Satipatthana 2 - What Is Mindfulness?

So hello dear friends,

Dear Thay,

Dear Sangha,

Dear teacher within,

Dear teachers of all of our lineages that we carry within us,

The teachers that we are to those who follow us.

We are in the early stages of our exploration of the Satipatthana Sutta,

The establishments of mindfulness sutta or discourse.

And as we were sitting I had an idea,

I want to try crowdsourcing our exploration of mindfulness.

And so I'm going to try something,

I haven't done quite this before but I think it'll work,

Which is I'm going to share my screen and I'd like to invite folks to speak out or I think you can also chat and I can copy and paste them into this doc,

But I'd like us to create our what is mindfulness and what is not mindfulness.

Not as textbook definitions,

But when I say even as we are finishing our sit,

Mindfully opening the eyes,

Well what does that mean for you?

Are there words that resonate,

Are there ways of experiencing something when you know,

Oh yeah,

This is mindfulness.

And then we'll do the same with what is not mindfulness,

But I just want to start in this one specific place.

So I'm opening it up and I would love to hear or read some words,

Some phrases,

No theses needed.

Words or phrases that for you speak of mindfulness.

So bow out,

Please just unmute yourself,

I can't follow all the raised hands in this function.

Doing one thing at a time.

Doing one thing at a time,

Thank you.

Knowing I'm right here right now.

Thank you.

Great.

What does mindfulness feel like for you?

How do you understand it?

Peaceful.

Peaceful.

Okay.

Deep connection to the body.

Thank you.

Deep connection to the body.

Slowing down.

Slowing down.

Great.

Aware of all my senses not lost in the mind.

Thank you.

Feeling grounded.

Feeling grounded,

Thank you.

Yeah.

It's a great list.

Feeling stable.

Stable.

Yeah.

Aware that my perception is a perception.

That's great.

Certain clarity.

Certain clarity.

Thank you.

Connectedness.

Connectedness.

Beautiful.

Noticing.

Noticing.

Great.

Awareness of a thought as it is arising.

Awareness of a thought as it is arising.

Great.

So I imagine that there's more,

But I want to,

Oh Gail,

Did you want to speak?

Go ahead.

Arrival.

Arrival.

Thank you.

And just for fun,

I'd love to hear some things that are tell tales for you of what is non-mindfulness.

Oops.

Rushing.

Rushing.

Okay.

Fantasy.

Fantasy.

Thank you.

Reacting.

Preoccupation.

Yeah.

Lost in a thought loop.

Thank you.

Ruminating.

Ruminating.

Thinking of food.

Thinking of food.

Yes.

Let's get specific with these.

Unattended negative thoughts.

Unattended negative thoughts.

Yes.

Planning ahead.

I'm going to add narrating my life to myself.

I want to say absence,

But then I realized that doesn't sound very specific,

But it's that suddenly realizing that I missed something,

You know,

Sort of wasn't,

Wasn't there to notice.

And it's,

It's a noticing at the end of it.

So it's hard to be specific about absence.

So,

Yeah.

Thank you.

That's that's right on point.

Anything else that's bubbling up?

For either of these lists.

Not being aware of my body.

Not being aware.

Thank you.

And telling stories about myself and others.

Okay.

My shorthand for that not being aware of the body is what body whose body.

Just to add righteousness feeling righteous,

Not knowing.

I'm making assumptions and believing in the beliefs,

I guess,

Or stories.

I guess it has also to do with the absence of curiosity.

Thank you.

So for no mindfulness being consumed by pain.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And not being connected.

Thank you.

Such a list.

So I'm going to stop the screen share,

Just because I feel disoriented not seeing you all.

But I want to start with this version of exploring what does mindfulness mean,

Even though I sent out,

Not even dictionary definitions this week,

But more,

More formal pieces that I sent.

And so,

Just reading.

I just want to read the list,

Doing one thing at a time.

Knowing I'm right here right now peaceful deep connection to the body,

Slowing down aware of all my senses not lost in the mind.

Feeling grounded stable aware that my perception is perception.

A certain clarity.

Connectedness,

Noticing.

We are in this have a thought as is arising and arrival.

Just seeing now that there was other things added in the chat that I couldn't even see versus stopping clearly present embodiment,

Where the present moment paying attention to what's happening right now,

Feeling completely present foot to head present with what's happening right now very alive alert present awareness of sensations calm and grounding.

Okay,

So in hearing all these words.

What is that bringing up in your bodies.

