MARCEL PROUST AND THE ART OF MINDFULNESS

‘The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having fresh eyes.’ Marcel Proust.

Ever since I studied French in high school I have loved the writings of Marcel Proust, pictured below. However, I have never found his books easy to understand, even in English. Be that as it may, there is so much to discover in his writings. After all, Proust was the first writer to explore in depth the nature of the human mind and the depths of consciousness. No high metaphysician, he reminds us that ordinarily it is in the little things of life that we find what is truly important. There is something extraordinary not just behind, but also in, the ordinary stuff of life—and for that we should be truly grateful.

When one think of Proust, what usually first comes to mind is his magnum opus, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier rendered as Remembrance of Things Past), which was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. This vast autobiographical and psychological novel, lacking in logical construction just like life which is certainly not a logical sequence of events, has been described as 'an extraordinarily penetrating study of human psychology. ... No other French novelist before Proust had explored the world of the mind with such subtlety, or analysed with greater insight the influence of our subconscious thoughts and feelings on our character and our behaviour' (J Robinson and A Martin, France Today: Background to a Modern Civilisation, Sydney: Novak, 1964, pp 140-1).

For Proust, and for us, time is perhaps our greatest enemy. We are all subject to time from the very beginning of our lives to their end and so much is lost through the changes wrought by the unstoppable march of time. Memories fail over time. We return to a place—a place which, say, we once loved as a child—only to find that it is no longer the same place. Most if not all of the pleasure associated with the place has gone, and much of that is due to the passage of time. Over time, we manufacture innumerable 'false selves'—'I's and 'me's—in the form of our likes, dislikes, attachments and aversions. All these selves have no permanent, fixed identity. They are all transient and ever-changing. Time, in conjunction with the notion of the illusory self, is a major theme of In Search of Time. Here is the final sentence of the novel:

If at least, time enough were allotted to me to accomplish my work, I would not fail to mark it with the seal of Time, the idea of which imposed itself upon me with so much force today, and I would therein describe men, if need be, as monsters occupying a place in Time infinitely more important than the contrary, prolonged immeasurably since, simultaneously touching widely separated years and the distant periods they have lived through—between which so many days have ranged themselves—they stand like giants immersed in Time.

Now, can the problem of time be overcome? Well, time can be transcended. How? Through mindfulness, that's one way. If we can see things-as-they-really are, we are no longer bound by time. We then experience the eternal now. Those familiar with Proust—and even some who aren’t—will know of the following oft-quoted experience from early in Part One (‘Combray’) of the first volume of In Search of Time, titled Swann’s Way. The subject-matter recounted is the first episode concerning the madeleine (a tea-cake or bun)—the first so-called 'madeleine moment'. There is a second 'madeleine moment' which is recounted in the final moment of the novel. Anyway, the first 'madeleine moment' is described thus:

I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature. Where did it come from? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?

I cannot stress this enough. Mindfulness is not a ‘method’ or ‘technique’. If anyone says that you must use some so-called ‘method’ or ‘technique’ in order to practice mindfulness—that is, to live mindfully—tell that person to get lost (or words to that effect). There is no method or technique’ for seeing things as they really are. In order to see things as they really are all you need to do is remove the obstacles to seeing things-as-they-really-are. Then we can truly 'seize' and 'apprehend' the moment, something that Proust sought to do.

Seeing things-as they-really-are. That is what the Pāli word vipassanā ('insight meditation' or mindfulness) means. The word is composed of two parts—namely, vi, meaning ‘in various ways’, and passanā, meaning seeing. So, vipassanā means ‘seeing in various ways’ as well as seeing things-as-they really-are. Proust refers to this as ‘having fresh eyes’, which is the very same thing. For Proust, and for us, we tend to experience life episodically. A present experience often brings into play involuntary memory, when something encountered in everyday life evokes recollections of the past without there being any conscious effort on our part. As readers of Proust will know, the theme of involuntary memory is all throughout the French writer's text. For Proust, it is the preeminent way of 'defeating' time. In the section on Proust in Eight Centuries of French Literature: From the Chanson de Roland to Sartre, edited by R F Bradley and R B Michell (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951), we read: '...using spontaneous or involuntary memory as an instrument, Proust evokes the sensations, emotions, dreams, and experiences that lie dormant in the subconscious mind' (p 555). All these Proust seeks to understand.

