You may have
heard that you should be mindful all the time, whether
you are at home or in the office, or on the bus or in
your car or in somebody else’s
car, etc. You may interpret this advice to mean that you
should keep your mind focused all the time on your
breath. While driving, if you simply keep your mind on
the breath you probably will get into some problems,
such as losing your attention to your driving or
forgetting your driving and you may have an accidents.
Sometimes you
may think "to be mindful all the time" means to pay
attention only to what ever you are doing at that
particular time. This, of course, is what any person who
is serious enough in his/her work normally does. An
artist, painter, writer, singer, composer, thinking,
speaker, shooter, cook, etc. must pay attention to
whatever they do at any time they are engaged in their
work.
Not only
human beings do this. You may have noticed cats paying
total attention to their prey in order to catch them
without disturbing their prey by making any mistakes.
Tigers, lions and crocodiles pay total attention to what
they are going to catch. You may have noticed cranes
standing on one single spot for a long time to catch a
fish. Sheep dogs pay total attention to the movements of
sheep so they can run very quickly to direct the herd in
the right direction. Unfortunately neither cat, crane,
nor sheep dog can remove their greed, lust etc., or
cultivate an iota of insight by merely paying total
attention to their objects.
Paying
attention to whatever you are doing at any time is not
going to eliminate your greed, hatred, and ignorance.
This, in fact, is exactly what you do in tranquillity
meditation or concentration meditation. By paying
attention to one thing at a time you cannot get rid of
your psychic irritation. You may focus your mind on one
single object for fifty years and still your psychic
irritation will remain unchanged in your mind. One
person may observe all the moral rules. Another may
learn all the texts by heart. Someone else may gain
concentration. Another may spend his/her entire life in
solitude. All of them might think that they can
experience supreme liberation from all psychic
irritation, which no ordinary person can attain. But
none of them can have that experience without destroying
all the psychic irritation. Therefore in addition to all
they practice they also must remove all their psychic
impurities in order to experience the bliss of
emancipation from all kinds of pain.
What is
missing in focusing total attention to one single object
all the time is wisdom. Your total attention should be
coupled with wise attention. What is wise attention? It
is attention accompanied by the three wholesome roots.
What are the wholesome roots? They are generosity,
loving-kindness and wisdom. This means that when you pay
attention to something always attempt to pay attention
without greed, hatred or delusion, but with the thought
of generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom. These three
are called wholesome roots; greed, hatred and delusion
are called unwholesome roots. Don’t
let your mind be affected by unwholesome roots when you
pay attention to something. Let the thought of
generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom dominate your
mind while paying attention to anything.
When you pay
attention to pots and pans as you wash, you may not need
any loving-kindness, generosity or wisdom towards them.
You are cultivating mindfulness not for pots and pans,
but for living beings. You should pay attention to any
thought regarding yourself, or any other living beings.
Have mindful reflection while wearing your clothes,
eating your food, drinking your water, talking to
someone, listening to sound, seeing an object, and
walking or driving.
When you pay
total attention with wise consideration or mindful
reflection, your greed, hatred and delusion fade away,
because in your wise attention generosity,
loving-kindness and wisdom are active. Your thoughts of
generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom have the power of
minimizing your greed, hatred and delusion while you are
engaged in any activity. While paying attention to
something, without wise consideration or wise attention,
you may inadvertently develop greed, hatred and
confusion. You may see an object, for instance. That
object may happen to be attractive, beautiful or
pleasing to your eyes or it may be unattractive. At that
time if you do not have wise attention, you may then end
up cultivating greed or resentment for the object or you
may get utterly confused ideas about the object. Or you
may think that the object is permanent instead of
realizing that it is impermanent, satisfactory instead
of unsatisfactory, or having a self instead of being
selfless.
You may then
ask how your generous thoughts can get rid of your
greedy thoughts, because the greedy thoughts want to
cling to the object, or grasp it. When you perceive the
object with greed, your mind will cling to it and not
open to any thought of letting go of greed. You may not
want to take your eyes away from the object. In fact, at
that time your mind temporarily becomes blind to any
thought of generosity. Even if you wish to let go of the
attachment to it you may do so with great reluctance.
