Buddhist professor THICH NU TINH QUANG : RIGHT MINDFULNESS (samyak-smṛti / sammā-sati)

Thich Nu Tinh Quang

The Mindfulness includes four foundation of mindfulness (Pali: satipaṭṭhāna, Sanskrit: smrtyupasthana); that means to focus on body, feelings, mind and objects; four places to cultivated by mindfulness to get rid of delusion, distinguish from thinkings (awareness of impure body, awareness of distressed feelings, awareness of impermanent mind, and awareness of selfless objects). Basing on Right view, and depending on the stages of the practice through four foundation of mindfulness, we gain wisdom in differences; Buddha said: "Monks, there is a path to practice that make living beings to be pure, overcoming sadness and woefulness, removing pain and anxiety, reaching the truth, and entering in Nirvana; which are the four foundations of mindfulness.”[1]

As the previous stage of eightfold pass, ‘right mindfulness’ (samyak-smṛti / sammā-sati), which also called ‘perfect awareness’, applies to meditation (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi) division-the presence of consciousness in all circumstances. In such case, it assumes high level of self-control over thoughts and body.

Unlike the usally thought, people think they are aware of themselves and their actions as the fullest extent; however, this is often not the case. For example, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book “Introduction to Psychoanalysis”, he pays special attention to the little mistakes that are taking place in our everyday life due to various small errors that occur with us every day. More precisely, he is looking for the reasons, which cause mistakes we used to make every day: for example, in our speech by oral or written, sometimes we make mistakes when we cannot clearly make out somebody’s words or incorrectly reading written words perceiving wrong information, or sometimes even inadvertently replacing some words by the other ones, cases of short-term temporary forgetting of names or concepts, or temporary loss of any items, and so on.

According to Freud, all those accidents are happening not by chance, but what they really are is a consequence of actions of our subconscious basing on our ego-which is feed upon our fears and passions. The subconscious may well deliberately displace any information from our minds or distort it according to its ‘own’ interests. Therefore, our desires often guide our way of thinking and feeling, and not vice versa, as is commonly believed. Right mindfulness teaches us how to purify our minds from unnecessary voices and forms, and helping us to determine which of the ideas come from what motives and to get rid of unnecessary ones.

As long as ‘right mindfulness’ is a step of the seventh level, it could be truly reached only with sequential process all previous stages which it is already quite a challenge; more precisely, as it had serious preparation before, this part in other sense, is a consequence of the implementation of the previous ones.

In Buddha’s words, ‘right mindfulness’ is:

‘There is the case where a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself - ardent, alert, & mindful - putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in & of themselves... the mind in & of itself... mental qualities in & of themselves - ardent, alert, & mindful - putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. This is called right mindfulness…’[2]

Thus, we see that in order to achieve this state, it is required to achieve great success in the performance of the previous stages. The emphasis is not on the fact of what the person has refused, or from how much negative biases person has cleansed, as it accepted for example in Christianity, but on what person has achieved through this; once again reminds us that the Buddha only showed us the direction which we should follow, so everyone should pass this way by himself. As the mindfulness encompasses many spheres of life, it can be divided into several sections, depending on whether specific sphere it influences, and vice versa.

In such case, for example Sangharakshita defines the following four levels of awareness, using differentiation principle, depending on the object of attention, for our better understanding of the whole concept: ‘awareness of things’, ‘awareness of self’, ‘awareness other people’ and ‘awareness of Reality’.[3]

‘Awareness of things’

In today's world, we have forgotten how to pay attention to many wonderful things, paying to them surely not enough attention, misunderstanding them, and often forgetting about their essence. The forgetfulness always happens, in the modern world, people have no time and no wish for concentrating on them.

