Datasets:

carecodeconnect

/

jhana-sentences

like 0

But by understanding robes to be representative of clothing in general and the bowl to stand in place of any tool to be used, the description can be related to lay practice as well.

Clearly knowing has its foundation in the presence of mindfulness.

It is only when we are aware of what we are doing that we can do it clearly knowing.

The activities described are going somewhere and looking at something, moving our limbs in one way or another, wearing our clothes, eating and drinking, defecating and urinating, going to sleep and waking up, even talking and being silent.

Clearly the exercise is meant to embrace all possible kinds of situation.

In other words, any situation or activity can in principle become food for mindfulness and clearly knowing.

When turning around to look at something, the Buddha is described as turning around with his whole body, similar to an elephant.

This exemplifies wholehearted dedication to an action.

Can we eat with our whole body Can we obey the calls of nature with our whole body Bringing this fullness of being into any activity has considerable potential.

It makes us become more alive.

We learn to cultivate the subtle joy of being fully in the present moment through such embodied mindfulness.

Waking up in the morning, we can start right away by being aware of the whole body.

Before getting into any other activity, we take a few moments just to be aware of the body lying in the bed.

Getting up then involves the other three postures, where from lying down we proceed to sitting, standing, and then walking.

In this way we can begin the day with a check-in on whole-body awareness in all four postures, which will enable us to continue the day with a good grounding in embodied mindfulness.

Having established such a foundation, it becomes easier to return to mindfulness throughout the day until the time comes to rest again.

At that time we proceed through the same four postures in reverse order walking to reach the bed, standing by its side, sitting down on it, and eventually lying down.

All of this can be done with whole-body awareness, until we fall asleep.

Probably the most challenging of the activities mentioned in the passage above is talking.

The mind can get so active and involved in these activities that we easily forget about mindfulness of the body.

Whole-body awareness can in principle remain present in the background of any activity, including even the most heated discussion.

Nevertheless, a heated discussion is probably a rather challenging situation and not the best place to get started with this type of practice.

It would be preferable to bring mindfulness gradually into daily activities and situations, in order to avoid frustration arising and undermining our dedication to this crucial dimension of the practice.

The outside world offers us a testing ground where we can check on and mature the insights gained in formal meditation.

We need to avoid creating a rigid division between formal meditation and ordinary activities.

But this testing ground in the world outside is better not seen as a sort of exam which we pass or else become an utter failure.

Instead, it is preferable to visualize it more as a playground where we can try out different tactics to see what works for us.

From this perspective, it simply works better if we approach everyday situations with a relaxed inner smile, considering whatever occurs as a chance for testing out different ways of being with sati.

In order to get started, we might just try to be mindful, from time to time , when hearing or reading the communications of others.

Hearing or reading are in themselves more passive activities and therefore more easily amenable to being combined with the receptive and non-interfering attitude of sati.

Grounded in whole-body awareness, we try to remain balanced and aware of what others are expressing.

Every moment we are mindful is a gain, as in this way we have taken another step in the right direction.

No need to berate ourselves for those moments when mindfulness was lost.

Distraction and getting caught up is a natural tendency of the mind, but every single step taken in the other direction will slowly weaken this tendency.

Experimenting for some time with adorning our lives step by step with the beauty of moments of embodied mindfulness will yield plainly evident benefits in our ability to understand and interact better with others.

We also become better at distinguishing between what others express and how this comes to be coloured by our own commentary on it, how our biases tend to interfere even when just hearing or reading.

This in turn makes us notice how our own mind wants to react.

With the growth of this understanding we in turn feel sufficiently fortified to extend the practice further, by trying to be with mindfulness even when we are actually reacting, be it by writing a message or by saying something.

When moving into this more challenging arena of what is yet another dimension of our meditative training, it can be helpful to take a conscious breath that reconnects us with our bodily experience before we begin to write or speak.

Hardly noticeable to others, such brief reconnection with a mindful grounding in the body can serve as an inner switch to get our meditative attitude in operation.

This meditative attitude can turn any experience, be it at the workplace or at home, into an integral dimension of our progress on the path.

Gradually cultivating this ability eventually provides a strong anchor it can offer a powerful grounding to face any type of challenge with sati.

Her presence will make sure that we stay balanced and centred, helping us to take in fully the relevant information before reacting and enabling us to keep monitoring how we react, noting any loss of balance along the way.

Whenever we forget about sati and get caught up in some sort of distraction, what is required is just a moment of smiling recognition.

smiling realization that the mind has wandered away is quite adequate.

But here is our good friend, sati , right here patiently waiting for us to come and be with her again.

And being with her is so pleasant, so calm, so spacious it is just much more attractive than any kind of thought, reaction, or daydream we could entertain in our mind.

With this type of attitude we learn to practise mindfulness of the body with wisdom, knowing very well that it would not be skilful to get tense with the idea must be mindful of the body without any interruption whatsoever.

