The Four Foundations of Mindfulness – Kaya or Body
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, USA, Santa Cruz, September 8th 2002, Tape 1.
The Pali word sati, which is usually translated as mindfulness, has the original meaning of “to remember”. So the problem is that we forget. What do we forget? We forget where we are and what we are doing. We forget what is happening in this moment because we are so carried away with all our thoughts about what happened yesterday or what is going to happen tomorrow; all our daydreams, our judgements, our memories or just the endless mental pressure which is going on the whole time: the outer and inner commentary. We forget where we are and what is actually happening in this moment. So mindfulness means being full of mind, mind in the sense of being present and knowing what is happening as it happens without all the commentary and judgement which usually go along with it.
Now, this quality of being present is a very essential component of every Buddhist path—Theravada, Chinese, Japanese or Tibetan. At the heart of all Buddhist practice is this quality of being present and aware of what is going on both within us and outside. A pure knowing that is without commentary, judgement or criticism. In the Zen tradition there is much emphasis on being mindful through flower arrangements, tea ceremonies, the rituals, how we enter, how we bow, how we sit: it’s all an aid to being present.
Sometimes in the beginning, especially as foreigners, when we come into a society which is alien to us, like the Zen tradition or Tibetan tradition with different cultural norms, we are so busy trying to remember which foot to put forward or how many times we are supposed to bow, and how we should sit, that the mind seems more busy while we are trying to remember the protocol and worried that we are going to goof up! But once one learns that the routine, we can relax and just be with it. It’s like learning to play an instrument: in the beginning all our fingers are hitting the wrong keys and it sounds terrible. But as we keep practising, gradually the music takes over and we are not conscious of the effort of playing because the music is flowing through. Likewise in mindfulness, at the beginning it feels awkward, but as the mind becomes accustomed then one’s actions become natural and spontaneous, and the mind learns just to be present with what is.
Usually in the Tibetan tradition they emphasise becoming conscious of the thoughts. However the Buddha even 2,500 years ago compared our minds to a waterfall so what would he say of nowadays! Perhaps it is easier to start the practice of Mindfulness the traditional way that the Buddha explained, which was to begin with the body, since that is more material and apparent than the mind. So the Buddha said, “When you are sitting, you know you are sitting. When you are standing, you know you are standing. When you are walking, you know you are walking. When you are lying down, you know you are lying down.” It is that simple. But the fact of the matter is that normally when we are sitting we are usually thinking of a thousand things, and the one thing we are not conscious of is the fact that we are sitting—unless we get uncomfortable; then we move around. When we are walking, our minds are filled with thoughts of the past or the future but we are not conscious that we are walking.
So therefore in the Zen tradition there is a lot of emphasis on sweeping and on doing ordinary things with clarity. The whole point of performing actions in this formal way is just to reconnect the awareness with what is actually happening in that moment. Because that is all there is and the rest is just mental interpretation. We are so carried along by our thoughts and our dreams and our judgements and our commentaries, we are not even conscious of how little we are actually connected with what is happening. If something happens and then a while later everybody gives their version of what occurred, it’s very often as if they’re all describing different events! But of course one knows that one’s own version is the real one!
Now, obviously the Buddha started with the body because the body is something that—to our unenlightened consciousness—seems solid and real, and which we identify with very strongly. We identify with our gender, our age, our race, our nationality, our appearance. Therefore we start from the physical because it is something quite coarse and easy to catch hold of. This is a skilful way to train the mind to be present; to see things as they really are and not in accordance with our judgements and our distorted perception.
The Vietnamese master Thich Nhat Hanh gives a good example of what we are talking about here when he talks about the difference between washing dishes to get clean dishes and washing dishes just to wash dishes. Now even those of you who have dishwaters can relate to this. Washing dishes is an example of any activity which we undertake. Now, most of us when we undertake an activity it is for the sake of the end result. It is not for the sake of the activity itself. So therefore while we are performing that task, the action in itself is of little relevance. The important thing is the end result. So Thich Nhat Hanh takes this very simple example of dishes.
