Some of my
Christian friends worry that I’ve gone over to the dark side because I
appreciate, study, and talk a lot about Buddhist practices. The truth is that
mindfulness practice helps me follow Jesus.
In John’s
gospel we read, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” Mindfulness is such a great tool for ‘knowing.’ It doesn’t tell
us what to know, it just develops and
sharpens our perception. It teaches us how
to know. How to see clearly, how to recognize the brain fog, the murkiness
that heretofore has seemed so very, very normal.
Jack
Kornfield, a psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher, has been a huge help in my ‘getting
the hang’ of this process. Below is a good chunk of what getting the hang of
mindfulness is like--from JK's book, The Wise Heart.
---
While
studying Buddhism in college, I tried a little meditation on my own. But I was
unsuccessful because I didn’t know what I was doing. It wasn’t that I was
afraid of silence or of some terrible darkness that I would find inside, though
these are common misunderstandings of meditation. It was that my body would get
uncomfortable and my mind would spin out in a million directions. When I heard
Ajahn Chah’s teaching, the practice became gradually clearer. He taught me to
relax and feel my breath carefully, which helped focus and quiet my mind. Then
he taught me just to mindfully notice the stream of thoughts and sensations
without reacting to them as a problem. This took some practice.
Finally he
taught the most important lesson, to rest in consciousness itself. As his own
teacher Ajahn Mun explains, “We can notice the distinction between
consciousness and all the transient states and experiences that arise and pass
away within it. When we do not understand this point, we take each of the
passing states to be real. But when changing conditions such as happiness and
unhappiness are seen for what they are, we find the way to peace. If you can
rest in the knowing, the pure consciousness, there’s not much more to do.”
Does resting
in consciousness mean we are simply checking out of the world or withdrawing
into navel gazing? Not at all. Resting in the knowing is not the same as
detachment. When I look back at my own life I can see my own struggles to
discover this truth. Because of the conflict and unpredictable violence in my
family, there were many times I wanted to run away but couldn’t. To cope with
the trauma, at times I became depressed, angry, or cynical. But as a primary
protection, I developed the capacity to detach myself from what was happening. Detachment
came naturally to me. I used it to become peaceful within myself and to try to
calm those around me. Of course, these patterns persist, and now I do it for a
living.
So when I
first tried to meditate, I confused it with my familiar strategy of detachment.
Gradually I discovered how wrong I was. My detachment had been a withdrawal
from the pain and conflict into a protective shell. It was more like
indifference. In Buddhist psychology indifference is called the “near enemy” of
true openness and equanimity, a misguided imitation. To rest in consciousness,
I had to unlearn this defensive detachment and learn to feel everything. I had
to allow myself to recognize and experience the feelings and thoughts, the
conflicts, the unpredictability of life in order to learn that I could trust
the openness of consciousness itself. To rest in consciousness is the opposite
of contraction and fear. When we rest in consciousness we become unafraid of
the changing conditions of life.
In the
monastery Ajahn Chah would often notice when we were caught up in a state of
worry, anger, doubt, or sorrow. He would smile with amusement and urge us to
inquire, “Who is doubting? Who is angry? Can you rest in the consciousness that
is aware of these states?” Sometimes he would instruct us to sit at the side of
a person who was dying, to be particularly aware of the mysterious moment when
consciousness leaves and a person full of life turns into a lifeless corpse.
Sometimes he would say, “If you are lost in the forest, that is not really
being lost. You are really lost if you forget who you are.”
This knowing
or pure consciousness is called by many names, all of which point to our
timeless essence. Ajahn Chah and the forest monks of Thailand speak of it as
the “Original Mind” or the “One Who Knows.” In Tibetan Buddhism it is referred
to as rigpa, silent and intelligent. In Zen it is called the “mind ground” or
“mind essence.” Hindu yogis speak of the “timeless witness.” While these
teachings may sound abstract, they are quite practical. To understand them we
can simply notice the two distinct dimensions to our life: the ever-changing
flow of experiences, and that which knows the experiences.
“Who are we,
really?” the Zen koans demand. “Who is dragging this body around?” or “What was
your original face before your parents were born?” These questions force us to
look directly at the consciousness that inhabits our body. Ajahn Chah asked us
to “be the Knowing.” Tibetan teachers instruct their students to direct their
gaze inside to see who or what is doing the looking. Ajahn Jumnian, a Thai
forest master, tells his students to witness all experience as if from the
“third eye” in the center of the forehead. In each of these practices we turn
toward and rest in consciousness itself.
It is as if
we were in a movie theater, completely lost in whatever film—romance,
adventure, comedy, or tragedy—is currently starring ourselves. Then we are told
to look behind us, to find the source. Turning our heads, we recognize for the
first time that the entire drama arises from a series of changing images
projected by a beam of light onto the screen.
At some
moments there are also gaps in the action; the show gets a bit slow, even
boring. We might shift in our seats, notice the people eating popcorn around
us, remember we’re in a movie. In the same way we can notice that there are
gaps between our thoughts, gaps in the whole sense of our self. Instead of
being lost in ideas and the problems in front of us, creating the whole drama
of ourself, there are moments when we sense the space around our experience,
let go, and relax. “These gaps,” says the meditation master Chögyam Trungpa,
“are extremely good news.” They remind us that we can always rest in awareness,
that freedom is always possible.
A boy in
school suddenly notices a sunbeam illuminating the dust and he is no longer the
earnest fifth grader struggling with math. He smiles as he senses the
ever-present mystery and his whole building and schoolboy drama are held in a
silent, free awareness. A woman walking down the street thinks of a distant
friend and for a moment forgets her errands, feeling eternity and her own small
life passing through it. In an argument we stop, laugh, let go, and become
silent. Each of these moments offers a taste of freedom.
As we have
seen, when we first turn to investigate who is being aware, we may feel
confused, like a fish looking for water. We discover that there’s nothing
solid, no one who is perceiving. This is a wonderful discovery. Awareness has
no shape or color. It is beyond presence or absence, coming or going. Instead
there is only a clear space of knowing, of consciousness, which is empty and
yet cognizant at the same time.
As you work
with this inquiry regularly, you can gradually develop the capacity to
distinguish between the events and experiences of life and the consciousness
that is knowing. You learn to rest in the knowing, unperturbed, to settle back
in the midst of any circumstance, even those that are difficult or confusing.
When we
learn to rest in awareness, there’s both caring and silence. There is listening
for what’s the next thing to do and awareness of all that’s happening, a big
space and a connected feeling of love. When there is enough space, our whole
being can both apprehend the situation and be at ease.
