Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

by Joseph Goldstein

Spiritual ardency is the wellspring of a courageous heart. It gives us the strength to continue through all the difficulties of the journey. The question for us is how to practice and cultivate ardency, so that it becomes a powerful and onward-leading force in our lives.

We can also strengthen the quality of ardor by reflecting on the transiency of all phenomena. Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.

According to the law of karma, the only things that can be said to truly belong to us are our actions and their results; the results of our actions follow us like a shadow, or, to use an ancient image, like the wheel of the oxcart following the foot of the ox.

Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with an impure mind, suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox. Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with peaceful mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never leaves.4

As we’re about to act, or when thoughts or emotions are predominant, do we remember to investigate and reflect on our motivation? Do we ask ourselves, “Is this act or mind state skillful or unskillful? Is this something to cultivate or abandon? Where is this motivation leading? Do I want to go there?”

Cultivating clear comprehension, knowing what we’re doing and why, is a profound and transforming practice. It highlights the understanding that mindfulness is more than simply being present. With clear comprehension, we know the purpose and appropriateness of what we’re doing; we understand the motivations behind our actions.

The more we understand our own minds, the more we understand everyone else. We increasingly feel the commonality of our human condition, of what creates suffering and how we can be free.

Our practice also benefits others through the transformation of how we are in the world. If we’re more accepting, more peaceful, less judgmental, less selfish, then the whole world is that much more loving and peaceful, that much less judgmental and selfish.

The most common understanding of mindfulness is that of present-moment awareness, presence of mind, wakefulness.

Mindfulness also works to balance what the Buddha called “the five spiritual faculties”: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom.

Mindfulness also serves to protect the mind from other unskillful thoughts and emotions. Without mindfulness, we simply act out all the various patterns and habits of our conditioning. Ajahn Sumedho, one of the senior Western monks of the Thai Forest tradition, quite aptly pointed out that, contrary to some popular beliefs, our aim should be not to follow the heart but to train the heart.

whatever we frequently think of and ponder, that will become the inclination of our minds.

“Bhikkhus, when the perception of impermanence is developed and cultivated, it eliminates all sensual lust, all lust for existence, it eliminates all ignorance, it uproots the conceit, ‘I am.’”1

We often miss the simplicity of bare knowledge because we look through it—or over it—for something special, or we look forward in expectation and miss what is right in front of us. There is a story of Mulla Nazruddin, a crazy-wisdom teaching figure in the Sufi tradition. It seems that the Mulla was engaged in trade between his home city and the neighboring country. The customs officials at the border suspected that he was smuggling something, but whenever they examined his saddlebags, they could never find anything of value. Finally, one day, a friend asked Mulla how he was becoming wealthy. He replied, “I’m smuggling donkeys.”

Dry out that which is past, let there be nothing for you in the future. If you do not grasp at anything in the present you will go about at peace. One who, in regard to this entire mind/body complex, has no cherishing of it as “mine,” and who does not grieve for what is non-existent truly suffers no loss in the world. For that person there is no thought of anything as “this is mine” or “this is another’s”; not finding any state of ownership, and realizing, “nothing is mine,” he does not grieve.7

Desirable things do not provoke one’s mind, Towards the undesired one has no aversion.3

“What the world calls happiness, I call suffering; what the world calls suffering, I call happiness.”

“Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine.”

It’s important to understand which mind states are skillful and which are unskillful, not in order to judge ourselves or be reactive to them, but in order to see which lead to happiness and should be cultivated in our lives, and which lead to suffering and should be abandoned. The distinction between wholesome and unwholesome mind states brings a moral dimension into psychology. This is particularly important because these different states are not only arising in our minds, but they are also what motivate our actions.

The Dalai Lama emphasized the importance of this when he said that actions should not ultimately be measured by their success or failure, but by the motivations behind them.

“There is no fire like lust, no grip like anger, and no net like delusion.”

“pulling in, pushing away, and running around in circles.”