Normally when we have a pile of dirty dishes our intention is to wash them so then we will have a pile of clean dishes and we can go on to the next thing. Therefore while we are washing the dishes, we are thinking of a thousand other things—the one thing we are really not thinking of much is the dishes. Maybe we are thinking of what somebody said to us earlier today and what did they really mean; or an email which we received and what was the underlying message… or we are thinking, “Now, when I go shopping, I must remember we are out of pasta, and what kind of cheese would be best?” Or we are rehashing our favourite daydreams, or thinking, “Goodness, look at my hair! I better get it cut again.” Or we are planning, “Oh, after I finish this I must have some of that great chocolate cake!” Whatever we are thinking about, the dishwashing is just an onerous task we have to get through before we can get on with the next task.
So then we wash the dishes, and now we have clean dishes. Okay, then we sit down, we have made the coffee, we bring out the chocolate cake. Maybe with the first gulp of coffee we think, “This is really good coffee, I should get some more. Yes, I must put that on my shopping list,” and then the mind is off again thinking, “Oh, this evening these friends are coming around so what to give them?” Or, “Wow, I notice there is this good show on television tonight, we must remember to watch,” or whatever. Anyway, the coffee is forgotten, we are drinking it but we are no longer even conscious of tasting. It is the same with the chocolate cake. The first mouthful, we like it, we don’t like it, we compare it with every other chocolate we ever ate… and then the mind is away again and the rest of the chocolate cake, where did it go?
And our whole life is lived like that. It’s only when we try to develop mindfulness that we realise the extent of the problem. We never live. Occasionally we wake up and then we are back in our dreams again. Criticising, judging, comparing, thinking, remembering, anticipating, everywhere but here and now.
But there is another way of washing the dishes and that is to wash dishes just to wash dishes. That means when we are washing the dishes, we are just present. We experience the feeling of standing at the sink; the feeling of the water and the soapsuds and dishes. We are conscious of the hands moving, we are conscious of each dish. It’s more tricky than it sounds and I am sure those who have Zen practice and Theravadin practice have realised this, because there is also a part of our mind that says, “Oh, now I am being really mindful. I don’t know why they make such a big thing about being mindful. Here I am, I am really being mindful, I am washing the dishes and I know I am washing the dishes… blah, blah, blah, blah.” It’s actually quite a challenge just to be, just to have a mind which is centred on what we are doing without commentary. To be mindful without thinking, “Now I am being mindful.” But if we can do that, even for a short time, then it’s not only the dishes that are cleaned, our mind is also cleaned. The mind feels refreshed and alert; suddenly things become more clear and more bright. And so when we sit down for that coffee, we experience the coffee as if it was the first cup of coffee we’ve ever drunk—or herbal tea. It would be organic coffee of course!
So it’s this quality of being present. Knowing when we are sitting we are sitting. When we are standing, we are standing. This quality of just being in the body. In other words not thinking about it but knowing the body in the body.
Now, one of the aids to helping us to connect with our body and to learn how to be present is of course the training in how to be conscious and mindful of the breath. The breath is a very interesting physical phenomenon because it’s the bridge between the body and our mind. Fortunately we don’t have control over our liver functions and the kidneys and intestines and the heart, which are operations carrying on automatically. But the breath is also an automatic function, we don’t have to remind ourselves to breathe, we just breathe. If I ask you to hold your breath, you could do it easily. If I told you all to breathe much more quickly, you could do it. So it’s like we are on automatic pilot but we can immediately change over and become manual if we want to.
More than that it’s very intimately connected with our mental state. When we are angry, when we are fearful, when we are passionate, when we are peaceful, when we are depressed, when we are happy, the breathing mirrors our mental state. That is why when we sit and use the breath as a focus of meditation, as the breath becomes slower, of itself the mind quietens down. We don’t have to consciously breathe slower or more deeply. It will naturally reflect one’s mental state and as one’s concentration deepens, so the breath becomes deeper and slower.
