Episode Nine - Mindful meditation & Bare attention

This talk is about mindful meditation, what it is and how it is described in the literature of Buddhism - with a particular focus on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness as described in the Satipatthana Sutra. I also discuss the practice of ‘bare attention’ – an approach to mindful meditation associated particularly with Zen Buddhism.

Transcript

First, here’s a provisional definition: mindful meditation is the practice of paying attention without reactive habits and attachments – a process of letting go of our tendency to comment, make judgments and to react in other habitual ways, to our experiences. We can be mindful anytime, anywhere. To be mindful is also to mind - minding, caring for and looking after ourselves, other beings and the environment we all share. Paying attention in this way is to be present rather than absent, here rather than somewhere else – realising our fluid creative nature – a relational being participating in a relational universe. Remember, there is no intention in mindful meditation, other than to just be-here and pay attention – to be fully awake and present, no matter what one is doing.

The purpose of mindful meditation is to change the way we experience in order to alleviate unnecessary suffering.

In his book, What the Buddha Taught, the well-respected Buddhist monk and scholar, Walpola Rahula, has quite a lot to say about the early development of meditation. Rahula distinguishes between two main types of meditation, samatha, and vipassana. The word, samatha, is usually translated as, ‘tranquillity or calmness of mind’.’ Samatha meditation involves the practice of concentration or ‘one-pointedness of mind’ (samadhi) in order to attain calmness and tranquillity, leading up to what Rahula calls the ‘higher mystic states.’ The word ‘samadhi’ denotes both ‘concentration’ and ‘absorption’ – implying that when we focus on a single object or image or sound, we become one with it. Calmness, samatha, arises as a result of the mind turning inwards and being totally absorbed in a particular object of concentration. The most well-known example of the samadhi method is the practice of focusing the mind on the breath – anapanasati meditation. Other examples include focusing on a repeated sound or word or phrase, or an image - a mandala for instance. By practicing this single-pointed concentration, the mind can be disciplined to manifest calmness, peace and other mystic states. The practice of samadhi is very ancient and would have been a very common feature of yoga and other disciplines practiced by religious teachers and gurus at the time of the Buddha.

Rahula argues that ‘All these mystic states, according to the Buddha, are mind-created, mind-produced [and] conditioned. They have nothing to do with Reality, Truth, Nirvana.’ This is quite a bold and surprising statement. Rahula goes on to say that ‘this form of meditation existed before the Buddha. Hence it is not purely Buddhist, but it is not excluded from the field of Buddhist meditation. However, it is not essential for the realisation of Nirvana.’ Rahula reminds us that the ‘Buddha himself, before his Enlightenment, studied these yogic practices […] and attained to the highest mystic states; but he was not satisfied with them, because they did not give him complete liberation, they did not give insight into the Ultimate Reality.’ (Rahula 1974: 68)

While the term ‘Ultimate Reality,’ particularly with a capital ‘U’ and ‘R,’ might suggest some kind of absolute or transcendent reality, I think we can consider this as meaning the reality of this world, as it is now, when we are fully present in it and realising no separation between us and the rest of reality. Rahula goes on to suggest that what marked the Buddha out from the other teachers of his time was his development of another form of meditation – vipassana or ‘insight’ meditation – the purpose of which is to gain insight into everyday reality and to realise our true nature as beings-in-the-world. This is mindful meditation – the practice of paying attention and being fully present. 

In other words, Rahula is reminding us that being mindful is a distinctively Buddhist form of meditation. It is a practice the Buddha developed because he realised that other forms of meditation were less beneficial and less effective in enabling him to live a full and healthy life. Two particular forms of mindful meditation, vipassana and zazen, are central practices within the Theravada and Zen traditions of Buddhism. While vipassana and zazen are concerned with attending to, and fully appreciating, our everyday life-experiences, the earlier forms of samadhi/samatha meditation are concerned with attaining particular states of peace, tranquillity and concentration that are pleasant in themselves but do not necessarily lead to a transformation of our daily lives. It is almost as if one form of meditation transforms the way in which we experience daily life, by being mindful, while the other offers a kind of temporary escape or release from day-to-day experience, at least for a time. In many schools of Buddhism both forms of meditation are taught and practiced. 

