At home: finding your mind

AT HOME; Finding your mind
1941 words
2 November 2007
Bangkok Post
R11
English
(c) 2007

People search for happiness all their lives and yet it often eludes them. The Lord Buddha laid down a simple path to happiness - the practice of mindfulness - that each of us can easily follow if we put our minds to it. PATCHARAWALAI SANYANUSIN points out some of the first few steps based on her own experiences

'Why was I born? What am I living for? When will my life end?" I believe everybody finds these questions floating in their minds from time to time. The first question is too complicated to discuss and the last is too scary to think about. It might take us a while to find the real purpose of our life, but whatever it is, I'm sure the conclusion will be that it's for one thing only: happiness.

And the next question, why do we want to be happy? That's easy to answer, too. It's because we love ourselves, isn't it? And yet, ironically, while we may love ourselves the most, we're not aware that we're continually neglecting ourselves, too.

All through life we tend to pay more attention to the people and objects around us rather than to ourselves. We are always curious to know about everything but ourselves. And whenever our attention is fixed on others, we forget about ourselves.

"Hardly any of the people in this world are awake," said Phra Pramote Pamotecho, or Luang Phor Pramote, of Suan Santidham in Chon Buri. "We all get lost in the world of delusions all the time."

His remarks caught me by surprise, and at first I told myself I wasn't one of those people. But as I listened further, I couldn't help nodding in agreement.

"Even when we're alone, we are trapped in the world of our own thoughts," the monk continued. "Sometimes we know our thoughts, but often we aren't even aware of what we're thinking about."

Luang Phor Pramote is respected by a large number of dhamma practitioners for his easy-to-understand teaching about the practice of mindfulness. He insists that only mindfulness can pull us out to the real world to discover the truth about ourselves and bring us real happiness. And the more we develop mindfulness, the less suffering we will have.

But what is mindfulness? Most of us think we are mindful people because we know what we're doing, and in the worldly sense, that may be the case. But in terms of Buddhism, this word refers to the right mindfulness, or samma sati, which focusses on the awareness of two things only: the body and the mind.

According to Luang Phor Pramote, being mindful of the body means knowing all the postures and movements the body makes, such as standing, walking, sitting, lying, bending, stretching and the like. Similarly, being aware of the mind means knowing the behaviour, or characteristics of the mind, and any feelings or emotions that arise in the mind in the present moment.

"In short, whenever we are aware of our body and mind at the present moment, it means we have mindfulness," he said.

The monk's words left me totally stunned. I made a quick search back to the past in the hope that there might be times during my three decades of life that I was really mindful, but now I wasn't so sure if there were any.

And I'm certain that I'm not alone; most people in this world are like me. We have lived our lives far from being mindful. We hardly notice our own bodies. Whenever we are walking, our minds are somewhere else. While we're eating, drinking, going to the toilet, taking a bath, our minds are far away from us. Sometimes it seems as if we know the actions our body is performing, but that lasts only a few seconds before our attention moves on to something else.

If we are confident that we know our minds best, we should take a closer look at it. We will probably see that it hardly ever stays with us; most of the time it is wandering. And instead of looking at what our minds are doing, we aimlessly follow our thoughts and get carried away.

You may think you know your own feelings quite well, but are you sure you know them correctly? Remember the last time you were angry with someone? Could you describe your anger? Was it actually the face of the enemy that absorbed all your attention while you were fuming? If so, that means you didn't know your anger at all.

To know it correctly is to see it in your mind, to notice how it feels to get angry. If it's just a mild irritation, you might detect some discomfort in your chest; but if it's rage, you might feel an active volcano inside you.

Here's another example to test how well you know your feelings. I'm sure everyone's had a crush once in a while. But have you ever noticed how it feels to be desperately in love? Of course, you might feel your limbs trembling, your heart racing, your face burning, or you might even feel like swooning when you're near the object of your interest.

But admit it, you didn't really observe those feelings. Either you were struggling to suppress them, or else all your attention was fixed on the object of your love. This is true for everyone.

Even when we're worried, suspicious, fearful, sad, lonely, jealous, bored, lazy, indifferent or happy, we never fully realise those feelings. So what should we do to be really mindful? Concentrate our attention only on our bodies' movements all the time? Stop our minds from wandering away? Or "stare" at our minds in order to detect every feeling that arises?