Since the kilesas, defilements, are not always present, they are therefore adventitious, which means they are not inherent or innate to the mind; they are not the nature of the mind itself, but are visitors that come at different times due to conditions.

There is a common psychological understanding that those qualities that we’re most reactive to in others are often the ones we have least accepted in ourselves.

“Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease.”

“Better than one hundred years lived without seeing the arising and passing of things / Is one day lived seeing their arising and passing.”

“And one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world.”

“Disquietude is always vanity, because it serves no good. Yes, even if the whole world were thrown into confusion, and all things in it, disquietude on that account would still be vanity.”

“Don’t check. Just go straight.”

“See everything with perfect wisdom. This is not mine, not I, not myself.”

“everything rests on the tip of motivation.”

“Don’t push the river.”

to be realized here and now, timeless, inviting us to come and see, onward leading, to be practiced by the wise.

“Don’t side with yourself.”

“It is the truth that liberates, not your efforts to be free.”

Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us. But as long as we take our deluded thoughts as real, they will continue to torment us mercilessly, as they have been doing throughout countless past lives.

“Thus you should think of this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.”

It is important that these be done with the qualities of interest, willingness, and the courage to explore. It is not a question of “should” or right and wrong.

Investigation of dhammas is the wisdom aspect of the mind, and it means both directly experiencing the nature of phenomena and seeing how this experience correlates with the broad scope of the Buddha’s teaching. For example, through mindfulness and investigation, we begin to see and realize for ourselves what are skillful mind states and what are not. Here, we are no longer working from book knowledge, but rather the wisdom of our own experience.

We can also practice tranquility as we move about. Notice the feeling of rushing, which can happen even in moving slowly, and notice what characterizes that experience. We find that we’re slightly ahead of ourselves, energetically toppling forward. Rushing is a kind of energetic excitability that doesn’t allow for the ease and composure of a tranquil mind.

it is important to remember that the mind can be trained, and the factor of concentration can be strengthened through skillful practice. The Pali word for meditation is bhāvanā, and it literally means “causing to be developed.” Just as our bodies get stronger through physical training, concentration gets stronger through mental development.

“What you are looking for is what is looking.”

“Equanimity” is the translation of the Pali word upekkhā. Although upekkhā has several meanings, here it refers to one of what the Abhidhamma calls “the universal, beautiful factors of mind.” These are a group of mental qualities that always arise together in every wholesome mind state; these qualities include faith or confidence, mindfulness, self-respect, nongreed, nonhatred, and pliancy. Equanimity, as one of these beautiful universals, is the mental factor called “neutrality of mind.” Bhikkhu Bodhi said that the Pali term could literally be translated as “there in the middleness.” Although this is an awkward construction in English, it does convey the balancing power of equanimity. Its characteristic is evenness, and when it is highly developed, it manifests as unshakeable balance of mind. It serves to prevent either deficiency or excess in the other mental factors.

As a solid mass of rock Is not moved by the wind, So a sage is not moved by praise and blame.

“And one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world.”

the value of an action is measured not by its success or failure, but by the motivation behind it.

“All beings are the heirs of their own karma. Their happiness or unhappiness depends on their actions, not upon my wishes.”

“There is no higher happiness than peace.”

“One abides contemplating dhammas [here, the first noble truth] internally, externally, and both.” So we investigate how we actually experience dukkha internally, in ourselves, and externally, in the world.

“Bhikkhus, there are these five themes that should often be reflected upon by a woman or a man, by a householder or one gone forth. What five? (1) . . . ‘I am subject to old age; I am not exempt from old age.’ (2) . . . ‘I am subject to illness; I am not exempt from illness.’ (3) . . . ‘I am subject to death; I am not exempt from death.’ (4) . . . ‘I must be parted from everyone and everything dear and agreeable to me.’ (5) ‘I am the owner of my kamma, the heir of my kamma; I have kamma as my origin, kamma as my relative, kamma as my resort; I will be the heir of whatever kamma, good or bad, that I do.’”