Cultivating Mindfulness
Planting flowers and other plants bring beautiful rewards. Watering, cultivating, and caring for plants can be loving, compassionate meditation. But, what do we do when weeds begin to grow in our lovely flower boxes and gardens?
There is a very Western erroneous habit associated with meditation that views mindfulness as an end rather than a means. There are immense benefits from training in mindfulness, don't get me wrong. However, many American meditation teachers don't instruct on the importance of understanding cause and effect, often simplified as "karma." Perhaps the reason is an attempt to avoid sounding religious, or perhaps it's an indication of the teacher taking on an instructing role prematurely, not having completed training in meditation.
Like the flower box or garden, life always gives us a bunch of weeds that we just don't like. They are unsightly, and they sap the resources of the flowers. To leave the weeds in the box or garden, no matter how much we train our sensibilities to find beauty in the weeds, they'll eventually ruin our gardens. It is the same with negative situations for which the flower analogy is intended.
No matter how "in the moment" we are with our bills, with our relationship betrayals, with our anxieties, they can and often do bring more suffering. If mindfulness alone was the pinnacle of Buddha's teachings he wouldn't have had to teach 84,000 unique instructions. He would have encouraged a zoned-out bliss. But just like weeding the garden, Buddha taught about cause and effect, how planting the right karmas (causes) bring about the intended effects and ceasing bad actions eliminate unwanted results. In other words, no matter how much mindfulness you practice you won't become a doctor without going through medical school.
A murderer can be "in the moment", competently aware of what he's doing. A burglar can pay attention to the details of his victims possessions as he shoves them in his bag. Though in English we would call this way of paying attention to our current thoughts and actions as "being mindful," it's really not the same as the mental activity needed in meditation. The kind of mindfulness being taught in the West is called ཡིད་ལ་བྱེད་པ། (yila je-pa), which means "paying attention." And though everyone benefits from paying attention to what they're thinking, saying, and doing, དྲན་པ། (dren-pa) is a tool of memory used to train the mind.
The western understanding mindfulness alone is not some magic activity that taps the brain into a universal super computer of morality. Mindfulness coupled with training in cause and effect as well as compassion teachings tunes us into what seeds that bring about flowers (good results) we've planted and how to pull the weeds (causes for future unwanted experiences) from our gardens.
The Four Noble Truths tell us that
1) unenlightened life is suffering,
2) all suffering has causes
3) there IS freedom from suffering and
4) there are paths/practices that lead to the freedom of suffering.
Mindfulness tunes us into the suffering we experience, and with proper focus we can analyze what causes created that suffering. Skipping to the fourth Noble Truth, when we change or eliminate the causes that brought about that suffering, the suffering ends. It becomes a TRUE cessation when we thoroughly eliminate the causes that produce that suffering and the specific suffering never returns.
If, for example you have a habit of lying, in time the result of others not believing what you say will arise. Dealing with your lying habit doesn't mean that you appease God or Buddha, or some other invisible being. It means you uproot the causes that are degenerating your trusting relationships. If, for another example you do not value the importance of relationships and you opt for immediate satisfaction by engaging in sexual misconduct, you will find yourself lonely and regularly dealing with infidelity in your own relationships.
Applying oneself to better principles doesn't change years and years of ignorance overnight. It takes constant deliberate intention and abstinence of negative actions. This is the most important application of mindfulness—remembering your education of cause and effect! Being present with your actions and the hope for better outcomes ensures that you do not plant seeds for weeds, but plant beautiful flowers instead!
Understand karma, cause and effect, analyze your own experiences and what causes may have created them (good or bad) and keep a diary for a few years and look to see if the negative causes you've ceased have also eliminated negative outcomes, and do the same with an increase of positive, compassionate activity!
Remember this part of a daily affirmation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition—
Do not commit any non-virtuous acts,
Collect only wholesome, virtuous actions.
Thoroughly tame the mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.
