Apr 11, 2012 -- 9:50AM, dio wrote:

Would anyone like to talk about mindfulness? What do you say?

I understand it to be that state of mind which lives in the present not muddled by past regrets, future schemes, and associated destructive emotions, the ability to perceive the world as it is without prejudice.

I would say it isn't a bad definition, but it isn't a complete definition. First of all, I would say that mindfulness is a state of being rather than a state of the mind. This is for two reasons. The first is that, in Zen, we don't really differentiate between mind and body, as this is really only a distinction of convenience. So while we speak of disposition of the mind, of the breath, of the body, we understand that there isn't an actual separation. The second reason is simply that mindfulness isn't just about thinking, and it carries through to the entire body, the entire being.

You are correct about the importance of living in the present, being in the moment. However, what the definition also lacks is the concept of awareness. One can live in the present and not be mindful. For example, one can be so focused on doing one thing, like putting together the insanely heavy ferret cage, that everything else gets filtered out. One is very much in the moment of putting the cage together, but one might not have noticed that it is now three hours later and one was supposed to be at lunch with a friend an hour ago. Or one might be very in the moment of listening to one's favorite music, but one has not heard the five phonecalls that have come through from a friend.

You mention the ability to perceive the world as it is withough prejudice. That isn't mindfulness; that is the potential for mindfulness. Technically pretty much everyone has this ability. Part of mindfulness is actually perceiving the world as it is, right now, without prejudice. And while one lives in this moment, part of mindfulness is also being informed by the past and also being aware of future consequences if you have the ability of knowing them. So, while you see a patch of dirt that is a shortcut, you are informed by the past that your neighbor planted grass seeds last week. You are aware of the consequences that you might ruin his grass if you walk across the ground. So you are mindful by seeing the dirt, knowing it is there, knowing what was done with it, knowing what might reasonably happen, and knowing your place in all of this.

As we can see, mindfulness goes far beyond conscious thought.

Here is an example of mindfulness I hope will illustrate:

When I was in college, I was a fire marshal for our dorm floor. My responsibility included pounding on all doors on the floor when the fire alarms went off to make sure people heard it and were up (fire drills and false alarms and a couple of real fires inevitably occurred at night, usually when everyone was asleep. It was not my responsibility to wait for everyone to get out, but it was my duty to give everyone a reasonable chance while still staying alive myself. So, when the alarm went off, it generally woke me instantly, and I came to full awareness about when my feet hit the floor. Now, pretty much on autopilot I threw on a coat, poncho, or other weather-appropriate outerwear ofver my nightgown and put on either slippers or boots. Auto-pilot isn't always a bad thing. Subconsciously my brain already knew what my body would need on this night, informed by the weather of the day before and the feel of the room. So part of me was aware, but as I was not consciously aware it seemed like auto-pilot. Informed by the past but again without having to think about it, I felt the door and door-handle. Cool. And the air tasted fine. So I knew it was safe to go out. Again, this was something I learned in the past, but had become an instinctive behavior that I was aware of but did not need to think about. And yet the whole time, even without thinking, I was focused on everything my senses were telling me.

So then I would go out the door. Somehow I always had my dorm keys. I am terrible about keys, but in this focused, mindful state, I never forgot them. I ran out the door and up and down the hall. This, in some ways, was the hardest part, because I never knew if it was a fire or not, and my own instinct was to just get out as quickly as possible. I made the choice, though, when I accepted the position, to put duty over instinct, and every time I managed to stick to that choice. Only once was there a smell of smoke, but I was keenly aware of it. That was the hardest night, but also the most focused night. It was the night I was keenly aware of the choice I made to duty first.