For what it is worth, in my own experience, I have found mindful meditation to be the most beneficial in the long term – though I often use the samadhi discipline of focusing on the breath at the beginning of zazen or when my mind is very agitated. Your experience may be very different, and it is only by trying these two forms of meditation for a sustained period that you can establish what is beneficial in the long run, and what is not.

FOUR FOUNDATIONS OF MINDFULNESS

I would now like to say a little more about the history and practice of mindful meditation. The Satipatthana Sutra, is usually considered to be a definitive account of the Buddha’s teaching on mindfulness. This Sutra is located within one of the oldest sections of the Pali Canon – compiled at the First Buddhist Council not long after the Buddha’s death. After this Council the sutras were passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation until they were eventually written down around 29 BCE. 

Contemporary scholars translate, satipatthana as: ‘establishment of mindfulness’ – from sati – ‘to recollect’, ‘to bear in mind’; patthana – ‘setting forth’, ‘establishment’. The Buddha identifies four ‘establishments’ or ‘foundations’ of mindfulness:

1.       Contemplation of the body – centred on breathing, and radiating out to include all aspects of the body, at rest and in motion – “there is a body”

2.       Contemplation of feeling – being mindful of feelings as they arise and pass away, in all their subtlety and variety – “there is feeling”

3.       Contemplation of mind – attending to all aspects of thoughts, imaginings, states, intentions and aspirations that make up our mental activity – “there is mind”

4.       Contemplation of phenomena (sometimes ‘mental qualities) – including perceptions, forms and appearances – “there are phenomena”

The Buddha emphasises that being mindful is bare attention or bare knowledge – nothing more.

At the end of each of the four sections, a particular refrain is repeated (thirteen times).  This refrain includes these four aspects of mindfulness [translation courtesy Joseph Goldstein]:

1.       Contemplating our experience internally, externally, and both

2.       Contemplating the nature of impermanence: arising, passing away, and both

3.       Being mindful enough ‘to realise simply what is unfolding moment-to-moment without mental commentary’

4.       Without clinging to anything that enters our realm of experience.

To be mindful, and to practice mindful meditation, is to put into action this advice. These characteristics are the distinguishing features of mindful meditation – marking out this approach from other forms of meditation. This is not to say that other forms of meditation may not be useful – only that they are different to mindful meditation.

ZEN MEDITATION - ZAZEN

 In the Theravada tradition of vipassana meditation, the above ‘four contemplations’ are often separated out into many strands and levels of mindful practice. In the Chinese Chan, and Japanese Zen traditions, they are usually considered in a unified holistic way as one activity: zazen or shikantaza (‘just sitting’)

As Kosho Uchiyama puts it, in zazen ‘we give up both pursuing thought and trying to chase it away. Then we see everything that arises as the scenery of our lives. We let arise whatever arises and allow to fall away whatever falls away.’ We attend to all things equally (toji), without grasping, interference or self-centred reactions. The thirteenth century Zen teacher, Dogen, writes, ‘Do not think about what is good or evil, and do not try to judge right from wrong. Do not try to control perceptions or conscious awareness, nor attempt to analyse your feelings, ideas, or viewpoints. Let go of the idea of trying to become a Buddha as well.’

Dogen compares zazen, mindful meditation, to the ‘deep blue sky that never obstructs the floating white clouds.’ What is necessary in mindful meditation ‘is to entrust everything to the posture of zazen, letting go of all that comes up without trying to work out solutions for what we should do about this or that.’

The contemporary Soto Zen teacher, Reb Anderson, reminds us of these words of the Buddha’s:

'Please train yourselves thus: In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the heard…. In the thought, there will be just the thought….. When for you, the seen is just the seen, the heard is just the heard, and so on – then you will not identify with the seen, etc. If you do not identify with them…. there will be the end of suffering.' (Loori 2002)

If we let go of the extra layer of comments, judgments and other habits of attachment, and no longer identify with them, we can experience more clearly what is going on from moment to moment. This can be considered as a process of cleansing our perceptions, thoughts, emotions and moods, of the dust and grime that collects on them – veiling the suchness of the world – that is, ‘things-as-they-are’ when we experience life, for a time at least, free of the acquisitive self or ego.

