A Million Thoughts: Learn All About Meditation from a Himalayan Mystic

A few steps later, Buddha stopped and slowly repeated the gesture as if there sat another fly on his forehead when in fact, there was none. This intrigued Ananda.

“O Sage, please enlighten me,” he requested. “Why did you wave your hand when there was nothing on your forehead.”

“Listen carefully, O Ananda,” Buddha spoke with his usual grace. “The first time the fly had come and sat on my face, I shooed it away. But there was no mindfulness in that action. It seemed like a reflex action when it wasn’t so at all. From the moment, the fly came to when I shooed it, many thoughts had emerged and disappeared in my mind. I had realized there was a fly, my mind thought to drive it away, it instructed my hand to perform the needful action, my hand did so, my eyes registered the fly flying away, my mind accepted it, and my hand returned to its original position. It was a visceral response. I only became aware of it afterwards. Such conduct does not suit a meditator. A good meditator performs every action with utmost mindfulness.

Therefore, I stopped and repeated the action with mindfulness so I may avoid making the same mistake again. A good monk ought to be aware at all times.”

Every day, we perform hundreds of actions that are neither handled by our intelligence nor intellect. Instead, they are done instinctually. From the perspective of meditation, those reflex actions arising out of our habits and tendencies only show a lack of mindfulness. No doubt, they play an important role when it comes to our survival but most of the time our actions are not as much about survival. They are merely our mindless response. A man was speeding on a windy road in the mountains.

While turning a tight corner another car came from the opposite direction cutting it a little too close. There was a young woman driver in that car.

“Pig!” she yelled.

“You pig!” the man screamed. Enraged and worked up he put his foot on the gas and just when he turned around the corner, there was a sturdy pig waiting for him in the middle. To avoid hitting the hog, he turned bit more to the left and the next moment he was crashing four hundred feet down a gorge.

Our mindless behaviour is the primary cause behind most of our suffering. We end up thinking, saying and doing things that we didn’t want to. Subsequently, we feel guilty. Sometimes we want to apologize but our ego starts to justify our mindless actions. Before we know it we have caused some serious damage to our relationships.

At the heart of any good meditation, regardless of the nature of your meditation, is the art of mindfulness. It is important to point out that mindfulness is not merely ‘awareness’ as commonly understood (or misunderstood). In the context of meditation, mindfulness has a very specific purpose and is of two types, namely, active mindfulness and contemplative mindfulness.

Contemplative or discriminative mindfulness is used to make mindful choices (rather than reacting or going with the first feeling that comes to mind) in ordinary situations in life. This is what most people mean when they talk about being mindful. Contemplative mindfulness is also the basis of analytical enquiry (another term for contemplative meditation).

Active mindfulness, on the other hand, aids a meditator’s concentration to remain lucid, sharp and strong. Its function is to ensure that the mind of a meditator is focused on the object of meditation without getting distracted. Active mindfulness checks the emergence and flow of discursive thoughts. From here on, unless otherwise specified, whenever I use the term mindfulness, please know that I mean active mindfulness.

Asanga’s text Abhidharmasamucchaya explains, “What is mindfulness? It is a retentive power that does not forget something already familiarized. Precisely, its function is to prevent the mind from being overcome by distraction.” The text of Mahamudra by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal goes on to elucidate mindfulness in meditation as “a special kind of mindfulness, and an indispensable means for realizing tranquillity.”

The two other types of mindfulness described before represent discriminating mindfulness, which has a role in differentiating or analyzing things but which must be abandoned in meditational equipoise.

When you nurture and master active mindfulness in meditation, contemplative mindfulness emerges automatically in your daily

life. It is a natural outcome of good meditation. Mindfulness in meditation is not a state of passive receptivity that you are simply observing your thoughts or that you are mindful of what is happening around you, or that even you are mindful of your thoughts in a non-judgemental way.

It is not bare attention.