Now, returning to the episode of the madeleine, and without wishing to be overly analytical, the writer (that is, the narrator of the novel) recounts the following:

First, he raises to his lips a spoonful of the tea in which he had soaked a morsel of the cake.

Secondly, no sooner does the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touch his palate than a shiver runs through him.

Thirdly, he stops, ‘intent upon the extraordinary thing that [is] happening to [him]’.

Fourthly, an exquisite pleasure invades his senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.

Fifthly, the vicissitudes of life thereupon become indifferent to him, for the new sensation has the effect of filling him with a ‘precious essence’. This essence is not in him. It is him. In other words, he is one with the content of the experience, both inner and outer.

There is more to the episode of the madeleine but let's leave it there. Now, for Proust and for us, something tends to get in the way of seeing and experiencing things-as-they-really-are. What is that? Well, it is pretty obvious. We stop. Yes, we stop—and we start analysing, judging, comparing, and so forth. Then the newness and freshness of the experience dies on us. In order to penetrate the core of reality, the illusory ‘I’ of us, the so-called ‘perceiving self’ needs to disappear. Krishnamurti wrote:

When you look at a flower, when you just see it, at that moment is there an entity who sees? Or is there only seeing? Seeing the flower makes you say [i.e. think], ‘How nice it is! I want it.’ So the ‘I’ comes into being through desire, fear, ambition [all thought], which follow in the wake of seeing. It is these that create the ‘I’ and the ‘I’ is non-existent without them.

In truth, there are only the following three ‘relational’ elements in order for a stimulus to be perceived: first, the sense-object (or simply the object in question); secondly, a sense organ; and thirdly, attention or consciousness. It is more-or-less the same with our thoughts and thinking, except we have no sense-object and sense-organ involved as such. 

Now, in order for there to be an immediacy and directness about our moment-to-moment experience of life, those three occurrences need to occur more-or-less simultaneously---that is, no separation. If those three events are not simultaneously experienced---and that will happen if we engage in thinking, analysis, comparison, interpretation, or judgment in connection with the object in question (be it external or internal)---then the chances are that what will be experienced will be nothing but ... the past! Yes, the reality of the immediate experience will subside. Indeed, it will die! Any consciousness of it will be in the form of an after-thought or memory, as we glance back to re-experience, and (sadly, yes) evaluate, a past experience.

Back to Proust. Another memorable encounter in the first volume of In Search of Time is that concerning the hawthorn hedge and flowers. The incident is also recounted in Part One of the first volume:

… I found the whole path throbbing with the fragrance of hawthorn-blossom. … But it was in vain that I lingered beside the hawthorns—breathing in their invisible and unchanging odour, trying to fix it in my mind (which did not know what to do with it), losing it, recapturing it, absorbing myself in the rhythm which disposed the flowers here and there with a youthful light-heartedness and at intervals as unexpected as certain intervals in music …

And then I returned to the hawthorns, and stood before them as one stands before those masterpieces which, one imagines, one will be better able to ‘take in’ when one has looked away for a moment at something else; but in vain did I make a screen with my hands, the better to concentrate upon the flowers, the feeling they aroused in me remained obscure and vague, struggling and failing to free itself, to float across and become one with them. They themselves offered me no enlightenment, and I could not call upon any other flowers to satisfy this mysterious longing. And then, inspiring me with that rapture which we feel on seeing a work by our favourite painter quite different from those we already know, or, better still, when we are shown a painting of which we have hitherto seen no more than a pencilled sketch, or when a piece of music which we have heard only on the piano appears to us later clothed in all the colours of the orchestra, my grandfather called me to him, and, pointing to the Tansonville hedge, said to me: ‘You’re fond of hawthorns; just look at this pink one—isn’t it lovely?’

