Into the Heart of Life (16 page)

The perfection of effort is this quality of being able to keep the momentum going, day after day after month after year. The good news is that, unlike the marathon runner, once we really begin to see that daily life is our field of practice, and that everything we do and every encounter we have is an opportunity for developing our inner qualities—our loving-kindness, our understanding, our patience, our generosity, our openness of heart—we begin to develop the quality of mindfulness or awareness, and the momentum builds so that we are carried along. Our days become more and more vivid and fulfilling. When that actually happens, and one feels that one is in the flow, so to speak, then one is on the right track. Everyone has better days and not such good days, but basically, if our days feel routine and dull, we haven’t got the point. Because if we take everything that we do as a way of cultivating the path step by step, moment by moment, then how could our days be boring? Our understanding of the path gathers its own momentum as we practice, and our responses become more and more skillful automatically. Perseverance in this sense isn’t a panting sort of fatigue. It isn’t something arduous. It is self-renewing, moment to moment. Once we get on the right track we don’t have to generate the energy, as the energy generates itself because we are in balance. This is very important.

Dhyana paramita, or meditation

Let us now look at
dhyana paramita,
or the perfection of meditation. Basically, meditation is divided into two streams:
shamatha,
or calm abiding, which we’ll discuss here, and
vipashyana,
or insight, which is traditionally explained in relation to the last of the six perfections, the perfection of wisdom.

Outwardly and inwardly, we only can know anything through our mind. We experience everything through our mind. If our mind is not functioning, we are more or less dead, or like a zombie. Everything that we experience and know, we experience and know through our six senses. Our six senses are not only the five usual senses but include the mind, meaning that all things which we think are processed through the mind. And yet how many of us have any idea of what the mind is? How many of us experience this mind itself? We are always looking outwards, and even when we talk about the mind, we talk about it from the intellectual point of view. We hear all sorts of theories, ideas, and kinds of psychology, but we almost never even ask ourselves what it is to experience a thought as a thought, an emotion as an emotion. And yet everything—our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears—everything that we experience and could possibly experience, we can only experience through the mind.

Mindfulness

Before we look at meditation in more detail, it is useful to discuss mindfulness, which in the context of the perfections is technically a factor contributing to the development of shamatha. However, it can also be understood more generally as a quality of awareness that we can develop in daily life to very great benefit. So although in this sense it’s not strictly part of the paramitas, I would like to deepen our inquiry here into how we can incorporate this spiritual practice into our daily lives.

What does mindfulness mean? “Mindfulness,” in Sanskrit, is
smriti,
and in Tibetan,
drenpa.
They both have the same meaning, which is “to remember.” This is very close to the Catholic idea of recollection, or the idea of self-remembrance. It is the quality of being here and now which usually is exactly where we are not. Normally, we are not even aware that we are here or that we are half-here and half-somewhere else. It is extraordinary how unaware we are of our minds. In Buddhism the practice of mindfulness is also connected with positive states of mind. For example, a bank robber might be very attentive and conscious of his actions, but that would not strictly be considered mindfulness because his motivation is unwholesome and based on greed and desire.

Once we start training in mindfulness, we see how totally out of control our minds actually are. One of the ways to learn is to try to be here now. If we say, “Be aware of the body in this moment; just know it,” then in that moment, we can know it, we can feel it—we don’t judge it but rather just know it. But when we think, “That’s easy! Look, I am aware of my body; I am being mindful; I know what this is all about,” we have already lost it. Because then we are just
thinking
of being mindful, and we are not mindful anymore. So it’s tricky.

This quality of being attentive to what we are doing in the moment is so important because the present moment is all we have. Everything else is past, gone. Our future has not yet come. The only thing happening is this present moment, which is going so fast that we have almost lost it before it is even here. It is flowing, right? It wouldn’t matter if it happened that we weren’t present only sometimes, but the fact is that we are not present for most of our lives. We are present for a few seconds and then we are off again. And therefore our lives become very dull, routine and boring. The French have an expression for being bored—
je m’ennuie
—which means literally, “I bore myself.” Exactly. It has nothing to do with what is going on around us. Our minds bore us.

Let us address how we can be present. Because if we can learn how to develop some basic mindfulness, then that will enliven everything, everything that we do during the day. This is very important, so don’t fall asleep!

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen master, talks about two ways to wash the dishes. One way is to wash the dishes to get clean dishes; and the other way is to wash dishes to wash dishes. Now normally when we wash dishes, as with any activity we do, we want a result. We wash dishes to have clean dishes, and then we go on to the next task. The actual task of washing the dishes in itself is irrelevant. As we are washing the dishes, we are thinking. We are thinking of what was said this morning at breakfast, or we’re thinking of last night’s television program, or we’re thinking, “Well, after this, I’ll have some coffee and then I’ll have to go to the supermarket—what do I need?” Or we’re thinking about something we are going to do that evening, or we’re caught up in some fantasy world, or whatever. The one thing we are not thinking about is those dishes. Right? And when we have finished washing the dishes, which are now clean and stacked up, we’ve got to drink our coffee, and have a slice of chocolate cake. We drink the coffee. We are usually fairly conscious of the first sip; we judge whether we like it or we don’t like it. But already, by the second sip, we are not really conscious of it. And by the third sip, we are totally unaware that we are drinking the coffee because we’re thinking of what we have to buy at the supermarket, that is, before the memory from years ago slips in, “and then he said
that
to me and I said
this
to him . . .” When we eat the chocolate cake or something else that is nice, we decide the first bite is yummy, by the second bite we have already lost interest, and by the third bite we are munching away and don’t even know it. Our whole life is led like that.