And again,

I can see the chat now so feel free to chat or to unmute and just share obviously doing things a little differently today.

Are you feeling these things just by hearing about them.

It's relaxing.

Relaxing.

Thank you.

I found myself musing about that slowing down fast split.

I know that slowness is usually equated with mindfulness but I have a real question about that.

I also feel most fully present.

When I'm riding my bike fast,

Sort of all attuned to all my senses.

So I just want to sort of flag that one.

Thank you.

Sometimes,

Sometimes I would say,

You don't have to go so to be mindful.

Ty likes to jog sometimes.

He talked slowly but it was really cute sometimes if it rained he'd finish walking meditation jogging and yeah no it doesn't have to be slow.

So,

This second list of rushing fantasy reacting preoccupation lost in a thought loop ruminating thinking of food unattended negative thoughts.

Planning ahead narrating my life to myself realizing that I missed something wasn't there to notice it absence,

Not being aware of body,

What body whose body telling stories about myself and others righteousness,

Not knowing I'm making assumptions believing stories,

Absence of curiosity consumed by pain,

Not feeling connected.

Restlessness,

Tendency to impulsivity non mindfulness distraction.

Do those states feel familiar do they bring something up in you also.

Yeah.

I think one thing that's coming to my heart today as we come into this exploration is how easy it is to notice the pleasantness,

Or to not it but to experience the pleasantness that comes from a lot of these mindfulness states,

And then sort of it gets labeled as good.

And then when we notice and experience these unpleasant,

The unpleasantness of not being mindful.

It can then add this arrow of bad.

And they can.

I mean,

I'm the one who put myself in a monastery for many years,

I came to a point where I was wanting to cultivate mindfulness,

All the time.

And it became this driving this pressure and it became also very dry.

It was it was more mechanical like,

Am I noticing all the senses Am I really doing what I'm supposed to do.

As someone who has taken on a path of mindfulness other people would have a different version.

But I think,

You know,

All the words that were given of what mindfulness is speak to so much more than a mechanical technique,

Then,

Then doing something that's right,

Avoiding doing what's wrong.

But when we take on a practice,

It's easy.

I think people in every tradition in every era who have had any sort of what we could call religious or spiritual practice or community,

At some point,

There comes this.

If we've tasted something pleasant something powerful in the practice there comes this like,

I want more of the good stuff.

And then there comes this,

Oh no wait a minute,

Why am I falling into the bad stuff.

I don't want to go there anymore right.

And we come into our practice with all this overlaying on our experience and not even realizing it.

So what I'm really wanting us to do as an invitation is to,

If reading is helpful for you to just look at this list one more time I copied and pasted what we made together.

Plus there's what people put in the chat or you can just think about it if you don't want to bring in the visual.

And try and see what it's like to read the list of mindfulness characteristics that we cultivated together.

And,

And like,

Hold it with this openness that can appreciate the pleasantness and maybe separate it from a sense of it being right or good,

If that label is,

Or any other label that has been clumped on to it.

Does that make sense?

And then to continue.

So do that for you know,

Minute,

Continue to the non mindfulness list and notice if you have any reactivity any stuff that you have labeled on top of those experiences,

When it comes to your especially meditation practice.

Oh,

You know just notice,

Oh that's here.

So we want to bring mindfulness to our understanding of what is mindfulness and not mindfulness and we're just going to take two minutes in silence.

I'll invite us under the bell when we're done but just go ahead and start any way you like.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So Sati,

S-A-T-I in Pali and Smrti,

S-M-I-R-T-I or S-M-R-T-I depending upon how you write the Sanskrit.

Are what are translated as mindfulness but obviously they're their own words that,

As we talked about last week,

Have been translated many times across cultures and eras.

So the,

The core word itself is often is used sometimes directly as remembering.

But it's not just average remembering.

To stop and maintain awareness of the object is one of the ways that Thay describes it,

And that it's always mindful of something there is no mindfulness without an object.

So that comment about actually the lists aren't so separate.

One can be mindful about all these things,

But if you're when I'm lost in fantasy.

I don't automatically have mindfulness present.

But mindfulness can be brought to any of these states.

Mindfulness is always mindful of something.

In true meditation,

Mindfulness,

The subject and object of meditation no longer exists as separate entities that distinction is removed.

Thay says Thay.

So some people mentioned,

You know,

Feeling connectedness.

That's one way that we experience this softening of the sense of separation.

The distinction is removed when you generate the energy of mindfulness and embrace your breathing in your body,

Because this is the commentary,

Specifically on mindfulness of body that will start next week or the week after.