You may feel that you are generous. But your generosity
is only to fulfill your greedy purpose, like gaining
something in return, or gaining recognition or becoming
famous by being generous. Greed has very strong super
glue in it. At the very first contact with the desirable
object the mind sticks fast to it. Letting go of that
object is as painful as cutting off of a limb or some
flesh of your body, and you cannot let go of that object
from your mind.
This is where
you really need your wise attention. This is where you
must learn to see impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and
selflessness in the object you are watching. Your wise
consideration indicates that neither the object you
perceive nor your feeling or sensation regarding the
object remains the same even for two consecutive
moments. You will not have the same sensation later on.
You change, the object you perceive changes. With wise
attention you will see that everything is impermanent.
This knowledge of impermanence allows you to let go of
your resentment. When you see with wisdom that
everything that is unsatisfactory is impermanent, then
you see the connection between unsatisfactoriness and
greed. As you are attached to an impermanent object you
will be disappointed with the change of the object that
you are so attached to. When you have wise consideration
you see that which is impermanent and unsatisfactory is
without self.
Then you
might think "Ah! Since this object is going to change, I
must be quick and smart to take the advantage of this
object right now and enjoy myself as quickly as possible
before it disappears. Tomorrow it won’t
be there". Here you must remember haste makes waste. If
you make a hasty decision and do something foolish, you
will regret it later on. Sometimes you are attracted to
a person, for instance, and grab hold of him/her without
giving much consideration to him/her, and later on you
will find many faults in that person. In any such hasty
decision there is no mindfulness. You cannot beat the
change nor can you stop it by making any foolish
attempt.
When your
mindfulness is well developed, then even in haste you
make a right decision. The only thing that makes sense
in rushing to beat impermanence is to step back and
check your own mind and see whether or not you make the
decision with wise consideration. When you are mindful
you will know how to take the advantage of the current
moment so that you will not regret it later on. Any
mindful decision you make will make you happy and
peaceful and never make you regret it later on.
Always
remember that mindfulness is the state of mind
full of generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom together
with compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. Any
time you pay attention to anything you must ask whether
your mind is full of these factors. If not you are not
mindful.
When you have
generosity in the mind you will let go of any attractive
sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought without
any hesitation. You should certainly recognize them to
be attractive in the conventional sense. Know that it is
because of their attractiveness that people become
attached to them and get involved in them. The deeper
they get involved in them the deeper is their suffering.
When you have loving-kindness in your mind you will not
try to reject any sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and
thought if they happen to be unattractive. Mindfully
perceive them with the thought of impermanence. When any
sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought appears to
be identical with self, look at it as an unreal concept
inculcated in your mind by conditioning through
generations of wrong notions and look at it with wisdom.
Mindfulness
is not carefulness. It is not smartness. Anybody can be
careful and smart. A man walking on a wire three hundred
feet above ground is careful. Remember those gymnasts
performing all kinds of balancing feats. Numerous
daredevils who climb very steep mountains, across rocks,
slippery places, rivers, and so on are very careful.
Many thieves are very smart and outwit the police. Many
drug dealers, bank robbers, criminals are very smart.
None of them can be considered to be mindful.
Mindfulness is that state of mind which reflects upon
itself not to get caught in greed, hatred and ignorance,
which cause suffering to yourself, to others or to both.
When we ask
people not to cultivate resentment some people ask us
how can you live without resentment? This is the miracle
of mindfulness. When you practice mindfulness you can
learn to do most difficult things easily. Not becoming
resentful, lustful, or confused is very difficult.
Through constant training in mindfulness you learn to
live without resentment, lust or confusion. Moreover to
be mindful is more difficult than to be unmindful, and
you learn to do that more difficult one more easily than
the easier one. For this reason the Buddha said:
Sukaram
sadhuna sadhu - sadhu papena dukkaram
papam
papena sukaram - papam ariyena dukkaram.
For the good
to do what is good is easy
For the bad
to do what is bad is easy
For the bad
to do what is good is difficult
For the noble
to do what is bad is difficult. (Udana 5.8)
This simply
means that which is most difficult at the beginning
becomes easy through constant practice.
|