Mindfulness and Experience

[Photo by Andrew]

Therefore I tell you:
Be humble, be harmless,
Have no pretension,
Be upright, forbearing,
Serve your teacher
In true obedience,
Keeping the mind
And the body in cleanness,
Tranquil, steadfast,
Master of ego,
Standing apart
From the things of the senses,
Free from self;
Aware of the weakness
In mortal nature. [1]

There are many ways in which to live our lives. We can coast through, unmindful, and wake up on our 70th birthday and ask, "Where did my life go?" Another option is to train in mindfulness. But of what benefit is all that hard work? Why not just assume we're saved in the long haul, and go about our merry way? I answer that to avoid mindfulness training is to go through your life thinking about, feeling about, and never experiencing. If someone explains to you what an orange tastes like, that might be interesting, but you still don't truly know what an orange tastes like until you, personally, taste one.

Mindfulness training is like getting an infinite return on your investment. Training to be mindful of each and every thought, each and every feeling, each and every action, knowing their true nature, is hard, and sometimes frustrating. But every now and then you have a moment in which every ounce of your being in present in the moment. You see your surroundings, you hear your surroundings. You feel your surroundings. You fully experience your experience, not just think about it, or feel about it. And in that moment, you know that everything is perfect as it is, because it is as it is, now. That moment is the greatest moment you will ever experience. That experience is an infinite return on your effort. And the more you train, the more you are blessed with these moments.

1-Minute Contemplation: Notice how quickly you think or feel about things instead of experiencing them. Look at a flower. Almost instantaneously for most of us, we start making associations, or remember the roles roses have played in your life. But we almost never just see the rose in front of us—not some idealized rose with attached memories or concepts—but the actual rose right in front of our faces. Just see the flower that presents itself to you.

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[1] Bhagavad-Gita, Trans. by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. 2002.

Technorati Tags: Buddhism, mindfulness, Bhagavad-Gita

Hinduism and Transforming Feelings

[Photo by Claire]

After reading my post on transforming feelings, one might question, "Why is so much emphasis placed on knowing one's feelings and thoughts so intimately?" I've been reading the Bhagavad-Gita, an important book in Hindu religious literature, and came across this verse:

Thinking about sense-objects
Will attach you to sense-objects;
Grow attached, and you become addicted;
Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger;
Be angry, and you confuse your mind;
Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience;
Forget experience, you lose discrimination;
Lose discrimination, and you miss life's only purpose. [1]

This verse traces through the effects of attachment, within which feelings play a primary role. Ignore, for a moment, the final step about missing life's only purpose, and consider the rest of the process. Choose any cherished possesion of yours. Think about it for a moment, then imagine you lost it. What permeates your mind upon losing the item? If you look sufficiently closely, you'll find at least a twinge of anger. It's easy to see that in any state of anger, your mind does not think clearly, awash in emotion. The rest of the verse follows clearly from here.

Looking closely at this process, where can we short-circuit it? Once your mind has reached a non-rational, confused state, it's too late, and your challenge is to plug the dam and regain your sensibilities before you do harm. We also cannot just stop thinking about sense objects. That's like telling someone with a powerful fear of snakes to hold a python for a minute and not be scared. Just as phobias are so deeply ingrained in our minds, thinking about sense objects in a manner that leads to attachment is also so ingrained.

Where does that leave us? At feelings. The initial impulse of feeling response indicates to us that the process is underway, and at this point, it is not yet so strong as to end our ability to discriminate. Of course, this won't be easy either, but it is the only link in the chain with which we can truly work directly. And working with such, we can stop the process from overwhelming us. The bonus is that as we work to discover the true nature of our feelings and their causes, we begin to see the attachment for what it is, and learn to deal with those opening links in the process indirectly through the gateway of feelings.

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[1] Bhagavad-Gita. Translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. 2002.

Technorati Tags: Buddhism, Bhagavad-Gita, Hinduism, feelings, mindfulness