Mindfulness

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” - Rumi

Last week we looked at samskaras, memories which in yoga philosophy are described as impressions left over from a previous experience that have a strong influence over us due to the strength of their emotional “charge”. Samskaras are deeply ingrained, creating mental ruts that keep us trapped in unhealthy thinking patterns. The first step in releasing their grip is to notice the pattern, which we can do by inserting a pause between stimulus and response. This pause is where we find our freedom, for it is here where we can choose how to respond, by either following along in the mental rut or creating a new path. And herein lies the work of loosening the grip of samskaras, for the choice is rarely an easy one and can take a lifetime to refine.

As we discussed last week, our mental ruts and their associated afflictions (kleshas) are messy business. They create the swinging, whirling, and churning thoughts that create so much stress in our lives. According to Patanjali, this is the source of human suffering, and the eight limbed path outlined in his Yoga Sutras is the solution to our suffering. The ultimate goal of this path is to arrive at a state of balance, one of union and connection with the universe which releases us from the pull of the kleshas. The Yoga Sutras are, essentially, Patanjali’s step by step guide to practices that are based in what we now call mindfulness. The first word in the Yoga Sutras is Atha, which is Sanskrit for “now”. From the start, Patanjali tells us that a yoga practice is a mindfulness practice, starting with paying attention to the present moment.

Mindfulness is a concept that has gotten significant attention over the past several years. It has become a brand (Mindful Tea), a magazine, a board game—it’s even a gift set. The word is now woven into our lexicon—I heard a politician, his voice infused with hollow sympathy, state that he was “mindful” of people’s suffering, right before he voted down aid for pandemic relief. But what is mindfulness? According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, the architect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, mindfulness is a collection of different types of formal meditative practices aimed at helping us “drop into the moment”. Jack Kornfield, a well-known Buddhist Psychologist, states simply that mindfulness is “nonjudging and respectful awareness”. And mindfulness is not a new concept. Many cultures and spiritual traditions have promoted mindfulness as the path to liberation for thousands of years. Buddha was perhaps one of the most famous advocates of mindfulness, stating that it was the only elixir that can offer protection from suffering.

According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is, first and foremost, a practice. This implies that it has a structure and necessitates a commitment of time and energy. People initially turn to meditation as their first step in mindfulness training, and many do so with the intention of reducing stress, becoming calm, and finding peace. They are in for a shock. The first time most people meditate they either fall asleep, or cycle between agitation and boredom. Any time the body becomes still, such as when we sit for meditation, the mind starts to race ahead, jumping into an endless stream of thoughts filled with expectations, evaluations, commentary, and criticism. The longer we sit still, the more agitated we become as our knees and back ache and time seems to crawl along. We keep looking for the bliss, but we can’t feel our breath, can’t settle our minds, and slip into a deep well of frustration. Then we get angry at someone or something, feel agitated, and decide that we just aren’t cut out for meditation. This is why meditation apps such as Headspace and Calm have skyrocketed in popularity—they provide pleasant distractions that take the edge off the practice of sitting, focusing on the present moment, and being still. If meditation were easy, we wouldn’t need apps, would we?

However, these moments of judgment, frustration, and agitation are far from being signs of failure. Rather, they are the very moments that are ripe for a practice of mindfulness, for it is in these thoughts and our reactions to them that we learn to open to our experience without judgment and expectation. This is the messy stuff that becomes the rich soil in which mindfulness starts to grow. These are the experiences that become our teacher.

Learning to “drop into the moment” with non-judging and respectful awareness is the starting point for changing thinking patterns. Buddhist psychology has an acronym that can help us with the process of mindful transformation—RAIN--which stands for recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-identification. Many prominent Buddhists--Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield are two well-known specialists--have written extensively about these transformative principles, so I suggest you refer to their work for further study. But for our purposes tonight, we’ll start with recognition. To change patterns that get us stuck, we must develop a willingness to see what is really happening. It starts when we step out of denial, accepting and then naming what we are experiencing. When we truly recognize what is real, we create a powerful opening that moves us from delusion toward freedom.

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Recognition shines a light on the insanity, acting like a good friend who taps you on the shoulder, asking gently, “Hey, what’s going on here?” It reminds us to pause, to notice, to see the reality of our experience in the here and now. When we feel frustration at a coworker, irritation with a friend, or sadness about our children, recognition asks us to notice, to acknowledge those feelings, and to welcome them into our hearts like a dignified host, even though our first instinct is to push them away. The Buddha tells us that taking the first step of recognizing is like lighting a lamp in the darkness. It allows us to see what is so.

As Jon Kabat-Zinn stated, there are different types of formal practices that can help us be more mindful. Like the mindful transformation of RAIN, a yoga practice can also bring us into the moment as we hold poses and notice their effects on our breathing, our body, and our thoughts. Think of how your attention shifts into the present when you are coming close to your edge in a pose, how you carefully control your breath, and try to stay focused. We can use mindfulness to deepen our practice by watching our thoughts as we struggle in a challenging pose, asking ourselves, “What’s going on here?” when we notice frustration, disappointment, boredom, or irritation. Just as we welcome our bodies onto the mat, we also welcome all our feelings and thoughts, recognizing them, and letting them be part of our practice with nonjudgmental awareness. By staying with those feelings, we notice how they influence us and, in doing so, start the process of unraveling the influence of the samskaras.