Oddly, though, after the very first fire alarm, the very first time I was a fire marshal, there was, for me, a sense of calm. It was very intense, and though I know the adrenaline was pumping, I felt calm. So run from door to door, knocking. Check on those doors that did not open. Check with the other fire marshals. Help herd the sleepy and sometimes-freaked fellow-students down the stairs. Make sure they check at the fire doors. Once they blocked the fire doors in a drill to simulate them being blocked by fire. SO get them going all in a different direction. There was no emotion. There wasn't really any "thinking". There was the being in the moment and the mindful experience of it. There was the mindful, aware, focused meshing of "mind" and "body". I just was. I did. I did not. Yet a part of me was aware also of what I had learned in the past and what possible future outcomes co0uld be if I did X or Y instead of Z. There was thought, but it wasn't distinguishable, really, from the doing or the being.

So this is a very intense example of mindfulness. There are other, less intense examples I can think of. It was something I learned to do in those situations. It was something I learned to do during hockey games. And sometimes you have to learn or train individual components of what you are doing to reach a state where you can be fully mindful.

And I think that's one of the important things. Being mindful sounds easy. All I have to do is be aware? All I have to do is not think so much and just be in the moment?

But it isn't easy. It takes practice. It takes training. For me and the fire marshal situation above, I had 12 years' worth of fire drill experience getting out of schools. I learned to react mindfully. I learned fire safety in the Girl Scouts. I had experience functioning in large crowds and was keenly aware that the instinct is to move with the flow. At some point I figured that people in a group would move in a group, and that creatures of habit will go the same way they are trained to go. (I was the one who begged for months for the occasional blocking of fire drill routes to make sure that, in a real fire, people just wouldn't go the way they were used to, or panic when they couldn't.) So it takes a certain awareness of the past and the future, without focusing on or becoming attached to them.

I'm sorry this has been long, so I guess I'll end it here for now.

Apr 12, 2012 -- 6:35PM, dio wrote:

 

Thank you so much. The calm you describe in the emergency is so it. I have experienced this calm when I was a boy. A friend broke through March Ice on a pond. I was totally freaked out until I found a long enough branch with which he could pull himself out of the icy water. I was totally calm while pulling him out of icy death. Mindfulness is like Kant's idiom to do the right thing.

Can you refer me to a comparable Buddhist imperative?

I'm not familiar with Kant's idiom, so I don't know how apt the analogy is. Nor can I refer you to a comparable Buddhist imparative, because I am not certain what precisely you're talking about. If you mean, a comparable imparative to Kant's idiom which you say is like mindfulness, then yes, it would be, "Be mindful." However, again, I'm not sure what you're talking about, so I'd need clarification.

Perhaps, for you, it is.

However, from a Buddhist perspective, mindfulness does not necessarily include "doing" anything at all. Moreover, even when mindfulness includes an action, it can certainly be value-neutral thing. I can be mindful getting dressed in the morning. I can be mindful while looking for the temple's cleaning supplies when we're supposed to be doing "mindful work". (Seriously, I am going to get it for pointing out that the two priests somehow missed the second bucket they were looking for in the closet which was in plain sight.)

I said once that mindfulness and being in the present was the ability to walk through the woods on a path shared by equestrians and manage to both fully enjoy the woods and not step in the horse poop. Is avoiding stepping in poop the "right thing"? Well, yes and no. From an ecological standpoint, which is more beneficial? From the standpoint of the people I will have to ride home with, which is the right thing? And can either consideration really even be described as the "right thing"?

I avoid stepping in poop because I find it unpleasant and distasteful. I eat cereal mindfully because it is more pleasant. I listen to music mindfully because music is something I love. There can be a moral component, yes, but so much of what we do on a daily basis is really neutral in terms of the "right thing".

So, I would not say your definition is wrong, but I would say it is inadequate and incomplete.

sounds good, being in the present moment, but what does that mean?

Howdy dio

Apr 13, 2012 -- 5:25PM, dio wrote:

sounds good, being in the present moment, but what does that mean?

I understand it to be that state of mind which lives in the present not muddled by past regrets, future schemes, and associated destructive emotions, the ability to perceive the world as it is without prejudice.