But our volition operates within a wider network of causes and conditions.

It can influence things, but it cannot control them completely.

Applied to the experience of distraction, our responsibility is to set up the intention to be mindful and return to that intention whenever we notice that mindfulness has been lost.

With that much we have fulfilled our task.

If nevertheless the mind is totally distracted, then that is because of other causes and conditions impacting on the present situation.

On realizing this, we come to appreciate that the best goal to set ourselves is a harmonious balance between our effort to live in the present moment and the natural resistance to that from the tendencies in our mind and from outer circumstances.

Instead of the unreasonable expectation that all such resistance should be annihilated once and for all in order for us to qualify as a good meditator, we inhabit that harmonious balance, where recognition of the manifestation of any resistance is met with the smiling effort that is just sufficient for gently coming back home to the here and now.

In this way, instead of turning the cultivation of mindfulness into a stressful and demanding chore, we see sati as a good friend to whom we return, with whom we like to spend as much of our time as possible.

Such returning to mindfulness again and again can become a practical expression of the notion in the discourses that the four satipahna s provide a refuge within.

Embodied mindfulness cultivated in this way does indeed provide an anchor and a refuge throughout the entire day, right up to the moment we fall asleep.

It can be there with us right away again the next morning as we wake up.

She is always there with her beautiful qualities of receptivity and acceptance, allowing our mind to be broad and spacious.

Firmly grounded in the present moment, we can be aware of anything that happens from the vantage point of resting in whole-body awareness.

The nuance of an anchor or a grounding through mindfulness of the body comes to the fore in a simile that describes six different animals that are bound together.

Each of the six animals struggles to go off in a particular direction.

The strongest one pulls the others along until it gets tired and another one takes over.

This illustrates the fragmentation of our experience by way of the six sense-doors as long as mindfulness of the body is not established.

We keep getting pulled here and there, depending on which sense-door has for a moment gathered the greatest strength to take us along.

However much the six animals struggle to go off in one direction or another, due to being bound to that strong post they will no longer be able to pull the others along.

Sooner or later, they will give up pulling and just sit or lie down beside the post.

This illustrates the power of mindfulness of the body.

It enables experiencing what is agreeable and what is disagreeable at any of the six sense-doors without getting pulled along.

Such ability is particularly crucial for dealing with everyday-life situations.

It can be quite tiring to hold the leashes of the six animals.

It is more sensible to establish the firm post of mindfulness of the body to take care of the six animals.

In this way we can avoid being worn out by them.

During actual practice we just come back to the sense of bodily presence, to proprioceptive awareness, as soon as we realize that we are getting pulled along.

In preparation for challenging situations, we make sure first of all that we are aware of the presence of our body.

From the vantage point of embodied mindfulness, we become able to face challenges well.

This reflects the protective dimension inherent in the establishing of mindfulness.

The centredness that results from this form of practice comes to the fore in another simile.

This simile describes a person who has to carry a bowl brimful of oil through a crowd.

The crowd is watching a dancing and singing performance by a beautiful girl.

Picturing this simile in the ancient Indian context, imagine that the person is carrying the bowl of oil on the head and that the members of the crowd are trying their best to get really close to the dancing performance to see it well, perhaps even moving to and fro in time with the music.

The swordsman is ready to cut off the carriers head as soon as even a little bit of oil is spilled.

To survive this challenging situation, the carrier has to be very careful not to get distracted.

Mindfulness of the body provides the centredness that it takes to survive even the most dangerous and challenging situation.

In line with the image of carrying a bowlful of oil on the head, the sense of bodily centredness can be experimented with by, for example, carrying a thick book around on our head.

Fortunately nobody will cut off our head, should the book fall to the ground.

key aspect of the potential of mindfulness of the body is the providing of a type of anchoring that ensures the continuity of mindfulness without introducing too strong a focus.

This is the advantage of whole-body awareness over a form of mindfulness that takes a narrower object, which can easily result in too strong a focus and thereby in losing awareness of the overall situation.

The ocean includes all of them.

The same inclusiveness comes about through mindfulness of the body.

In a similar way, mindfulness of the body can function as a wide-open container for the various rivers of our activities.

It can do so by providing a central reference point and support, without interfering with the activity we are engaged in.

It also helps to string together whatever we do into a continuous practice, when all our activities take place in the company of our good friend, mindfulness of the body.

Her presence is the one taste that can come to pervade all our practice and activities.

The ocean has a single taste, which is the taste of salt.

Similarly, continuous establishing of mindfulness of the body can lead to all of our experiences acquiring a single taste, the taste of progress to liberation.

Another simile compares mindfulness to a capable charioteer.

Just like a good driver, we learn to steer the vehicle of our activities through any kind of traffic without running into an accident.

The Kyagatsati-sutta illustrates the ability to avoid such an accident, which would be equivalent to falling into the hands of Mra, with several similes.