known as ‘right intention’ and ‘right mindedness’) and ‘right effort’ (also known as ‘right diligence’). Those two things are just two of the eight path factors in the Noble Eightfold Path. Right resolve leads to right understanding, right effort, and right attentiveness. It means, among other things, watching our thoughts, for as we think, so we are. Right resolve also means reflecting upon our thoughts, words and deeds. Are they true? Are they necessary? Are they kind? (That threefold test of the rightness or wrongness of any proposed words or deed is known as 'The Three Gates'.)

Right effort is fourfold in nature and involves the effort to prevent unwholesome qualities from arising, the effort to extinguish unwholesome qualities (for example, greed, anger and resentment, and lust) that already have arisen, the effort to cultivate skilful or wholesome, qualities (especially generosity, loving kindness, and wisdom) that have not yet arisen, and the effort to strengthen the wholesome qualities that have already arisen. Whether you are a Buddhist or not, right resolve and right effort are of extreme importance.

True mindfulness is more than just a calm acceptance of what is. It means being prepared to change what needs to be changed in one’s life and making the effort to make those changes. 

THE NOT-SO-HEALTHY CORPORATIZATION OF MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is big business. Large corporations such as Apple Computer, Hughes Aircraft, Google, Target, Ford, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Deutsche Bank and AOL Time Warner, and in Australia IBM and NAB to name just two, along with numerous so-called captains of industry following the meditative example left by the late Steve Jobs, are embracing mindfulness in a big way.

Mindfulness is seen as a way of increasing productivity and thus revenue. Well, after all, the evidence is clear and unambiguous: the regular practice of mindfulness produces a calmer, more patient, stable and steady mind, improves one’s ability to cope with and release stress, enhances cognitive functioning and performance, improves concentration, capacity for focus, attention to detail and memory, results in faster sensory processing and greater responsiveness in the moment, and reduces mental distractedness. 

All of this---and much, much more---has to be good for business. Mindfulness is also a tool for enforcing compliance, something employers like to see. I mean, creativity is one thing, but no employer wants their employees to be too creative. You know what I mean?

I have a bit of a problem with the corporatization of mindfulness. Well, more than a bit of a problem. Let me explain.

Mindfulness, without the right intention, and completely severed from its spiritual roots, is not necessarily a good thing. It can even be a bad thing. Mindfulness has its roots most directly in Theravāda Buddhism, which for the most part is a naturalistic form of Buddhism of which there are a number of different schools. Now, you don’t have to be a Buddhist or even religious to practise mindfulness, nor does mindfulness involve or require any religious faith at all. Mindfulness does not require that you believe in one god or many gods, or become a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Christian, or whatever. People of every religion, and none, can derive lasting benefits from the regular practice of mindfulness including mindfulness meditation.

However, this fact cannot be ignored. Mindfulness meditation, even in its most secular form, has its ancestral spiritual roots in a specific type or practice of meditation known as vipassanā meditation, which is used as a psychological and educational tool in Theravāda Buddhism. Vipassanā meditation is also known as insight meditation, insightful meditation, sensory meditation and thought-watching meditation. Now, there are several different techniques of vipassanā meditation just as there are several types or forms of Buddhist meditation, but whether mindfulness is practised as a spiritual discipline or as a psychological tool, right intention is extremely important.

Buddha Shakyamuni gained enlightenment through the practice of mindfulness. Enlightenment means waking up. You come to see things-as-they-really-are for the very first time in your life. Thereafter, nothing is ever the same again. Your whole outlook on life is different. The emphasis on worldly values disappears, if not immediately then certainly over time. You become more compassionate. You practise and seek to spread loving-kindness. This is not just a Buddhist thing. Christianity speaks of the same experience, but uses slightly different language and thought forms. Other religions do as well. So does Humanism which, in its secular form, is not a religion at all.

According to the Buddha, there are three kinds of right intention, which counter three kinds of wrong intention: first, the intention of renunciation, which counters the intention of desire; secondly, the intention of good will, which counters the intention of ill will; and thirdly, the intention of harmlessness, which counters the intention of harmfulness. Now, there are many decent and ethical businesses but we see so much evidence these days of corporate greed and wrongdoing. Witness the recent scandal concerning Volkswagen. I suspect it’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I worked in the ‘big end of town’ for a few years. I saw the greed and the ugliness. I worked with so many people who thought that the answer to their existential angst was to make a shitload of money as fast as possible. Desperately trying to give meaning to their lives---lives that had lost all traditional spiritual and ethical values---these people would stop at nothing to make a commercial success of themselves. That was their sole aim in life. Pitiful beyond belief.

Of course, we are all guilty at times of greed, rapaciousness and harmful behaviour. Just look at our appalling consumer society. Consumerism---these days it's the de facto religion of the majority of Westerners. Actually, we all need to practise right intention and learn to moderate our seemingly insatiable desires, make do with less, and try to do no harm, including doing no harm to the environment.

Mindfulness should never be seen as a means to an end, unless the end be a noble one, namely, to become a more compassionate, more loving and kinder human being—a human being who seeks to heal, and not assist in the ongoing destruction, of our already very badly damaged world, a human being who, having undergone a Copernican revolution, has come to understand that the world does not revolve around him or her. There is an old Christian hymn written by Helen H Lemmel that contains at least one wonderful line---‘And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.’ Such is the experience, and the right intention, of which I speak.

Now, I know this much. The captains of industry who are paying good sums of money to have their staff trained in the art of mindfulness do not want them to become enlightened such that the things of the earth grow strangely dim for them. That would not be good for the bottom line. Grrr.

Mindfulness without right intention is an abomination.

RELATED POSTS

MINDFULNESS 'THE BRAND'

DESIRE NOTHING: THE ZEN OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS

THE TRUE MEANING OF ENLIGHTENMENT

LIVING MINDFULLY IN A WORLD FULL OF NORMOPATHS

SLAVES OF THE ‘I’---EVEN UNTO DEATH