The other good thing about breathing is that we are always doing it. And we cannot breathe in the past, we cannot breathe in the future, we can only breathe now. So therefore when the mind is consciously linked with the breath, the mind is present. Since we are always breathing, it is a quick and easy way to bring ourselves back into this moment. So in all Buddhist traditions there is an emphasis on learning how to work with the breathing. It is really a simple technique that essentially anybody can do but it leads to many levels of profundity. We don’t have to be great yogis or advanced practitioners to be able to look at the breathing in and the breathing out. It is a very easy way to become focused. The mind is both gross and subtle at the same time. So we start off on the superficial gross level, aware of the in-breaths and the out-breaths. Then, as the breath becomes more delicate, the awareness also becomes more subtle and that leads to ever-deepening levels of consciousness. It’s a very skilful method.
One of the problems that one encounters is that most people in the Western countries have some work, they have family, they have relationships, they have children, they have a social life. Maybe some of you here are full time hermits. I don’t know why people think being a hermit is not also in the world! But anyway, the fact is that most people have careers, families and relationships, and keep up a social life. But at the same time they sincerely want to practice the Dharma. One of the advantages of being born in the West—there are some advantages—and one of them is that you are living in an affluent society. That means you usually have shelter, you have clothing, you have food. Of course many people in your society don’t have much, but everybody who could afford to come here has all that.
We all know people who live in beautiful homes, with wardrobes full of clothing, refrigerators stacked with food, everything which from an Asian point of view would belong to the god realm. And yet still inside there is this sense of lack. Now, if any of them has any intelligence they will realise that the inner sense of emptiness—not in a positive spiritual sense but as a feeling of want—cannot be filled up by a new car or a bigger television or the latest programs for their computer. This is where you have the advantage, because if one has never had those things then there is always the idea at the back of your mind that maybe those things could really bring happiness. The possibility is always shimmering out there, like a mirage. But in the West, because you have been brought up in affluence—by Third World standards you are affluent, even though you might not think so—so as I said, you are living in a god realm here.
Therefore you have the opportunity to understand that acquiring more and more things is not going to solve the basic problem. This is a direct experience, not just something you have read in a book. That is your one big advantage. As the Buddha himself said, desire and greed is like drinking salty water. We can drink the whole ocean and we will still be thirsty. Now, we can read that but when we have experienced this, that’s a very different thing.
So this interest in the West in spiritual matters is a positive thing, provided one doesn’t regard spiritual interests as just another acquisition. The spiritual path is the path of commitment, total commitment. It’s not something to just do on weekends as an alternative to going out to the beach or partying. If one wants a real inner transformation, one has to work for it. Just as if you want to be a genuine musician, you have to train. I have friend who have a teenage son in Tasmania, an island off the south of Australia, and since he was very young he wanted to be a guitarist so he studied classical and Spanish guitar. He’s just a teenage boy, yet he practises between eight to sixteen hours a day. Now his family are not even particularly musical and don’t pressure him at all. He disciplines himself. Why? Because he really wants to be a musician. He will go over the same run again and again and again. He doesn’t get bored, he doesn’t get tired, because he’s totally committed to being a first rate guitarist, not for fame, not for glory but because he loves the music. So how many of us has that kind of commitment to the spiritual path? We want to be enlightened but at the same time we also want fun. Which is not to say that enlightenment is not fun! As he is playing the guitar, he loves it and he doesn’t see it as penance. Only as a joy.
Likewise our practice should be a joy. Just recently someone said to me, “I am going to be doing a three year retreat, do you have any advice?” So I replied, “Enjoy yourself!” Because if one loves what one is doing, then one does it whole-heartedly. I was living in a cave because I couldn’t think of anywhere nicer to be. I stayed there because I was so happy, not because I was trying to rival Milarepa or sort of flagellating myself as a penance. People look from the outside and say, “Oh, how difficult!” but from the inside perspective the external difficulties were irrelevant compared with the inner advantages and the joy I had. So our spiritual practice should be a delight even when it’s boring, even when it’s difficult, even if our knees ache, our head aches or we think, “How much longer?” Still in the depths of our hearts there is a delight in what we are doing. It has to be a commitment from within.
That’s why this whole question of mindfulness is so important, because it’s something that we can incorporate into our daily life. Whatever our lifestyle is, we can integrate this quality of being aware. As we learn more and more how to be conscious in the moment, then even in the midst of tremendous chaos—sometimes especially in the middle of great chaos—suddenly there is tremendous clarity. This clarity, this being present, grows with practice.
