Appendix: Mindfulness in Brief

Satipaṭṭhāna, or meditation on the four foundations of mindfulness (body, feelings, mind and dhamma) cultivates the good qualities in our minds. Everybody has wholesome and unwholesome qualities in the mind but learning to cultivate the wholesome qualities is meditation. How do we cultivate these good qualities? Meditation involves the things we observe (called objects) and that which is observing (the mind). It is important to remember that sights, sounds, touch, taste, smells, and thoughts or the experiences arising at the six sense doors do not meditate. We do not have to do anything to these experiences because they will always be there. These objects are just happening in the body and / or mind. Meditation is this latter part, the work of the mind, and the work to transform the mind.

A yogi has three jobs, and we will cover these in turn: 1) to have right view, 2) to be aware, and finally, 3) to practice continuously. When we are experiencing something, we should remind ourselves that it is an object of meditation and that the mind is knowing it. It should not be that this is a bad experience or this is a good experience. We would like to see things and regard things as they are. What is being known is just to be known and not to be loved or hated or desired or pushed away. Instead we remind ourselves that what is happening, what we’re experiencing, and what we’re observing is all nature. We should remind ourselves that objects will always follow their nature, that they are doing what they are doing, and that they are being seen, heard or experienced. If we don’t remind ourselves of this nature, the mind will vacillate, desiring in one moment and resisting in the next moment. Desire and resistance distort the “lenses” of the mind.

While the object itself is not important, we do need to know the object and to see the object clearly. Sometimes I say that we need a 60/40 awareness, which means we pay attention 60% to the observing mind and 40% to the object. We need to pay more attention to the observing mind because defilements like greed, anger, and delusion happen in the mind, and these defilements cover the mind. They prevent us from seeing clearly; we cannot see objects for what they truly are.

Let’s look more closely at the different pieces of meditation. There are five qualities in our minds that do the work of meditation. These qualities are awareness, perseverance, faith (or confidence), steadiness or stability of mind, and wisdom. These are the five qualities that we are trying to cultivate in the mind. There are also six sense objects arising at the six sense doors. These six sense objects are our stepping-stones in that we use the objects that arise at the six sense doors to cultivate the five good qualities of the mind.

When we meditate, any phenomenon or experience that is being known becomes an object. We also need to be consciously aware of what we know. We also need to know how to regard objects, to have the right view toward the objects, and be able to consider them in the right way. We can do one of these things: we can remember that the objects are just nature, or that the objects are just things that are being known.

In Satipaṭṭhāna, mindfulness or awareness (as I use the two words interchangeably) is the first of the five wholesome faculties of the mind. We then cultivate the other four faculties through continuous mindfulness. Simply, mindfulness is about remembering to be present in this moment, knowing any one of or all of the six sense objects (mind and/or body) that are happening right now. In English, I like to use words like awareness, mindfulness, remembering, not forgetting, recognizing, and noticing for the Pāḷi word of sati. I prefer not to use terms like concentrate or penetrate into the object because I don’t like the strong sense of effortful energy that is suggested by those words.

I was once sitting in a car driven by a yogi. When another car passed by us the yogi asked, “Is it enough for me to know it as meditation awareness if I knew that a car passed by?” No. It’s not quite there yet. We would all know that a car had passed by whether we are meditating or not. How is meditation-knowing different from regular-knowing? There’s seeing, hearing, and thinking and the meditator knows consciously that these things are being experienced. A non-meditator knows that a car has passed by but does not reference it to his own experience. He may instead refer just to the concept of what has happened where the thought has already processed the whole experience. That is why I say awareness is when you are aware of the six sense objects as your direct experience.

For example, if I am sitting on a rug right now and I’m aware of this rug, this is not considered meditation awareness. When I am aware of the process of seeing or feeling that allows me to see and feel and interpret this rug as a rug, this is my experience. I am aware of this experience. Being aware of only the conceptual part of the experience is not sati. We are not as interested in the concept of a rug in-as-much as we are in the process of seeing or feeling. We need concepts in order to function in daily life, but in meditation we want to know the underlying process of what is happening in the mind, of nature, and of reality.

So you are aware and you maintain that awareness. You do not have to use much energy to be aware. There’s no need to focus hard but you do need to use right effort to keep reminding yourself to go continuously. If you can use energy in that right way, you can go on practicing the whole day without feeling tired. Try to sustain that awareness for longer periods of time throughout the day.

You can take one object that you know lightly and use that as a grounding object to explore more widely. When I was practicing continuously in daily life, I would use feeling as my touchstone. From there I began to notice how thoughts affected feelings and how feelings affected thoughts. I slowly learned and understood all these relationships.

You can sit, walk, and lie down as you meditate in your daily lives. The posture is not important, and is even less so in daily life where you have to go about your business doing things. The timetable, however, is all the time from the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you fall asleep at night.

You also need to know how to view these objects that are arising. Whether they are sense objects or your experience, you need to view them as nature. Nature means it is impossible to find a “you” or a “me.” Nature is all just a process of cause and effect. There’s nothing inherently good or bad in these objects.

Come back to the right view when you face difficulties with certain objects: consider sound as just a sound. It is an object and it is just nature. This is the view that you should take. The instruction in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is to recognize the experience as it is. If you are developing greed or aversion towards any kind of sound, it indicates that you have a wrong view of the experience. For someone with right view, samādhi, or stability of mind is automatically there.

