Mindfulness is a Lifestyle Change

When a retreat begins, defilements will negotiate with the yogi: “Okay, how long do you want to practice for? One month? Two months? Three months? All right. We’ll leave you alone for that long. But when the retreat is over, then it’s our turn again!” And it really is their turn again. Delusion loves hearing the line, “The retreat is over!” It is very common to think that we’ve finished meditating. When this happens, it is now time for defilements to come back out to play.

When I was younger, I went for long retreats of six to ten months at a time. My mind cleared up while I was in retreat but I stopped practicing back home and my mind went back to square one. My life did not change. I never listened to my teacher’s advice to continue practicing at home and got into deep trouble! It was only when I was in the deepest trouble that I saw the need to work it out in daily life. I began to practice continuously at home and realized the need to meditate all the time.

When you return home, remember that you are there, at home. You should remain in the present moment there. The present moment is the only real thing. Stay where you are because the now is always now, there is no “after now.” You’re trying to have mindfulness in this mind and the only effort is to remember to be mindful in the present moment. Through everything in your life you are remembering to be mindful, remembering how to be mindful, and building and maintaining samādhi, or stability of the mind.

You use the information that you have, combined with intelligence, logic, and reasoning to figure out how to practice correctly. Next, you learn how to keep these already developed insights alive. Finally, you figure out how to develop even deeper levels of insight.

Meditating all the time

We must be walking on the Noble Eightfold Path of sīla (moral conduct), samādhi (stability of mind), and paññā (wisdom). This particular aspect of meditation, where you need to be practicing it all the time for it to be alive and beneficial becomes apparent to someone who practices continuously. We really need to be a close friend of the Dhamma in order to grow in the Dhamma. It is when we are in such close communion with the Dhamma that we can grow in it. Otherwise, there is not much growth. How can the Dhamma grow in us if we are not always living the Dhamma? The Buddha frequently reminded his followers to keep the Dhamma in mind. He didn’t say when to have the Dhamma in mind, but just said to have the Dhamma in mind. Unless we are always meditating, delusion will step in and hold the door open for all the other defilements to move in.

People talk about how long they have been practicing meditation but they are only counting the length of time from their first retreat up to now. If they added up the hours that they were actually mindful, that would be a wholly different picture. The way we usually work is to put in a lot of effort over a small period of time in the hopes of getting some reward. That’s greed at work!

Right effort is staying in it for the long haul. You need to become familiar with the work that you do, to always be in touch with it so that you become skillful at it. Right effort is not letting it slack off, not giving up, and never stopping. Keep going. That’s real, right effort. Wisdom considers the long term. There’s no hurry but we also do not rest. The more we understand the forces of nature and how they work, the more we begin to rely on the laws of nature to let things unfold in a steady way. It is also not for nothing that I’m using this word nature over and over. When something becomes your nature, really second nature, it means that the momentum of that nature is very strong in you. It has become your nature.

Momentum is important in every sphere of our lives and it is what makes things better and better. When there is momentum, it’s not only easier to do what we have to do but also easier to grow our expertise and improve. If you were a high jumper, you would run to gain momentum so you can jump over the hurdle. Right now, you may run towards the hurdle, look up, realize how high it is, stop, turn, and walk back! You didn’t have enough momentum to take the jump.

I would ask you to look at your mind right now. How often do defilements come in unnoticed? You’ve got to turn that whole paradigm upside down so that what is natural and unnoticed and always going on in your mind is awareness, stability of mind, and wisdom, just as the defilements are present right now. If you ask me about setting aside time for meditation, yes, we should do that. It is a time, whether we sit or use some other form, that we determine that we will have in mind to be mindful most continuously. When I was at home, I sat before I went to work in the morning and before I went to sleep at night. I also sat from time to time throughout the day in my shop or at the coffee shop. When there was a lull in my work or I had 5 or 10 minutes, I would be still and do meditation. All of these things gathered my mind.

We haven’t reached the point where practicing continuously in daily life feels essential for us, so much so that we cannot live without it. If we felt that way about practice in our daily lives, we would maintain mindfulness so much more continuously. When we want to maintain the peace in our mind for longer and longer periods, we begin to realize that all these elements of knowing what we are aware of must become part of our practice and skill. Otherwise, we cannot maintain the peacefulness of the mind because we lose it when we lose awareness like a leaky faucet loses water. We leak peacefulness when we lose mindfulness while talking, walking or going about our daily business.