In a way that’s also what meditation is about, it is the formal time when we learn how to practise being present: the relaxed and spacious mind which is at the same time centred and conscious. It’s not a spaced-out mind… Of course you already know this, but it certainly doesn’t mean waltzing around on a bliss cloud! However, the mind should remain relaxed and not tight. Sometimes when people engage in formal practice they are trained to be conscious of everything: “I am intending, reaching, reaching… touching, touching…” Sometimes for a short period of time this method helps because we get familiarised with the process, but to do that the whole time, makes the mind very tight and rigid.
Once I went with a friend in Thailand to visit a Western monk who we had known. He was sitting there and moving very slowly, so it was an extremely forced and difficult conversation as he was speaking very, very slowly. So we terminated the meeting rather soon and said, “Well, goodbye, nice to see you, hope to see you again sometime.” And he replied, “No, do come back.” We said politely, “Yes, of course.” And he insisted, “No, no, I really mean it. Next week come back, promise!” So we agreed and then we went back and he was fine again. It was obvious that he had been doing some practice where he had been told to be very, very slow, very, very careful and we just happened to hit him at that point.
So the thing is that there are times to be very precise but generally speaking it is better to learn how to keep the mind open, spacious and relaxed but at the same time extremely conscious and centred. So we practise. We keep practising and practising. We have to use our whole life as our practice because that’s all we have got. This is it. It’s no good dreaming of the perfect situation with everything absolutely exquisite, surrounded by great Bodhisattva friends, no problems, no thoughts of money or health, being able to completely merge effortlessly with the practice at all times. I don’t think that’s ever likely to happen anywhere, even the Buddha had problems with his community, so what to speak for the rest of us? St. Francis of Assisi actually split with his own organisation. He left them at the end and said, “You guys have your ideas, I have my ideas. So you get on and do it the way you think best. I’ll go on my way and good luck to you,” and he renounced his order. So even with a saint in their midst it was not a perfect Sangha.
We all know the Buddha founded the monastic Sangha and gradually laid down 253 rules for the monks and 364 for the nuns. So why were these rules formulated? Because some of the monks kept getting into mischief and then the Buddha had to say, “No, you can’t do that!” At one point, Shariputra says to the Buddha, “How is it in the beginning we had no rules and we all kept such perfect discipline. Now we’ve got so many rules and we are so busy breaking them?” So right from the time of the Buddha there were problems living together as a community in the world. But this is how we learn and how we grow. Learning how to become adults instead of a bunch of spoilt little children requires practice, requires a method.
One of the principal methods given by the Buddha, which is applicable to everybody whatever our belief system or tradition, is to learn how to be conscious and aware in the moment. And the Buddha recommended starting with the body. So knowing the body as it moves: we can all be conscious as we are walking down the road, driving the car, sitting at the computer, as we are talking. First, we can be conscious of the posture of the body, how we are sitting, is the body tense? Is the body relaxed? A while ago in Delhi, across every red stop sign was written in big white letters the word “Relax”. So every time we come to a stop sign, it can be like a wake-up call: where is the mind at this moment? How is my body positioned? Relax, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.
Throughout the day whenever we recall—because remember the word mindfulness really means “to remember”—so when we remember, we can be conscious. What is the body doing in this moment? How are we sitting? How are we standing? And when we do any action, even very simple actions like cleaning our teeth or brushing the hair, we can use those actions as a method to train the mind to be present: just comb the hair to comb the hair. Brush our teeth to brush our teeth. Not thinking of anything else, just experiencing the moment. Again, it’s like learning to play an instrument, we start with very simple scale exercises and in the beginning our fingers hit all the wrong keys and it sounds terrible. But if keep repeating the exercise, over and over, gradually the fingers know where to go. We don’t even have to look at them anymore, our fingers know. Then the musical pieces get more and more difficult until, when one is really a musician, the player drops away and the music plays through. I remember speaking with a number of professional musicians who agreed that the real point was not to think about the mechanics of the music while playing it, just allowing the music to flow through. In that case the last thing wanted is to be suddenly aware of the fingers because then it becomes self-conscious. But it takes a lot of effort to become effortless. And we have to start by being aware of our fingers. We are not all going to be Yehudi Menuhin. Even Yehudi Menuhin had to start somewhere. He had teachers and tuition. He had a method and he practised and practised endlessly. So if we need so much practice to become a golfer or football player or a runner or a musician or an artist, how much more do we need practice for the discipline of transforming our heart-mind?