And it was indeed a hawthorn, but one whose blossom was pink, and lovelier even than the white. ...

Proust/the narrator recounts that as a young boy he found the whole path throbbing with the fragrance of hawthorn-blossom. What a wonderful experience! But look what happens. He breathes in the invisible and unchanging odour of the hawthorn flowers and tries to ‘fix it in [his] mind (which did not know what to do with it)’. Ugh. He then loses the directness and immediacy of the experience, then briefly recaptures it, and so on. The young boy receives some unexpected help from his grandfather, who says, ‘You are fond of hawthorns; just look at this pink one; isn’t it pretty?’ That, my friends, is the essence of mindfulness. If we can just look and see, that is, observe without judgment, analysis or interpretation, we come to see the ‘formlessness of things’.

Ordinarily, the conditioned, undisciplined mind wants to attach itself to something, that is, some object or thought. It is wants to grab hold of something. Actually, our mind is pure consciousness in its pure, unconditioned state, so that when we truly observe there is no observing self, there is simply awareness—pure unadulterated awareness. Is this direct and immediate experience possible? Yes, indeed, but it takes practice. That’s where the practice of mindfulness comes in handy. We need to learn to give our full attention to the ever-fleeting present moment by removing the hindrances or obstructions to our so doing.

Begin now. There is no time like the present. When you look, just look. When you hear, just hear. When you smell, just smell. When you taste, just taste. When you touch, just touch. Avoid the temptation to grab hold of something, that is, attach your mind to something. In truth, your mind can never attach itself to the present. If you try, you will always end up losing direct and immediate contact with the present moment as it unfolds ceaselessly into the next present moment and the next and the one after that.

I will finish with these words of Proust. ‘My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.’ A new way of seeing. That is what mindfulness is all about.

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HOW TO SEE THINGS AS THEY REALLY ARE

I hate the words ‘method’ and ‘technique’ -- as well as the 'how' word -- I really do. My use of the word 'how' in the title to this post, clearly implying the supposed need for a method or technique in order to achieve the sought-after end, is intentionally provocative ... not to mention mischievous. Read on.

Some of you will have heard the Zen story that goes like this. A disciple says to the master, ‘I have been four months with you, and you have still given me no method or technique.’ The master says, ‘A method? What on earth would you want a method for?’ The disciple says, ‘To attain inner freedom.’ The master roars with laughter, and then says, ‘You need great skill indeed to set yourself free by means of the trap called a method.’

Unless we empty ourselves of methods and techniques -- all of which are forms of conditioning -- we will never come to know truth. But how does one let go of conditioning, you may ask? Never ask how, because you are then asking for a method, a technique, and all such methods and techniques are nothing but, yes, conditioning. However, it’s even worse than that, as J. Krishnamurti [pictured right] has pointed out:

I think it is very important to understand that any effort made to free oneself from one's conditioning is another form of conditioning. If I try to free myself from Hinduism, or any other ism, I am making that effort in order to achieve what I consider to be a more desirable state; therefore, the motive to change conditions the change. So I must realize my own conditioning and do absolutely nothing. This is very difficult. But I must know for myself that my mind is small, petty, confused, conditioned, and see that any effort to change it is still within the field of that confusion; therefore, any such effort only breeds further confusion.

It’s the old, old story, namely, no effort of the self can remove the self. Don’t try to remove the self. It can’t be done. Indeed, don’t try at all, but rather look, observe … and let. Once you see the folly and illusion of all self-effort, and the futile attempt by one self to remove another self from one’s life (which is the basis of so-called willpower), you will come to know the truth as one. It’s as simple as that. Simple, but not easy. The good news is that the mind can free itself.