Let’s use a business analogy to think about meditation. You secure some initial funding and you need to use your seed capital appropriately to start a business. So far, you have done retreats. Once the cash starts coming in, you learn to maintain that cash flow. In meditation, you now have to consider how to keep insights alive in your daily life. Do you know how to do that? To keep insights from fading, you have to allow these understandings to arise over and over in your mind. Continue practicing at home, as you would on a retreat. Once you can keep your insights alive and developing and keep your practice going, your business is now well established. You can grow it even more. You can dedicate yourself to expanding your business. If you do not, instead of being like entrepreneurs, you may be like day laborers who make just enough money to survive day-to-day.

Does all this discourage you or propel you to press forward and go the distance? Sometimes it is hard to tell yogis the truth because I worry that I might make it all sound too difficult! (Laughs.) But it’s the truth. Can you imagine how much practice that is going to take? We want to turn the momentum of the current mind completely around so that it is going in the direction of wholesome momentum rather than unwholesome momentum. Now, when we look, it is natural for liking and disliking to arise. When we hear something, liking and disliking arises in the mind. That is natural for us now. Later, with more practice, it becomes natural for awareness + wisdom to be present when we look, hear, smell, touch, taste, or think. Then we can begin to trust that awareness + wisdom.

Maintaining a stable mind

While I began practicing from a young age, I really started practicing at home in the midst of much suffering. I was in constant pain and sleep was my only rest. Every morning I woke up and the difficulty started again. I did not communicate much at the time. The only question I asked myself at that time was, “Why is the mind suffering?” This question really motivated me to keep watching the mind all the time. At first it was just suffering and I didn’t know why. But slowly, from watching that continuously, awareness and samādhi grew and the mind became more peaceful. There was less suffering.

When the mind began to have more peace then I made peace the main object for my awareness. Peacefulness became the anchor for my mind. Knowing the peaceful mind, I was also aware of everything else that was happening in the mind. I wasn’t interested in whatever level of wisdom I had achieved; I understood that if I were mindful, there would be some relief. I knew that whenever I meditated, the depression was reduced a little. I understood that much.

I kept an eye on the peacefulness and on whether it was being maintained or disturbed with whatever contact there was with external or internal experiences. When you are aware of a peaceful mind, it continues to be peaceful. It becomes more and more peaceful. When you aren’t aware of the peaceful mind then the mind starts breaking down into chaos.

How long can you maintain stability of mind in daily life?

The Buddha said that when there are leaves covering the surface of a lake, you can’t see your reflection. Also when the water is turbulent, you can’t see your reflection. It is the same with the mind. Stability and wisdom cannot arise when the mind is covered with defilements.

We give wisdom more opportunities to arise when awareness and stability of mind are present for longer and longer periods. Once you recognize the agitated mind and continue to know that agitated mind, it starts to become peaceful and clear again. Not being aware of the agitation or confusion only leads it to spiral into more agitation or confusion. When you know the peaceful mind continuously and you know everything that’s happening in the mind, you’ll also immediately notice when a speck of defilement comes to disturb that peace. At this point, you can immediately recognize the thought that preceded that shift from a peaceful mind to an agitated mind.

Sometimes, even if you’re not watching a lot of objects, you can know the main object, which is the state of your mind. When you know the state of your mind, you also know the feeling, body, and mind simultaneously so there is no need to go after many objects. Instead, just know the state of your mind—whether it is peaceful or agitated. Keep that as your anchor as you know everything else and as you go about your business.

Yogis want to improve the quality of the mind but if you haven’t seen the mind, the mind cannot change! In daily life, you may put in a lot of effort into your work with little energy left for awareness and awareness needs some energy as well. If you are not skillful at using just enough energy for awareness, you’ll use too much energy and won’t have enough to do normal work. Learn to use just enough energy, and then practice continuously. You will become skillful if you do this every day.

Becoming energized

It’s very important to know the meditating mind that is at work because it allows us to see cause and effect and also helps us to continue doing the work. It strengthens and energizes the mind. Even when we observe that awareness is present, we must also be clear about the object it is knowing. Both must be clear in order to have a complete picture of the workings of awareness in the present moment and thus for wisdom to arise.

