Mindfulness
Mindfulness is both
a state of being and
a daily spiritual practice,
a form of meditation.
~ David Richo
Mindfulness
Mindfulness
Perception
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh spoke of perceptions when I went to listen to him in London on my birthday in October 2000, and what he had to say has stuck with me all of these years. He said that we see everything through our perceptions, and they are nearly always wrong. This was brought home to me again when reading Byron Katie’s work. The first question she says to ask about anything we are facing is ‘is that true?’ It is amazing how many thoughts can float through our minds each day, and when the question ‘is that true?’ is asked, the answer is ‘no’.
~ gill
The following is from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Our perceptions are conditioned by the many afflictions that are present in us: ignorance, craving, hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, habit energies, etc. We perceive phenomena on the basis of our lack of insight into the nature of impermanence and interbeing. Practicing mindfulness, concentration, and deep looking, we can discover the errors of our perceptions and free ourselves from fear and clinging. All suffering is born from wrong perceptions. Understanding, the fruit of meditation, can dissolve our wrong perceptions and liberate us. We have to be alert always and never seek refuge in our perceptions.
Observing Mindfulness
Observing Mindfulness
Again and again, examine
Every aspect of your mental and physical activities.
In brief, that is the very way of observing mindfulness.
~Shantideva
Being Nobody
By Ajahn Sumedho
Now how many of you feel you have a mission in life to perform? It’s
something you’ve got to do and some kind of important task that’s been
assigned to you by God or fate or something. People frequently get
caught up in that view of being somebody who has a mission. Who can be
just with the way things are, so that it is just the body that grows
up, gets old and dies, breathes and is conscious? We can practice,
live within the moral precepts, do good, respond to the needs and
experiences of life with mindfulness and wisdom – but there’s nobody
that has to do anything. There’s nobody with a mission, nobody
special, we’re not making a person or a saint or an avatar or a tulku
or a messiah or Maitreya. Even if you think: ‘I’m just a nobody,’ even
being a nobody is somebody in this life, isn’t it? You can be just as
proud of being nobody as of being somebody, and just as deluded
attached to being nobody. But whatever you happen to believe, that
you’re a nobody or a somebody or you have a mission or you’re a
nuisance and a burden to the world or however you might view yourself,
then the knowing is there to see the cessation of such a view.
Views arise and cease, don’t they? ‘I’m somebody, an important person
who has a mission in life’: that arises and ceases in the mind. Notice
the ending of being somebody important or being nobody or whatever –
it all ceases, doesn’t it? Everything that arises, ceases, so there’s
a non-grasping of the view of being somebody with a mission or of
being nobody. There’s the end of that whole mass of suffering – of
having to develop something, become somebody, change something, set
everything right, get rid of all your defilements or save the world.
Even the best ideals, the best thoughts can be seen as dhammas that
arise and cease in the mind.
Now, you might think that this is a barren philosophy of life because
there’s a lot more heart and feeling in being somebody who’s going to
save all sentient beings. People with self-sacrifice who have missions
and help others and have something important to do are an inspiration.
But when you notice that as dhamma, you are looking at the limitations
of inspirations and the cessation of it. Then there is the dhamma of
those aspirations and actions rather than somebody who has to become
something or has to do something. The whole illusion is relinquished
and what remains is purity of mind. Then the response to experience
comes from wisdom and purity rather than from personal conviction and
mission with its sense of self and other, and all the complications
that come from that whole pattern of delusion.
Can you trust that? Can you trust in just letting everything go and
cease and not being anybody and not having any mission, not having to
become anything? Can you really trust in that or do you find it
frightening, barren or depressing? Maybe you really want inspiration.
‘Tell me everything is all right; tell me you really love me; what I’m
doing is right and Buddhism is not just a selfish religion where you
get enlightened for your own sake; tell me that Buddhism is here to
save all sentient beings. Is that what you’re going to do, Venerable
Sumedho? Are you really Mahayana or Hinayana?’
What I’m pointing to is what inspiration is as an experience.
Idealism: not trying to dismiss it or to judge it in any way but to
reflect on it, to know what that is in the mind and how easily we can
be deluded by our own ideas and high-minded views. And to see how
insensitive, cruel and unkind we can be by the attachment we have to
views about being kind and sensitive. This is where it is a real
investigation into Dhamma.
I remember in my own experience, I always had the view that I was
somebody special in some way; I used to think, ‘Well I must be a
special person.’ Way back when I was a child I was fascinated by Asia
and as soon as I could, I studied Chinese at the university, so surely
I must have been a reincarnation of somebody who was connected to the
Orient.
But consider this as a reflection: no matter how many signs of being
special or previous lives you can remember or voices from God or
messages from the Cosmos, whatever – not to deny that or say that
those things aren’t real – but they’re impermanent. They’re anicca,
dukkha, anatta. We’re reflecting on them as they really are – what
arises ceases: a message from God is something that comes and ceases
in your mind, doesn’t it? God isn’t always talking to you continuously
unless you want to consider the silence the voice of God. Then it
doesn’t really say anything does it? We can call it anything – we can
call it the voice of God or the divine or the ringing of the cosmos or
blood in your eardrums. But whatever it is, it can be used for
mindfulness and reflection – that’s what I’m pointing to, how to use
these things without making them into something.
More from Ajahn Sumedho
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Everything Depends on Your Steps
From: The Long Road Turns to Joy
By Thich Nhat Hanh
The seed of mindfulness is in us, but we usually forget to water it.
We think that happiness is possible only in the future-when we get
a house, a car, a Ph.D. We struggle in our mind and body, and we
don’t touch the peace and joy that are available right now-the blue
sky, the green leaves, the eyes of our beloved. What is most
important? Many people have passed exams and bought houses and
cars, and yet they are still unhappy. What is most important in life is
to find peace and to share it with others. To have peace, you can
begin by walking peacefully. Everything depends on your steps.
Read selected poems from Thich Nhat Hanh
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Taking Personal Responsibility
Excerpted from The Mind and the Way
By Ajahn Sumedho
With mindfulness, we can be independent of the positions other people are taking. We can stand on our own two feet and take responsibility for acting in a virtuous way, regardless of what the rest of sociery is doing.I can be kind, generous, and loving toward you, and that is a joy to me.But if I make my happiness dependent upon your being kind to me, then it will always be threatened, because if you aren’t doing what I like-behaving the way I want you to-then I’m going to be unhappy. So then, my happiness is always under threat because the world might not behave as I want it to.
It’s clear that I would spend the rest of my life being terribly disappointed if I expected everything to change-if I expected everybody to become virtuous, wars to stop, money not to be wasted, governments to be compassionate, sharing, and giving-everything to be just exactly the way I want it! Actually, I don’t expect to see very much of that in my lifetime, but there is no point in being miserable about it ; happiness based on what I want is not all that important.
Joy isn’t dependent on getting things, or on the world going the way you want, or on people behaving the way they should, or on their giving you all the things you like and want. Joyfulness isn’t dependent upon anything but your own willingness to be generous, kind, and loving. It’s that mature experience of giving, sharing, and developing the science of goodness. Virtuousness is the joy we can experience in this human realm. So, although what society is doing or what everyone else is doing is beyond my control-I can’t go around making everything how I want it- still, I can be kind, generous, and patient,and do good, and develop virtue. That I can do, and that’s worth doing, and not something anyone can stop me from doing. However rotten or corrupted society is doesn’t make any difference to our ability to be virtuous and to do good.
More from Ajahn Sumedho
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