No, no, no! They're all wrong and impossible to do. Luang Phor Pramote always insists that when practising mindfulness, we have to stick to the number one rule - take the role of "knower" or "watcher" without interfering in any way. That means we don't need to do anything except constantly observe our bodies and minds as they truly are.

The monk also points out two big mistakes that practitioners habitually make. "The first is we tend to forget about ourselves because we become absent-minded and our minds just wander away. The second is that we intentionally concentrate on our body and mind, and this is unnatural."

The first problem is because absent-mindedness is a natural characteristic of the mind. "Our duty is not to prevent it from slipping away. That would be impossible anyway, because the mind is uncontrollable. What we have to do is to detect the activity as often as possible," he explained.

As beginners, we might find it hard to detect this absent-mindedness because all our lives we've been accustomed to losing ourselves in the world of our thoughts. But whenever we can detect them, we will find that our minds stop thinking immediately, and those thoughts in our minds at that moment will disappear. Of course, they'll stop for only a second or two before our untamed mind starts to wander again. But that's no problem; just be aware of it every time it happens.

It's just as easy to solve the second problem. Instead of forcing ourselves to be on high alert to any physical and mental activities in or around us, we should be comfortably aware of them as if we're playing with them.

Luang Phor Pramote also suggests an important method of helping mindfulness to grow in us. "Observe every kind of bodily sensation and mental state as often as possible so that your mind can remember those conditions precisely," he says. In other words, if we can keep detecting these feelings until our minds can remember them, we'll be aware of them automatically when they occur again.

Mindfulness can be practised anywhere and any time, from the moment we wake up in the morning until we go to asleep at night, but it must be practised constantly in everyday life. This might sound impossible to do, and many of us might feel it would be boring and a waste of time. The fact is, though, that mindfulness is the most powerful protection we have to prevent the two enemies that cause all the suffering in life - kiles (defilements) and tanha (craving) - from taking control of us.

Luang Phor Pramote explained that the more we observe the body and mind, the more we will notice their "working process". We will see that our minds have feelings and thoughts all the time, and when we're unaware of them, they will develop into kiles and tanha.

But once we are aware of them, they cannot emerge and take hold of us. Instead, we will feel calm and concentrated and will be able to exercise our reasoning to make careful decisions or to deal with problems with a neutral mind.

This is only one of the initial benefits of mindfulness for those who wish to live happily in this world. It will bring them insight into understanding where their suffering comes from, and show them how to avoid it.

Luang Phor Pramote said that the real objective of mindfulness practice is to make us see the truth that everything that happens in our life is temporal. Happiness and suffering and all kinds of feelings, whether positive or negative, all rise and fall.

"Our bodies and minds don't actually belong to us, or even exist," he said. "We will discover that our body is simply a movable object with substances moving in and out all the time, while our mind can work independently on its own and is not part of the body at all. Both are just things being felt and observed, and are impermanent and uncontrollable.

"At this stage we must observe ourselves constantly until 'our' mind rectifies itself and finally detaches itself from clinging to the body and mind. And this is the end of all suffering."

This might sound a bit too difficult to understand, but I can probably summarise it by saying that the more we watch our bodies and minds, constantly, at each moment, the nearer we shall be to real happiness.

I have no idea how long it will take me to reach that ultimate goal. It may be seven years or seven lifetimes, but this will not discourage me as I'm confident that at least I'm on the right track. Life is uncertain; suffering may knock on the door at any moment. But I strongly believe that whoever practises mindfulness as part of his or her life will be able to survive perfectly in every situation. They will know how to free themselves from the cycle of birth and death, and will know no fear in the last moments of their lives.

Mindfulness practice is about studying the body and mind in the present moment as they truly are, until we have the wisdom to truly understand the real truth about ourselves. It takes patience and perseverance, but it is the most valuable investment in life for everyone, of whatever age, gender, career, nationality or religious belief.

It is guaranteed by the Lord Buddha as the only path to enlightenment. The pity is that so few people in this world can see its value and are willing to follow it - the road less travelled.