How do we make inroads?

For most of us, awareness + wisdom are not ready and on standby so defilements are allowed to arise over and over. It’s a vicious cycle: we can’t get peace; then we can’t make inroads into the practice; so we can’t get peace. Even if we forget about wisdom for a while, we are not even able to really continuously maintain just awareness and stability of mind in our lives.

Most of us become skillful at mindfulness of body and feelings but we don’t become skillful with mindfulness of the mind. Particularly on shorter retreats, we do not become skillful in the third and fourth foundations of mindfulness—mindfulness of the mind and the dhammas. Short retreats give us time to calm our minds a bit and we go through the first and second foundations but we don’t really get established in the third or the fourth. Then when we go home and stop practicing, and we have to start all over again when we return for another retreat.

When we are learning to be skillful at something, like putting in golf for instance, we putt again and again and assess whether the energy we have used is sufficient. We then adjust our game and try again. We need to bring that same approach to our meditation. Instead of a forced focus, it is a light attention and full interest in the process. People who cook will know what I mean. How will an extra onion change the taste of this dish? How would it taste if we were to cook the onion a bit longer? How would the taste change if we added soy sauce instead of salt? When we do everything else in our lives, we know how to use our intelligence to figure out how to do something best. Why don’t we do this with meditation? Why do we just blindly follow instructions without getting personally invested and involved? If we get an instruction to focus, we may just start doing it without considering whether it is helpful. We need to assess for ourselves: Is this working? What is the effect? How is it? I want you to open the door to possibilities through your own understanding.

When I first began practicing, my teacher would ask me questions and leave them unanswered. I wanted to know the answers so I would go and observe in my meditation with his questions in mind. As a result, I learned. At first, it was just greed in wanting to know, and that didn’t work! I then learned what did not work and what worked, and slowly found my way. I was fortunate in starting young and having a very good teacher in Sayadawgyi.

Skill and understanding of how to do right practice is very important. When we become skillful at observing all six of the sense doors and really have a handle on it, that’s when we find ourselves confident about practicing at home in our lives. We don’t know what circumstances are going to come up and we can’t predict what people or situations are going to hit us.

I would liken mindfulness to a mother tending to a baby. Having children is a huge enterprise, as all mothers will know. I once observed a mother caring for her two-year-old and saw just how skillful she was with the toddler as he sat on her lap. She held a conversation with four other people while feeding the child. As the toddler moved in her lap, she adjusted along with him, and every now and then gave him some food, and if he didn’t like what she gave him, she would put the piece down and give him a different piece and later on pick up the original piece again to give the child. Sometimes she would eat it herself, always going with the flow, not making judgments of the child. Meditation is like this. We may find it difficult in the beginning to mind what we are doing and be mindful as well but it’s all practice and habits.

Inquiry as a part of practice

If thoughts are too subtle, and you don’t catch the thoughts, then the causes will not show themselves. So there can be awareness and stability of mind, but wisdom is missing from the picture. There needs to be a little bit of inquiry. First, we are mindful of what is happening as we move around in daily life. Then, later on, we’ll begin to notice why our limbs are moving like that. There’s a reason behind it. Whether it’s action, speech or mind, there’s some kind of idea behind these actions. There is no speech or action without some idea fueling it.

Why are you wearing the shirt you are wearing right now? Why did you place your keys, for example, over here, instead of in the corner somewhere? There are ideas in the mind. Notice what is happening. If you are at the point where you can be aware of the mind, begin to pay attention to how it is feeling or what it is thinking. You will then begin to see causes. The mind is knowing, aware and feeling. Pay attention to the mind that wants to do things or that wants something to happen.

These mental intentions are present everywhere in the body. What intentions are you aware of while you are walking? What are you aware of when you are sitting? What are you aware of when you are working? Do you notice the wanting to move? What do you want to move? Every movement involves mental intentions. If you’re moving both arms, there are intentions involved in both of them. You can see these things if you’re watching the mind. What are you aware of while you’re reading this? If you only watch the body, you will not see a complete picture. When you begin to see a more comprehensive picture of how the mind and body are operating, then you will also come to see causes and effects and it becomes very interesting.