In zazen, and other forms of mindful meditation we let go of, or set aside, the ‘acquisitive self’ – that is, the self that always wants more, that wants to be somewhere else, that would like to be someone else, that wants to be rich, famous, enlightened. The self that is always looking around the corner to see what’s next, or that would like to have something better than this jacket, or idea or moment, or that would like to be taller, smaller, more eloquent or wittier. Letting-go of this always dissatisfied self, even for a short time, can be a joyful, enriching and liberating experience – it can also be challenging and surprising as we revise and remake ourselves moment-by-moment, day-by-day.

To be mindful is to observe and to act as unaffected as possible, even for a short time, by wanting and clinging, by anger and other negative emotions, and by delusion. To be mindful is to notice and set aside preconceptions and prejudices and other attachments and delusions – in order to act in a wise and compassionate manner.

Thomas Merton sums up the practice of zazen in this way:

'Buddhist meditation, [...] above all that of Zen, seeks not to explain but to pay attention, to become aware, to be mindful, in other words to develop a certain kind of consciousness that is above and beyond deception …' (Merton 1968: 38)

Merton is suggesting that if we can see through our usual prejudices and preconceptions, let go of wanting and clinging, and set aside our reactive habits and negative emotions, we are more likely to be able to see and think more clearly, and to act wisely. If we let go of anger and craving, we are more likely to act with kindness and compassion, for the benefit of ourselves and other beings.

Though it may have been given more prominence and value in the Buddhist traditions, the practice of being mindful is also affirmed by some teachers in the Christian tradition. I would like to quote two Christian teachers who have written about their own experience of mindful practice as integral to prayer. The American Cistercian monk, Thomas Keating (1923-2018), writes about Christian contemplative prayer in a way that echoes what I have been saying about mindful meditation:

'The habit of letting-go of thoughts and feelings, which we cultivate in contemplative prayer, is applicable to the whole of life. Before reacting to an irritating noise, or to an interior movement of anger or impatience, you let go of it by paying close attention to what is going on in the present moment. This doesn’t mean [...] that you always renounce your own preferences. It means that your first response is to let go. Then you are free to decide what action to take in the light of circumstances. The point of this practice is to forestall the compulsive habits of our emotional programming.' (Walker 1987: 285)

Another Christian writer, the Benedictine monk, David Steindl-Rast, (born 1926) in his book, The Way of Silence, writes about prayer as a way to develop mindful awareness. For him the spiritual life is to be ‘vital, awake, aware, in all areas of our lives.’ (Steindl-Rast 2018: 59) He accepts that this is ‘a task that is never accomplished.’ In other words, learning to be present, mindful and awake, is a lifelong pursuit – something to be practiced for its own sake, not as an end to enlightenment or becoming a saint. He also goes on to say, ‘God’s inexhaustible poetry comes to me in five languages: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting.’ (ibid. 82) There is no ‘supernatural’ dimension to this experience. For Steindl-Rast, religious experience is rooted in this life, in our daily encounter with this world in all its ordinariness.

Shunryu Suzuki, (1904-1971) the Japanese Zen teacher and author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, reinforces this notion of being mindful as something to be practiced in our day-to-day lives when he writes: ‘Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.’ (Suzuki 1970: 57) Calmly doing things with undivided attention - being mindful - transforms whatever we are doing into a sacred act. A moment to notice and pay witness. A moment to be here, fully awake and alive.

BARE ATTENTION  - attending to what appears

This process of experiencing, free of, or less influenced by, our own prejudices, cravings and delusions, is known in Zen as ‘bare attention’ - a mode of awareness that is developed in the practice of zazen – a form of meditation particularly associated with the Soto school of Zen.

In Zen, the phrase ‘bare attention’ refers to a way of perceiving, a way of being conscious, in which reactive habitual patterns of thought and behaviour are stripped away. In zazen we let go of all the clutter and cloudiness of opinion, commentary, beliefs and value judgments, that usually skitter around in our minds, and which are often hard to control and even difficult to see, they have become so ingrained as habits and ‘normal’ ways of being. What we are left with, if, and when, we are released from these unnecessary attachments and mental activities, is what we might call the bare actuality of appearances – that which is apparent to our senses and minds when our acquisitive reactive habits are set aside as far as possible. This is what in Zen is known as tathata, suchness – what is present, real and actual.

