This week a friend wrote me wanting to know more about mindfulness. And last week I left you all hanging with the six sense spheres - the five senses plus the mind - and the teaching, “In the seeing is just the seen. In the hearing, it just the heard.” So I thought it would be fun to connect the two.
So first what is mindfulness? A great question for those newer to meditation and a good review for more experienced folks. This is the definition of mindfulness according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder, developer, and scientific observer of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
Mindfulness is paying attention in an intentional way
to your present moment experience
without judgement.
There are a number of different elements to note here: First is paying attention in a certain way, with intention. What is the object of our paying attention? Our own experience in this present moment. Not in the future although your imaginings of the future as imaginings of the future are fair game. Not in the past although your memories as memories (as I am having a memory) are also fair game. And all this is without judgment - without pushing away a thought because we don’t like it or we think it’s a wrong thought, or trying to bring up a pleasant or worthy or “mindful” thought. Accepting what ever experience is arising in this moment and looking more closely at it.
Some meditation teachers say you don’t need to add the “without judgement” piece - because mindfulness by definition is without judgement. But we in the West can pay attention with judgement as is our habit pattern and not even be aware that judgement is present. So it’s a good practice to check.
Thich Nhat Hanh says mindfulness is shining a light on our own experience. In the “Introduction" to his book The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, he writes:
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
So let’s take an example of how we can practice mindfulness of our own experience. I have a bird feeder hanging from my deck. If I hear an unusual bird call, I often stop to see if I can see and identify the bird. So hearing happened. Then arose the desire to see and identify the bird. First I was aware of hearing, then the mind added curiosity and the desire to see.
If I’m sitting in meditation and hear the bird call, I hear the sound. Then I identify the sound as belonging to a bird. Then I might notice that I like the sound and want to hear it again. Now I’m desirous of hearing the sound, leaning forward in my mind to will the bird to sing again. And now I’m aware of a slight dissatisfaction that the bird is not singing and also that I’m caught in wanting the bird to sing.
So mindfulness allows me to hold the sound of the bird, the images of bird that arose, the question of what kind of bird, the desire to hear more bird, the awareness that I am caught in desire to hear more bird, and then perhaps the letting go of the wanting and feeling the difference between wanting what I can’t control and letting go. So mindfulness took me from the sense sphere of hearing into the perceiving capacity of the mind, into thoughts and images in the mind, into feeling the pleasure in the bird call and seeing the pleasure turn to desire/wanting/craving and slight suffering. And then the waking up to the mind caught in desire and letting go, feeling into the freedom of just being mindful without wanting.
As we have been studying the Four Foundation of Mindfulness, let’s look at the experience of hearing the bird call through those foundations. The first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body - hearing the bird with the ears. The second foundation is feeling - the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling that arose as soon as I heard the bird sound - in this case, pleasant. The third foundation is mindfulness of the mind and seeing how the mind wanted to identify the bird, then wanted to hear more bird, then ruminated about why the bird was suddenly silent. The fourth foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the way things are. I might bring mindfulness to the impermanence of a bird call, it arises and passes away. Then I notice I have no control over when the bird sings or even whether I hear it or not. Hearing happens, singing happens. No “I” in there making it happen. Then I notice that because it is impermanent and because it is not under my control, there is suffering. Pleasant things go away too soon and “I” can’t make them stay or come back to my liking.
The three marks of existence of insight meditation are an overarching truth. Every experience is “marked” by impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self. And mindfulness took me all the way there.
So we come back to the teaching: “In the seeing is just the seen. In the hearing is just the heard. In the sensing is just the sensed. In the cognizing is just the cognized.” How does this profound teaching relate to mindfulness?
The Six Sense Spheres, part of the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness, "the way things are", are a model for how we experience the world. Every experience we have comes in through one of the sense spheres - the five senses plus the mind.
So can we imagine sitting in meditation and hearing a bird sound and allowing that experience to be on its own, without embellishing it, thinking about it, trying to control it? We may also be aware of the pleasant feeling tone that arises with the bird sound. Can we just say, hearing, hearing. And maybe pleasant pleasant…
This requires us to become more aware of the pleasant before it turns to wanting or craving, and to be aware of the flood of thoughts on the brink of washing over us before they get a good foothold. With practice, we can spend some time in our meditation practice simply allowing the hearing - just the hearing - without encouraging the craving and thinking. In Buddhism it is sometimes referred to as “not taking up the sign.” We can practice not taking up the signs of the bird call sound (it’s identity, our perception, our thoughts, etc.) or if some of them arise before we become aware of them, we can also practice abandoning the “signs” of the bird call. In the hearing is just the heard.
And the second part of that teaching which was to a seeker named Bahiya who traveled many miles to learn the path to freedom from the Buddha, is as follows:
“And since for you, Bāhiya, in what is seen there will be only what is seen, in what is heard there will be only what is heard, in what is sensed there will be only what is sensed, in what is cognized there will be only what is cognized, therefore, Bāhiya, you will not be with that; and since, Bāhiya, you will not be with that, therefore, Bāhiya, you will not be in that; and since, Bāhiya, you will not be in that, therefore, Bāhiya, you will not be here or hereafter or in between the two—just this is the end of suffering.”
This last part is deep and a little opaque depending on the translation. But basically the teaching is about our tendency to make everything into a subject-object relationship, “I" am seeing that “bird." I am the subject. Bird is the object. "In the seeing is just the seen” cuts through this mind-made subject-object relationship and cuts through our illusion of a solid sense of “I” seeing and appropriating “bird.” There is just bird being seen. No one is “doing” the seeing. When our eyes alight on bird, seeing happens. When our ears are stimulated by a bird sound, hearing happens.
It is often said that the Buddha was practicing mindfulness of breathing when he was enlightened. You can get a glimpse here of the journey that mindfulness can take us from our illusions, our suffering, our sense of I, our sense of objects being permanent, to clear vision and seeing things as they are, to freedom from suffering.