This week we move on to the mind-blowing mindfulness of mind. As we began to take a closer look at feeling tone, identifying a positive feeling tone, a negative feeling tone, a neutral feeling tone, we might have given some thought to feeling tones that originate in the mind. Remembering a phone call with a sibling might bring up a pleasant feeling tone in the chest and belly. Or thinking about a doctor’s appointment might be accompanied by a little anxious tremor in the stomach or throat. As we experienced with body scans, we might reflect that we directed our attention to a certain part of the body - our foot or our leg - and, lo and behold, there was a sensation in that part of the body with perhaps a neutral feeling tone.
What knows sensations? What knows feeling tone?
Now we’ve entered into the realm of mindfulness of mind. Feeling tones have been connecting our minds with our bodies all along. Our mind has been the knowing component of knowing positive, knowing negative, knowing neutral feeling tones.
We are asked to turn our awareness to that which knows - to our minds. And the first question we ask is this: Is mindfulness present in the mind?
Are we mindful right now? If we’re paying attention, the answer is yes. But we will learn (or already know) that mindfulness can be stronger or weaker. How does our mind feel right now when mindfulness is present? Is it alert? Soft? Open? Awake? Spacious? Easily distracted or concentrated? What is the quality of our minds when mindfulness is present?
I find it helpful to attempt to describe the mind when mindfulness is present. It helps orient me to the quality and texture of the mind that is mindful. It also helps in discerning a bit earlier when mindfulness is lost.
Our next task is to discern major mind movements in the mind of craving or wanting, aversion or not wanting, delusion or mind wandering searching for something pleasant or trying to get rid of something unpleasant. Just being able to note, Oh, craving is in the mind! is an amazing discovery. We’ve heard so much about craving and aversion. But to experience its flavor, its pull or push, its quality of leaning forward or away, this is truly to see the little man behind the curtain in Oz.
There is an additional bonus when mindfulness is present in the mind. Not only are we alert and awake, aware and discerning, but we might become aware that this state of mindfulness in the mind is a pleasant state. This is an unworldly pleasant feeling tone. We might even become aware that the pleasant feeling in the midst of our presence in the present moment is joy. Sometimes this joy is very subtle - nothing more than a generally pleasant feeling of being alert and awake. But sometimes the joy is a bit more concentrated and can be experienced more clearly as joy or happiness. You may already have had this experience but perhaps not put words to it.
It’s probably not too productive to go searching for the happiness and joy right away as the desire for joy can cause the joy to evaporate. The desire can easily become craving and then striving for a result to arise. But if we stay steady with our mindfulness and just notice with a light sense of detachment, we might notice the presence of joy as well.
Looking into our own minds can sometimes feel like we are attempting to see our own eyes. But if we remember, that whenever we know a feeling or sensation, our minds are present, doing the knowing. We can know the feeling or know the sensation and then sit back and know the knowing.
The general arc of practice is from mindfulness of the larger, more easily experienced elements of our world to smaller, lighter, wispier, more subtle elements of experience. We can experience stubbing our toe as a large “ouch” feeling. We can experience our leg resting on the sofa. We can experience our breath when we’ve been running, then when we’ve been relaxing, or sleeping, and then after a half an hour of meditation. The sensation of breath can be a grosser, larger experience or a more subtle experience. When we’ve been meditating a while, the breath can become so subtle it almost disappears. So the arc of our practice is to become more and more sensitive to the currents of our experience, to the increasingly subtle sensations. Becoming aware of our minds takes us into the realm of the quite subtle. Our minds will have a tendency to catch the next thought train out of there because the experience of mind is so subtle.
Ajahn Chah often asked newcomers if they’d experienced still water. They would reply, yes. Then he would ask, have you experienced flowing water? Yes, they would respond. Then a gleam would appear in his eye as he asked, but have you ever experienced still flowing water? There would be silence, confused looks, uncertainty. Finally when he had tormented them enough with his riddle, he would explain. The mind is empty and in the emptiness is still. Thoughts, memories, experiences of sensations, sights, sounds flow through the mind and be known by the mind but are not intrinsic to the mind. The mind is intrinsically empty, intrinsically still. Still flowing water, he would pronounce triumphantly.
As we investigate mindfulness of mind, we turn toward all of it. The stream of experiences flowing through the mind will attract us first. But as we look from the experience to the knowing of the experience, we begin to sense directly into the stillness of the mind that knows.
And as we keep investigating our minds in this way, we will see that as changeable as our physical experiences are from moment to moment, by comparison, the mind is like quick silver in its changeable nature. This is one reason why the Buddha put so much emphasis on mindfulness of body. Even though experiences from both mind and body are changeable, the body changes more slowly giving the impression of greater stability. There is a greater chance for the mind to come to rest when mindfulness is embodied. It’s the difference between sitting solidly on the ground and being flung around and around in a ferris wheel.
A word of reassurance. Do not become discouraged that the mind wanders more frequently when investigating the mind. It’s immensely helpful to begin with grounding practices to establish mindfulness of the body before moving into mindfulness of feeling tone and mindfulness of mind.