That's mindfulness of the body in the body mindfulness is not an outside observer,

It is the body.

The body becomes the object and the subject of mindfulness at the same time.

It's not an outside observer,

It's an inside participant.

And so again when people were saying things like awareness of a thought as it's arising,

Like from the inside,

Being present to the whole experience.

The clarity comes from being close.

A separate observer couldn't have clarity right there'd be too much distance,

Aware of all the senses inside the experience.

And Bikunalio likes to bring in this idea of mindfulness or sati as what is otherwise too easily forgotten the present moment.

And when we have this quality of mind of sati,

Then it's easy to remember what happened,

Because we're present and so I like this way he kind of flips it is not so much the act of trying to remember as the state of mind the state of being.

We're remembering as easy because we aren't distracted.

And that shifts the sense of efforting,

It can lessen the sense of effort required,

Even though some effort is needed.

But it's not like holding on remembering it's the showing up,

And then letting the remembering happen is how I understand his flip on things.

And so I have had this simple phrase that I find quite funny from Carol Wilson,

The Pasa Dharma teacher.

She'd like to say,

Mindfulness doesn't care.

It doesn't care what it is being mindful of.

And for some reason that that sort of cuts through some reactivity in my mind sometimes it's like crumbling away and telling stories and I don't care.

But I can't be mindful of this I'm too mad I'm too sad.

My little doesn't care if you're mad or sad it's perfectly happy to be mindful of your sadness.

It's perfectly fine to be mindful of the pain.

And that's actually for me what really resonated in my heart as I was reading these lists and just contemplating the experience of all these,

All these words is what's associated with mindfulness has a lot of spaciousness to it.

There's something that tends to be on the pleasant side,

A contentment that it points to,

In my experience and,

And how much suffering.

There is in the non mindful states,

The,

The,

The dukkha in the sense of a bumpy ride and next week we're actually going to do dukkha to make sure that we have some clarity on this word translated as suffering but it means so much more.

And just this,

You know,

It's so easy to be stuck in states of rushing fantasy reactivity preoccupation.

Oh,

What body whose body so easy to be stuck in those and they feel so real and they often feel necessary or important or they like this just how it is.

And I find that pulling back and being able to come into go like,

Oh,

This is,

This is hard states are hard they,

They aren't,

They lose some of their seduction.

And that inherently when I add mindfulness to any of the unpleasant states,

Even if it doesn't bring a full pleasantness the charge can really change right so there is some of the peacefulness coming in.

And yet if there's an expectation of being mindful means feeling peaceful and happy,

Then we're going to continuously be like,

Wait a minute.

Not feeling great right now.

What's going on and so I just I appreciate everyone's comments and I'm really happy to,

I think next week we're going to crowdsource dukkha to.

We already touched upon it but it's a different way of understanding it right we're playing with these nuances to then bring them back to the whole.

Yeah.

There's an intimacy that gives us spaciousness at the same time for me these,

These two together are really at the core of the mindfulness of my mindfulness practice these days.

And we get even closer and closer,

And it's almost as if something shifts from looking at everything in a Newtonian subject object Newtonian physics kind of way that then suddenly like,

Oh,

Quantum field.

One is within the other they aren't separate.

So the mindfulness can be anything and take us into that field and quite frankly it's often the pain of our non mindful states of our dukkha states.

The dissonance,

The difficulty of them.

And often,

It's required to have some sort of a kick to be like,

Oh,

It hurts.

How can I get out.

And if we have a practice we can turn to it and we actually generate these different states whereas in this sort of neutral mildly unpleasant it's almost easy to float along in them,

And that there's actually a help that comes from the.

So that's what we're going to dive into next week,

The goodness of suffering says Ty,

Which is not about martyrdom.

It's about what we can learn when we're willing to examine everything,

Including dukkha.

It's closing time.

If anyone.

Well,

Yeah,

It's closing time.

Thank you everybody for your practice,

We're going to keep exploring experimenting the formats.

Next week I will be Melina.

I think everyone got the message.

I would carry thank you for joining us however,

Wherever you are,

Thank you for taking care of your mom.

Yeah.

I'm just putting my new website into here.

In case anyone hasn't visited I'll send invitations I'm going to reorganize some of my email communication soon but I'll do a lot of overlap so hopefully no one gets stuck anywhere.

And thank you for practicing.

Wonderful to be together.

And until next time May the goodness of this practice be of benefit to all beings.

Thank you.