One meaning of the word
buddha
is “to wake up.” He is the Awakened One. He awoke from the dream of ignorance. But the rest of us are still dreaming. Good dreams or nightmares—it’s all a dream. We’re somnambulists. We look very bright, but we’re asleep. Where are our minds? I sometimes really think it would be very interesting—horrible, but interesting—to have loudspeakers attached to our minds, so that everyone could hear our thoughts. Wouldn’t everybody want to know how to meditate quickly?! Because when we look inside and see what is going on in our mind, we find endless chatter, endless trivia, and it is not even entertaining. If we really watch it, we see how totally boring it is. The same old stale thoughts, opinions, and memories are constantly recycled. And while we’re prattling away to ourselves we have the radio on or the television yapping in the background. There is no silence. Mindfulness is about being silent. It is about having a mind which is completely quiet and present with what is happening.

The other way to wash dishes is to wash dishes to wash dishes. This way we still get clean dishes. But when we wash the dishes like this, we are doing the most important thing that we could possibly be doing, right now. We are washing the dishes. It is what we are doing. This is the moment. If we miss this, it is gone. Alert, conscious of the water and of one’s hands and of the dishes, one can know that and just be present. That sense of presence, of knowing, is the vital point. Because if we can really learn how to do that, then when we’ve washed the dishes, we’ve not only washed the dishes, we’ve washed our mind. We have a nice, clean, and sparkling mind along with the dishes. It is very easy. But the problem is that we forget. The real meaning of mindfulness is to remember, and its direct enemy is forgetfulness.

The inertia of our mind is so great. Sometimes when people hear about mindfulness, they think, “Well, this sounds good, let’s have a go.” They really try to be present with what they’re doing. They try to hear themselves when they speak, and know what they are thinking; they try to be present and know how they are moving and how they are here, in the moment, as much as possible. When we first start, mostly we are just thinking about being present, and this is quite difficult. We proceed from where we are.

People try to be present, and then they say, “Well that was great, I really enjoyed today. I’ve been trying now for two or three days, and it’s really fun to be mindful. My friends are already saying I’m a much nicer person and I feel really good. This is great.”

And we think, “Oh yes, just wait.”

In six weeks’ time we inquire into how the mindfulness is coming along.

“The mindfulness? . . . Oops, forgot!”

Forgot. Not because it wasn’t working. Not because it was impossibly difficult. Actually, mindfulness is reasonably easy. But the inertia and the laziness of our mind, the reluctance of our mind to be in the present, is very deep.

The Buddha said that mindfulness was like salt in curries. In other words, it is what gives taste to everything that we do. It brings everything alive, because it is as though we are doing it for the first time. The world becomes vivid and clear. Normally, it is like we’re looking through a lens and it’s all blurred. We cannot see clearly. So it is with the mind. But once we adjust the lens, suddenly everything comes into focus and appears newly washed, like those dishes, and not like the stale old mind that we normally live with. This is a new mind. This quality of mindfulness is very important in developing the spiritual qualities of our daily lives. And it is something which we can all cultivate during the day and night.

The Buddha divided mindfulness into four aspects: mindfulness of the body; mindfulness of the feelings; mindfulness of the mind itself; and in the Mahayana interpretation, mindfulness of external dharmas or phenomena. That means everything received through the five senses—sights, sounds, tastes, touch, and smells.

Let us start with mindfulness of the body. The body is the most tangible of the aspects. The Tibetans usually emphasize mindfulness of the mind itself but that is quite difficult at this first stage since our minds are very fast-flowing and turbulent and difficult to catch hold of. Maybe it is better to start with something fairly stable and solid, like our bodies. The Buddha says we start by thinking, “When I am standing, I know I am standing; when I am sitting, I know I am sitting; when I am lying down, I know I am lying down; when I am walking, I know I am walking.”

Just think about that. How often do we stand or sit without even being conscious that we are standing or sitting because our minds are racing ahead? Normally we don’t even know what our bodies are doing. And yet this is something very simple to bring into the present—just to know we are sitting as we are sitting. Experience how the body feels in the moment: this is bodily awareness. Become aware of the breath. Consciously breathing in and breathing out is a way to become instantly centered. We cannot breathe in the past or in the future—we can only breathe now.

There are infinite opportunities throughout the day to practice mindfulness of the body. Some years ago in New Delhi, on the red stop traffic lights, they had written across them in big white letters,
RELAX
. When we come to a red light we relax and breathe in, and breathe out, feeling gratitude to the light for being red, and for giving us the opportunity to become centered again. If we ring somebody up and all we get is their interminable answering machine, great—we breathe in, and breathe out, becoming centered, and by that time, we are ready to give our message after the tone. Throughout the day there are endless opportunities to come back into our center, into our conscious being—brushing teeth, eating and drinking, combing our hair, shaving, whatever. Use that moment, that simple action—and know it, in that moment. Don’t brush your teeth and think of a thousand other things. Just brush your teeth to brush your teeth, and know. It is all training in being present. Because the present is all we have.

If we learn how to really use our day to develop this quality of mindfulness and awareness, then when we come to sit for meditation, there won’t be such problems. Instead of the mind being nothing but a hindrance, we are using it to help us. Those of you who are serious about cultivating this practice should read books on the subject, and if possible, attend meditation courses and inquire from those who have greater experience in this quality of mindfulness. Because it is a very important quality, and it has nothing to do with one’s spiritual orientation. Everyone can use it. And during this most profound practice, nobody even knows we’re practicing! We can carry it with us everywhere under any circumstances, even onto the toilet. It doesn’t matter where—every action, every thought, and every word can be an object of our awareness, of our knowing.