Here is a powerful phrase – powerful if you understand its truth -- ‘self is illusion’. The worst delusion of all is the belief in the existence of some supposedly permanent and substantial ‘self’ at the centre of our conscious---or even unconscious---awareness. The ‘self’ does not exist, at least it does not exist in the sense of possessing a separate, independent, unchangeable, material existence of its own. In words attributed to the Buddha, whether 'past, future, or present; internal or external, manifest or subtle ... as it actually is ... "This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am"' (Majjhima Nikaya I, 130).

Ever since we were born we have been accumulating hundreds of ideas, concepts and notions -- not to mention beliefs – about who we are. Most of these ideas, concepts and notions are false. There are, in our mind, layer upon layer of mental and emotional adhesions and accretions. Many of these have come from our parents, our schooling, and religious conditioning. Others have been self-built, as a reaction to life experience. Over time, beginning from the very moment of our birth, sensory perceptions -- especially what we see [including read] and hear -- harden into memories and other thought-forms formed out of aggregates of thought and feeling. In time, the illusion of a separate self emerges. However, the truth is that our mental continuity and sense of identity and existence are simply the result of habit, memory and conditioning.

Hundreds and thousands of separate, ever-changing and ever-so-transient mental occurrences harden into a fairly persistent mental construct of sorts which is no more than a confluence of impermanent components (‘I-moments’ or ‘selves’) cleverly synthesized by the mind in a way which appears to give them a singularity and a separate and independent existence and life of their own. The result is a 'self' -- actually losts and lots of selves. At any one point in time, we mistakenly believe any one or more of these false selves to be the real person that each one of us is. 

Know this. The real person that we are is something other than those selves. You are a person -- a mind-body complex in respect of which both physical characteristics and states of consciousness can be ascribed. Yes, you are much, much more than those hundreds of little, false selves---all those waxing and waning ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’---with which you tend to identify, in the mistaken belief that they constitute the ‘real me,’ that is, the person that you are. Only the latter is ontologically real. Personal freedom and real personal transformation come when we get real, that is, when we start to think, act and live from our personhood as a person among persons. We need to get our mind off our ‘selves’ and rise above them if we are to get real. And remember this---there is no human problem that is not common to other persons among persons.

Self-discovery and self-knowledge -- not to mention real self-transformation -- begin with the shattering of illusion. Ignorance or non-discrimination -- avidyā in Sanskrit -- is identifying yourself with any one or more of those false selves to which I have referred above. The real ‘I’ is the person that you are. So, the very next time you find yourself – that is, the person that you are – saying something like ‘I am angry’, ‘I am frightened’ or ‘I like [this or that]’, please understand that the person that you are is identifying with one or other of those many false selves to the extent that the false self takes over.

There is, in Hindu philosophy and spirituality, a small book of great wisdom titled Atmabodha (‘Self-Knowledge’), which is attributed to Sankarachara [pictured right] although he was probably not its author. It doesn’t matter for present purposes who was the author; it’s what is contained in the book that is important. The author gives a couple of very simple but useful illustrations:

The reflection of moon in water that is not still gives an impression that the moon is moving because of ignorance.

…       …       …       …

An ignorant person thinks that the moon is moving whereas it is the clouds that are really moving.

Ignorance (avidyā) arises from a lack of discrimination, that is, from not seeing things as they really are.

There is no ‘method’ or ‘technique’ for seeing things as they really are. In order to see things as they really are all you need to do is remove the obstacles to seeing things as they really are. The biggest obstacle is the illusion of self.

Seeing things as they really are. That is what the word vipassanā ('insight meditation' or mindfulness) means. The word is composed of two parts – vi, meaning ‘in various ways’, and passanā, meaning seeing. So, vipassanā means ‘seeing in various ways’ as well as seeing things as they really are.