Bare attention reveals a world that is very difficult to describe in conventional terms, it can only be pointed to or evoked in some poetic or allusive way. It is this way of experiencing that so many Zen stories and anecdotes try to invoke. It is summed up in this way in Tilopa’s famous ‘Six Nails’- ‘No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.’ (Watts 1989: 79) In this mode of being we just sit, just walk - we just are. A thought is just a thought. A feeling is just a feeling. A sensation is just a sensation. The crucial word here is ‘just.’ Each thought just arises and slips away. We add nothing to it. No comments, no added judgments or mental wanderings. There is no clutching at what is happening, no clinging or identifying with this thought or that emotion or sound. Instead, we open ourselves to the sheer fact of being here rather than trying to grasp, analyse or conceptualise what it is ‘to be.’  

In the collection of Zen poems and sayings known as the Zenrin Kushu, the following pithy statement points to this uncluttered and unhurried mode of experiencing: ‘Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows all by itself.’ (Watts 1989: 134) Experiencing in this way is to feel the happenstance of events - the endless process of being-here in the flow we call ‘reality.’ This is qualitatively different to unmindful modes of experiencing that are framed and burdened by all the attachments of labels, conventions, preconceptions and value judgments. As the saying goes: ‘When sitting, just sit. When standing, just stand. Above all, don’t wobble.’ This is to be single-minded, unified and present - just here.

This mode of being present, what we might call our Buddha Nature, Zen Mind or Beginner’s Mind, is neutral and valueless. It is neither good nor bad, pleasant nor unpleasant, wonderful nor boring. It just is what it is. We can call it a state of non-duality – as it cannot be contained within the conventions of language or definition. To experience in this way, it is necessary to moderate the wilfulness and self-centredness of the ego and to become attuned to the relational nature of living – this means it is often necessary to unlearn, to break habits of thought, feeling and action and to ‘let things be.’

It is important to keep in mind that all phenomena are transient, everchanging and interdependent. There is no transcendent state unmediated or unaffected by these conditions of existence. We are always seeing things and events from our position as beings in a particular place at a particular time. We can never gain absolute knowledge of anything, in the sense of a knowledge that transcends our position in space and time. But we can try to free ourselves from some of the reactive habits, and the craving and prejudices that cloud our vision and understanding. 

Another way of thinking about bare attention is to consider meditation as being like cleaning the lenses of a pair of spectacles so that we can see more clearly. The lenses become smudged and cloudy as we handle and wear them. This happens so slowly that we don’t notice they are cloudy, and we see the world through this cloudy, smudged glass and think that we are seeing the world as it is – but we are not. By letting go of, or wiping away, the smudges of attachments, opinions, judgments and commentary, we can begin to perceive, feel, think and act more clearly. We can let go of a delusion – that is, the delusion that the world is what we see through these cloudy lenses – and instead come face-to-face with the endless motion and transience of what appears. 

Experiencing the nonduality of bare attention can enable us to see more clearly what to do and how to act. It is then important that our actions, clarified by bare attention, are directed at alleviating suffering – at minding, caring and helping others to be free of delusion. It seems to me that at the heart of the Buddha’s teaching lies the cultivation of clear-sighted, dispassionate awareness directed at wise compassionate action. If we can learn these two practices, we will reduce unnecessary suffering for ourselves and for all beings. ‘Bare attention’ alone is only half of the work to be done. The other half is to direct our clarity of mind towards the alleviation of suffering. By being aware of, and letting go of, anger, craving and delusion, we may be able to act wisely, kindly and effectively.

REFERENCES

Rahula, Walpola. 1974. What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Press.

Steindl-Rast, David. 2018. The Way of Silence: Engaging the Sacred in Daily Life. London: Darton, Longman & Todd.

Suzuki, Shunryu. 1970. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. New York: Weatherhill.

Uchiyama, Dogen and Anderson quotes in, The Art of Just Sitting, ed. John Daido Loori, Wisdom Publications, 2002.

Walker, Susan, ed. 1987. Speaking of Silence: Christians and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way. New Jersey, USA: Paulist Press.

Watts, Alan. 1989. The Way of Zen. New York: Vintage Books.

Goldstein reference: https://www.lionsroar.com/the-four-foundations-of-mindfulness-2/ - accessed 21/10/2018