Somebody asked the Dalai Lama, “What’s the quickest and easiest way to become enlightened?” That had to have been a Westerner, I am sorry. And His Holiness said, “Since the age of six, I have really applied myself to the Bodhisattva path, and I hope that in this lifetime I have made a little bit of progress. But we cannot even think in terms of one lifetime, we must think in terms of aeons.” And His Holiness put down his head and wept. Then he said that his great inspiration was the story of Milarepa. Does anybody not know who Milarepa was? Well, Milarepa was a great yogic practitioner of the 11th century in Tibet and one of the founding fathers of the Kagyupa Buddhist tradition, and he was very famous for living his whole life in caves. Anyway, Milarepa had an important disciple named Gampopa who was a scholar and to whom Milarepa passed on all his teachings. One day Gampopa was leaving and turned to say goodbye. Milarepa called him back and said, “No, I have to give you my final teaching.” And so Gampopa asked, “Oh, should I make an offering?” and he said, “No, for this teaching you don’t need to make an offering,” and Milarepa turned around and he lifted up the white cotton robe that he wore and he showed the calluses on his backside which had come from sitting so many years on hard rocks and he said, “That is my most profound teaching to you: practise!”
So in the West there is a difficult situation, because on the one hand there is this hunger for real spiritual meaning but yet there is so little time for formal practice. Most people are not willing or not able to give up everything for the sake of devoting themselves to full-time practice. That’s why this teaching on mindfulness is so important because it is something that we can incorporate into our daily life. It’s not just a matter of sitting on our cushion. Sitting on the cushion helps us to learn how to connect with the awareness but then we need to take the awareness and integrate it with everything we do in our daily life. This is what is called “mindfulness”.
So we have to use mindfulness in everything. As the Buddha said, it is like salt in all the curries! In our family, in our relationships, in our work place, in our social life, everywhere: to really try to be conscious and not give energy to all the background mental chatter, the commentaries and criticism and judgements and memories and hopes and fears. So what we are talking about is being grounded, because truly Buddhism is very grounded. It’s grounded in the here and now. Everything we do, if it’s done with awareness, can be a practice. However, that does not mean that if you rob a bank with awareness that’s a Dharma practice! Or if you beat up your wife mindfully, that’s okay! Later, when we come to the mind and the mental states, we will deal with that more.
Mindfulness means being conscious but also conscious of right activities. The foundation of Buddhism is the five ethical precepts which means not taking the life of any being; not stealing or taking possessions of others; using one’s sexuality in a way that does not exploit others and to be responsible so as never to cause harm to oneself or to others, physically or emotionally; and to be truthful, but also to use one’s speech skilfully so it’s not just truthful but is also kind and helpful; and then because Buddhism so emphasises clarity of mind and being the master and not the slave of our mind and our emotions, then prohibition against alcohol and drugs or anything that alters our mental state so we are no longer in control.
So these basic ethical principles are taken as it were almost for granted when we are dealing with mindfulness. So mindfulness means acting consciously within a positive state of mind. If you are robbing a bank or beating someone that is not a positive state of mind: that is a mind filled with greed and desire or aversion and anger, so that doesn’t count as mindfulness from a Buddhist perspective.
It doesn’t mean that we all have to walk so slowly, like a zombie, although that can be helpful at the beginning to connect with the body, but later on one can act and move like a normal human being! But it does mean that while we are walking we know we are walking. It is as simple as that. Every action which we do, either we are present or we are not present. That’s all. Either we know or we don’t know. And once we begin to get this sense of presence then the mind of itself begins to transform. We don’t have to do anything to make it transform apart from acquiring this sense of presence. And we start by connecting with the body, knowing the body in the body.
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May All Beings Benefit
Sarva Mangalam