The good news is that the mind can free itself from all of its conditioning. But for that to occur there needs to be a choiceless awareness of the presence of conditioning---that is, no condemnation, no judgment, no analysis, no interpretation, no evaluation, just a ‘total perception’ of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. That’s where mindfulness comes in, for that is what mindfulness is. It’s all about developing and using what I've referred to elsewhere as a mindful mind of no-mind---that is, an empty mind, a mind that is always open to truth as it unfolds unceasingly, a mind characterised by openness and passive alertness.

Truth --- that is, life, also known as reality -- is never static. It is dynamic. Conditioning, including all belief-systems, is otherwise. A conditioned mind is a closed, conflicted, and divided mind.

Am I suggesting that you make it your New Year’s resolution to start seeing things as they really are? No, I am not. There is no need to ‘resolve’ anything. The very act of making a resolution implies a lack of power to do the thing in the absence of the resolution. Resolutions are nothing other than the imposition of one’s will over one’s thoughts and actions. In order to see things as they really are you simply … look … and observe … perceive … without condemnation, judgment, analysis, interpretation and evaluation. 

Go to it.

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.

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MINDFULNESS AND THE OVERCOMING OF UNPLEASANT SENSATIONS

‘Unpleasant sensation is the greatest obstacle on the road of vipassanā [insight meditation or mindfulness]. Only when the meditator is able to overcome that obstacle can he forge forward to attain the rewards beyond unpleasant sensation.’

Those words come from what I consider to be one of the best books ever written on the subject of insight meditation (vipassanā)---The Yogi & Vipassana (Buddhist Meditation: The Sunlun Way). The author of the book, Sunlun Shin Vinaya, [pictured left], was for many years the presiding abbot of Kaba-Aye Sunlun Monastery, Yangon (Rangoon), in Myanmar (Burma). 

Most people have sought to meditate in one form or another at some point in their lives. For example, you may have sought to relax your body or your mind, but rest assured that is a form of meditation. Now, we all know what happens sooner or later. Yes, we experience some unpleasant sensation in either our body or our mind. And you know what we almost invariably do next. We resist the sensation. We fight against it. We try to expel the sensation. The result? Yes, we only drive the unpleasant sensation deeper into our consciousness.

In his book The Yogi & Vipassan Sunlun Shin Vinaya gives us some very good information and advice on the subject of unpleasant sensations:

And it is possible to overcome unpleasant sensation. Since unpleasant sensation too is subject to the law of impermanence it must come to an end some time. This end can occur in various ways. Its intensity can subside; but this would not be a true ending. Some measure of unpleasant sensation would remain. The real overcoming of unpleasant sensation takes place when the meditator dwells in the sensation watching the sensation without thinking any thought connected with the sensation, and it is consumed, it ends, it snaps, it is shed, or extinguished. It is said to be consumed when it gradually subsides till there is no remainder. It ends when the meditator follows it till there is no more of it like a road followed to the end, like a length of string felt along the whole length till not more is felt. It snaps when it breaks off suddenly as when a taut rope is snapped. It is light which has used up its oil and wick.

It sounds almost counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? We are told to dwell in the sensation, that is, to watch the sensation ‘without thinking any thought connected with the sensation’, until the sensation is consumed. In time the sensation will ‘end’ and ‘snap.’ Yes, it will be ‘shed’ or ‘extinguished.’  Yes, if we stay with--but not cling to, identify with, or own--the unpleasant sensation, and watch it choicelessly (that is, non-judgmentally, simply observing the sensation in and as the sensation ['Sensation exists']), the sensation will gradually subside. It will lose its power, intensity, grip and command in your consciousness. Such is the power of non-resistance. Such is the power of choiceless awareness and bare attention. And such is the nature of reality, for that which arises will in time cease. The 'secret' here is not to experience in depth the actual arising, duration or ceasing of the sensation but merely to ride with it. There is a world of difference between the two.

Why not put this into practice the next time you experience some unpleasant sensation, unpleasant thought, or unpleasant feeling?