Defilements can still enter any time if there is awareness and stability of mind but no wisdom. So, even with the first two present, a little wrong turn in attitude can let in defilements! Fear can arise in just one thought. When you see one complete process, it will also be very clear that there’s no need to go around in circles. The mind understands that because of this thought, this effect of fear happens. A yogi who pays attention to the way these causes and effects work will come to own this knowledge of cause and effect.

When I was trying to understand the emotion of anger, I asked myself whether I was happy or at peace when there was anger. Why was there anger? What was I angry with? When the mind is angry at something, there is some sort of underlying idea in there. The mind is holding onto a certain belief and getting angry over it. As soon as I saw this happening in the mind, the anger just slid away.

Sometimes people don’t even have an idea of what they’re angry about. So many things have accumulated over time that it’s hard to pull apart the strands. It’s all jumbled up. I sometimes ask people why they’re unhappy and they don’t even know.

You have to watch every time anger arises. This anger wasn’t here a moment ago. Look at this feeling very closely. It has something to do with the conditions surrounding your experience at this moment because the mind has certain presumptions about these conditions. Is it a person? Is it something in the environment? Is it you?

For example, people feel that they shouldn’t get angry when they’re on retreat. Anger arises anyway. Now they’re angry that there’s anger! This is possible! Yogis then get frustrated. Sometimes the mind may be in a habit of getting angry at something specific so when this object appears, anger will arise. If you’re able to understand this as a natural phenomenon, then the anger will go down in intensity immediately. How is that? It’s because there is now Right Understanding.

You want to watch and learn what and why something is happening. You want to know why anger is present. Why does this feeling arise? Maybe you are dissatisfied. Why are you dissatisfied? You want certain things to happen. Let’s say you don’t get what you want or what you want to happen does not happen. You want something. Can you just watch this anger? It’s impossible. The anger is going to keep on going. Why? Because there’s some cause that you have not addressed yet. If you want to know the intensity of the anger, you can look to the intensity of the wanting. They are related.

When you have some preconceived notions about something and things don’t turn out the way you wanted them to, anger will arise. Or you may feel justified in being angry over something. You may be relating an event back to a friend and you might say, “You know I really ought to be angry about so and so…” What does this mean? It’s just the mind preparing itself to let this defilement loose. But it’s never good to let anger loose.

Getting in the ring

Now is the time for you to get into the boxing ring. I am the coach but all I can do is yell from the sidelines. For beginners, I’ll shout strategies when you look to me for support. Amateurs will often look to the coach for further instructions while the old hands don’t need to; they can think for themselves and deliver the punch. As a coach, I can yell what I want but you, as the yogi and boxer can only use the strategies you are familiar with. You are the boxer in the ring and you are facing the real deal.

When I practiced at home, I would talk with my teacher once every week or so. If you are practicing at home and do not have anyone to ask, ask yourself the question then set it aside. Later, consider what I’ve said and what the Buddha taught. What have you tried before? What has worked? Should you try one way or another way? Even those who do not meditate will sit down and really think through a life problem if it matters enough to them. The thinking we are referring to with meditation is not just random, abstract thinking but right thinking and use of wisdom.

My teacher never told me not to think. He didn’t exactly encourage me to think either, but he did ask me questions that required me to be aware and to reflect on how I was practicing. I eventually discovered the answers and realized that one finds answers by being aware and by questioning. When you begin with the why, you are already bringing out your internal curiosity and intelligence. You’ll have many questions initially in the learning phase, but you won’t have that many in the wisdom phase. At that time, the mind will be clearer and less cluttered. The student is inside you. The teacher is also inside you.

“If you look after the Dhamma, the Dhamma will look after you”

This work is possible. You need to be patient and work through it for a few years continuously and patiently. You need to taste the full flavors of Dhamma: of knowing, of awareness, and of understanding. You all have to cultivate your own energy and your own wisdom. When you have tasted enough Dhamma, it will lead you along. When I practiced like that, I finally understood the meaning of if you look after the Dhamma, the Dhamma will look after you. Or if you take care of the Dhamma, the Dhamma will take care of you. When you really practice long term, the practice just becomes nature. When the practice becomes nature, it also becomes your nature to understand dhamma nature.