Considering any item, often we do not perceive it in its pure form as required by the Buddha’s teaching. Nowadays, awareness became particularly noticeable due to an all-out industrialization with its crazy rhythm of life, from which we seem so hard to escape. Living in such a rhythm, people often think that the Right mindfulness is seemingly impossible and totally ‘irrational’ to waste time on it. The philosophy of the modern world encourages us to consume the goods (as much as we could, or even more) without thinking about their essence, leaving no time for it, imposes on us the superficial desires, and hiding the Truth.

For example, the majority of car owners in the world do not know how to drive their car at all. Only a serious failure could get them to find it out. Most online sites or computer software users are further away from the desire to analyze anything, because even in case of serious failure the solution of these problems does not require their direct participation. It is worth remembering that above-mentioned things were created by humanity and requires more logical interpretation than ‘understanding’ in the Buddhist sense, the achievement of which is much more complex and difficult, but as people say ‘longest way round is the shortest way home’.[4]

Awareness of things derived inside seeing: when we look at the workings of all things and situations in the presence of right mindfulness, we have accurate and deeper understanding any things; they cannot drag us along their spiral. The presence of Mindfulness is 'seeing phenomena as they are’, so we can solve our problems in clinging on them; therefore, our mind would free from the eternally changing of phenomenon.

‘Awareness of self’ - Awareness of the Body and its Movements

Also, the Buddha has often reminded us pays much attention to the realization of the Body to its movements and the processes taking place in it. Many processes in our body are taking their place without our attention and awareness: for example, many people have a habit of nervously biting their nails, or clicking with their joints, or winding long hair on the fingers at every turn; such things are considered some kind of a stress level indicators. They are usually referred to neurotic disorders that often caused by stress. And, as it known, the first step to treat such diseases is to diagnose them.

However, this things are just floating on the surface; if we look a little deeper, we will undoubtedly realize that there is a huge amount of actions and processes in our bodies eluding our attention: we always fall asleep and wake up, we eat food and we drink, we blink with our eyes, we breathe, and our internal organs are working without interruption. In such case, we have to train our mind in perceiving both internal and external worlds.[5]

The best way to aware our body is meditation practicing because it is much easier obtained when the body and mind are fully relaxed. However, this should not be limited only with meditations, it is necessary to try ourselves in awareness using every movement of our bodies, focusing on each individual case, as much as possible. The Buddha says: ‘he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or externally on the body in & of itself, or both internally & externally on the body in & of itself. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to the body, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to the body, or on the phenomenon of origination & passing away with regard to the body. Or his mindfulness that 'There is a body' is maintained to the extent of knowledge & remembrance. And he remains independent, and unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself’[6], and then he also gives more specific guidances, saying that everyone should be aware of the position of his body, for example when sitting or lying down. It is necessary to strive for the awareness of every process in our bodies, as when we eat, or when chew it, just when we looking back on the street. More simply, the movement of each and every muscle in the body should be aware of.

Nevertheless, this is only the most obvious things. It seems to be impossible to understand all processes inside of us, without realizing of what causes them. Thus, to appreciate our bodies, we have to know of which parts they composed at least. As the understanding and close relationship with our own bodies allows us to understand the people and nature around us at a much higher quality level, and then suddenly would allow us to interact more productively with the entire world. This also applies in the reverse order – watching other people, we can better understand ourselves because many things are visible only in this way.

‘Awareness of Feelings’

The awareness of the feelings takes no less importance because being aware of sensory reactions of the organism to help us in achieving skillful emotional states. The Buddha greatly simplifies the determination of the senses, and highlighting the most important criteria: 'painful feelings', 'pleasant feelings' and 'neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings'; the manifestation of each of them has more important characteristics: ‘of the flesh (carnality)’ and ‘not of the flesh’ as well.

Following the manifestations of our feelings and emotions, we could learn to control them, becoming less dependent on factors of the external world, constantly distracting us. Such way of controlling feelings also helps us to track the causes of negative 'painful feelings' and 'pleasant feelings' and to get rid of them gradually.

