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 elses
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. Dont 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 wont 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:
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. (BPS. Ud. 84)
Sukaraú sdhun sdhu - sdhu ppena dukkaraú
ppaú ppena sukaraú - ppaú ariyena dukkaraú.
(Udana 61)
This simply means that which is most difficult at the beginning becomes easy
through constant practice.