In many ways this has been a tumultuous time and part of what I having been doing is to engage in vigils, in visibility campaigns, and in actually organizing an event to protest ICE on our streets and to remember the many people, many fellow human beings who have been killed, died in custody, and been disappeared by this unjust, violent, undisciplined, and misguided group in our federal government.
These recent events and others like them throughout the year lead us to wonder how we can be dedicated practitioners of the Buddha’s teachings and relate in wholesome ways to the difficult times we live in.
I am currently listening to the teachings on the Satipatthana Sutta given by renowned Buddhist scholar, teacher, practitioner, Venerable Analayo. This is familiar territory for me as The Four Foundations of Mindfulness is the basis of most of the retreats I have ever sat. These teachings are famliar to many others as well as The Four Foundations of Mindfulness formed the backbone of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course. In that context, the teachings had been adapted to omit the Buddhist references as it was believed (and was true in 1979) that Buddhist references would “scare off” folks. In this past year we have visited these teachings again in these pages from the Buddha’s point of view referring to the text of the Satipatthana Sutta as found in the Pali Canon.
So, much of what the Satipatthana Sutta is familiar to me. However…
First, this is a deep teaching and with every pass something new can be learned, some new understanding of the path from suffering to freedom can be gained, some deepening of practice into more of what we already know. Venerable Analayo has spent considerable time and three books learning and investigating this teaching and has come to a new understanding on how to integrate this teaching into a path of practice.
Second, the course material asked us to consider how our practice is integrated into our daily lives. Practice on the cushion, or walking meditation, or any other form of formal practice is practice dedicated to the cultivation of mindfulness beyond all else. Daily life is what happens as soon as we get up off the cushion or bench, leave our meditation spot and go make our coffee or whatever else we do.
And as much as meditation teachers can urge us to maintain continuity of awareness, off our awareness goes as we slip back into the tasks we have before us.
Venerable Analayo urges us to remember that this forgetting to be mindful is not under our control. Does that sound familiar? Most of us have heard this in MBSR or in almost any retreat on mindfulness. Mind wandering is not under our control. And you might remember its corollary that waking up to the wandering mind is also not under our control. But what happens when we do finally wake up is very much our decision to make. Do we stay mindful? Or allow our minds to slide back into the slipstream of living life while not paying attention?
If we are to integrate our practice into our daily lives, which many of us have attempted and been somewhat successful at from time to time, how do we go about being mindful more of the time? Forget being mindful all of the time. That just isn’t going to happen. Some of the time, like when we stumble on the curb, have one of those near misses on the highway, watch a mother snatch her child away from its beeline toward the street, mindfulness is no problem. It’s there – fully and completely, with pounding heart and wide-eyed breathlessness.
How do we nurture our mindfulness so that it arises more often in normal, non-emergent, daily life - when we’re walking through our homes, shopping, paying bills, cooking, showering and taking care of our bodies? And even more difficult, how do we stay present and mindful when we’re talking on the phone, texting, having lunch with friends, returning emails, having a disagreement with a family member?
To step back a bit, do we know what this mindfulness will look like? And do we fully understand that being more mindful can help reduce our stress and suffering?
This week I confronted the question about integrating practice with daily life. How much was practice integrated into my daily life now? How would I increase it?
I found my first answer to the questions was I don’t know. It really is outside my control. I know I am mindful at times throughout my day. If I have an emotional reaction of fear or irritation or anger or even joy, I am usually mindful. So how come I’m not clearer about the moments I’m mindful and the moments I’m not?
This morning an insight came to me.
It was simply because while I might be mindful of seeing a sight, hearing a sound, feeling a sensation, even thinking a thought, the moments or experiences I best remember as mindful moments are the times when I am not just aware of an object, but I am also aware of being aware. Awareness turned inward. Aware of the experience of awareness itself.
The Pali word sati is about remembering. When we are aware and alert, when we pay attention, we are more fully experiencing that present moment – uncolored by thoughts and opinions, memories or expectations (or we are also aware of all these distorting internal inputs). When we more fully experience the present moment, we see more clearly. We understand more fully what actually is and what we are adding to it. And because of our heightened attention, we have a clearer, more accurate experience of that moment suffused with kindness and compassion and retained as a clearer, kinder memory. This clear seeing and clear, compassionate remembering allows us to make wiser choices in our current and future actions.
We will explore the many ways we can strengthen the presence of mindfulness in our every day lives in the coming weeks.