The negative 'painful feelings' and 'pleasant feelings' of carnality: for example, feeling of happiness when putting our back on a newly purchased bed, and feeling of sadness when the bed no longer beauty and softness, or feeling very light when we drink, and feeling depressed when we drink too much. The positive 'painful feelings' and 'pleasant feelings' not of carnality: for example, feeling of peacefulness when our mind is less afflictions, or meditating in a quiet place, and feeling sad when we see someone oppressed by others etc ...

‘Awareness of Thought’

The thinking process of an average person has no direction. Oftenly, thoughts seem to come from fiction, then creating constant noise in head. The brain of present-day human used to take a huge amount of information coming from all sides. We often do not even realize that this noise could force us to think about anything.

Before we perceive any kind of information, it extends through many ‘filters’ consisting of our beliefs, knowledge, experience, and of course, of the other opinions-many of whom are hardly trying to impose on us their vision of the situation. In more plain words, it works as censorship, but on a much deeper level. It happens very often that we do not attach much importance to the fact of how many of these ‘filters’ our idea passed through previously. Of course, that raises a lot of questions of the following type: ‘whether it is our thoughts at all?’; ‘Is it our reactions?’; ‘Whether our desires are real?’; ‘And whether it is our solutions?’; ‘Or they imposed by someone or something from outside?’ (Sangharakshita) Understanding of such things is clearly what the ‘awareness of thought’ is helping to figure out our positive thought.

‘Awareness of People’

The interaction with other people is very important for Buddhism; another important component part of the 'right mindfulness' is an awareness of other people. Usually, other people are perceived by us, as a kind of external objects that just have more features compared to the other objects. It is often difficult for us to imagine that every person on the Earth planet just thinks and feels in almost same way; everyone has his or her own feelings and needs, plans and ideas, fears and passions, which were based on the same principles from over the ages. As mentioned above, ‘awareness of people’ will help to establish communication, transferring it to a new level and completely inaccessible without doing it. Seeking and reaching such understanding of each other will make people being able to communicate on a truly new level, providing better support to each other, to cease any provoking of unnecessary conflicts, and avoiding any misunderstandings.

‘Awareness of Reality’

The fourth and last level of awareness, where people can stay at, and which the Buddha's teachings lead us to - is the ‘awareness of reality’. As it can be seen from above, each of these levels requires more and more complex processes leading to the full 'right mindfulness'. As the first step required awareness of material objects, of nature that surrounds us, and all the things that we have somehow come across. The second step requires much more efforts – to understand ourselves as creatures that are made of flesh and blood, but at the same time has the ability to think and feel. The third step requires us to awareness of others - expanding the scope defined by the first two levels (Sangharakshita). The fourth level - 'awareness of reality' is considered the most difficult to achieve because it brings together three previous, more expanding them, spreading the awareness on the whole Reality, awareness of each individual part of this reality, and of each their interactions.

"In Buddhism, practicing Mindfulness of reality is awareness of what to be here, and we can select any mindful object for ourselves. We can observe a flower, clouds or our breath. The energy of mindfulness involves concentrate energy. When mindfulness and concentration have strength enough, we have the vision of wisdom. "We understood the nature of what is here; we breakthrough into the nature of reality.”[7] Awareness is what right here, and right now that not on wishful thinking or future dreams. The Mindfulness is embracing reality, and reality is no longer divided by duality, and birth and death are seen in the interrelated ongoing.

In addition, the often practices of Mindfulness have more beneficial effects to health. A new study by scientists in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reported the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body after a period of mindful practicing.

The study examined the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, and compared to a group of inexperienced subjects. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a wide range of differences in genes and molecules, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which correlated with the physical recovery faster from a stressful situation.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice." (Richard J. Davidson)

"Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs." (Perla Kaliman) - The study was published in the Journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

The Mindfulness is capable of healing the mind and body; when Mindfulness is present, reality is realized in the dependent arising, not bound by dogmatic thinking, or clouded by ego. At here the door began to open freely.