A concept is just a name given to reality. When you become aware of reality, you can see both the mind that is conceptualizing and reality. You will notice a sound as just a sound (reality) and also an interpretation of the particular sound (concept). When you are crossing the street and you hear a car coming, then you also need to watch out to see if a car is coming. You can know that sound is just sound but wisdom must also understand what that sound means. There are two kinds of wisdom at work here: the wisdom that understands the concept of an approaching car and the wisdom that understands reality of a sound is a sound.

Understanding is different from just experience. Understanding means you get it: This is reality. Sometimes experience does not mean that you truly understand it and the view changes. You can know that something is an object, which you can’t touch or feel but you just understand that this is something that is being known and therefore has the role of being an object.

The same instructions apply for the thinking mind. When you notice that the mind is thinking, know it. If there is less thinking, know that. If there is more thinking, know that. If there is no thinking, know that. Thinking is the mind and the definition of mind is that which thinks and that which knows. Problems arise when there is aversion to thinking, when you have the idea that you should not be thinking when you are meditating. All sorts of resistance follow that idea. There is no need to struggle with your thoughts because the thinking mind is never a problem. If there is a lot of thinking going on, there is no need to reduce it! All you have to do is acknowledge over and over again that the mind is thinking. After all, you are only able to recognize that amount of thinking because there is awareness!

Yogis label the times when they are lost in thought and don’t know that they’re thinking because they are lost in thoughts as a wandering mind. The mind arises in the present moment and passes away in the present moment. Thoughts about home or work arise in the mind and we can acknowledge these thoughts arising each time it happens. Actually the mind does not wander anywhere nor does it go anywhere; it thinks about the past and future in the present moment.

You can relate to pain in the same way. When you notice even a little bit of pain, first check your attitude. If the mind is feeling uncomfortable, adjust the attitude, remind yourself that this is nature and then, having brought in the right view, watch the discomfort or the aversion in the mind. First, watch the resistance and then you can watch the actual physical sensations. To begin with, why do you observe pain? Do you want to make it go away? It is natural for the body to become uncomfortable if we sit still for long periods. We should observe pain because we want to understand something about the nature of pain; we don’t observe pain in hopes that it will go away. Why do you think your leg hurts when it hurts? The simplest answer is that your leg hurts because you have a leg. Where there is a body, there will also be physical pain. That is awareness and right view that we can develop.

The final, important piece of a yogi’s three jobs is to practice continuously. Whatever you do, first be aware of yourself, and then go about your task. You may have fairly continuous mindfulness when you are sitting in meditation but you will eventually get up. What do you know first when you get up? It could be your hand or legs moving or just the energy you’re using to put strength into what you do. Know that and what’s happening after that. It’s even better when you know all your movements and if you know what is happening in the mind at the same time.

When you do sitting meditation you can take the whole body as an object and know anything that becomes obvious and see it change. If you are used to using an anchor, then use that anchor as a starting point. You can use awareness of breathing in and out at the nostrils (ānāpānasati), rising and falling of the abdomen, or sounds as anchors. These are just a few examples. You can use any object that is easy for you to be aware of as an anchor to establish mindfulness. The anchor just starts the mind off on being mindful and once you are aware of any object for some time, the mind will actually start to know other objects. That is good. It means that mindfulness is getting better. When the mindfulness is good, it begins to feel like it knows four or five objects simultaneously.

You are observing everything to understand the nature of this mind-body experience. What can you understand about these experiences? You have been practicing for a long time, you have been watching the body, watching the mind, and you have been doing it for years. What more have you understood about this body and this mind and the interactions between body and mind?

The goal of Satipaṭṭhāna practice is to understand deeply. When there is right understanding, when we have true realization into the nature of things, there will be calm in the mind. This calm state is a by-product of understanding or insight. The real goal of this meditation is to understand.

How can we understand the nature of pain if we just stared at it and it disappeared? Please be patient. When there is pain, watch the resistance in the mind and do this only for as long as it is bearable. When you change your posture, be aware of two possible motivations behind it: 1) greed to be more comfortable, or 2) understanding that if you continue to sit in that position, your aversion will grow. You don’t want to be growing aversion any more than you want to be growing greed. Understanding that the pain might become too much, you let go of the pain and make yourself more comfortable to prevent the growth of aversion.

Finally, let’s discuss talking. We should try to practice right speech and only say what is necessary and wholesome and for this we do need mindfulness. Speaking is all around us in daily life. You do not want to cut off speech without awareness of what you need to do. Use some restraint and know, consider and understand before you speak. Then you will also know if there is a need to talk. If you wanted to say something and you refrained from speaking then continue to know and recognize that you are not speaking but see the thinking going on in the mind.

There are many things that can happen while you are talking. If you are triggered when you are talking to someone, the fact that you are triggered but are still there, with the person, might trigger other emotions like embarrassment or agitation. While the mind may still be agitated, at the very least, you can still be aware. The purpose of mindfulness of speech is not to have a perfectly wise response, but to have a mindful conversation. You may have lost your balance in that time but what you need to know is that mindfulness is present through it all. If you are strongly attached to ideas, there will be triggers when someone else presents a conflicting idea. It’s like North and South Korea being at war, separated by ideology. You can learn some lessons from these conversations when there is mindfulness. Whenever we say something wrong, we will suffer a little bit but if mindfulness stays with us, we will always learn.

Be a little extra careful at home. It is so much more interesting at home when mindfulness is always present, and especially when we bring mindfulness to daily life situations. In your talking to others you learn to see others’ intentions and learn to speak in a way that helps you to manage yourself and manage the conversation as well. We begin to know what we are going to say before we say it and eventually have time to choose the skillful path.