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contributed by Danny Rogers
When you seek happiness for yourself, you can have everything
you possibly can want and desire in the world and still be unhappy.
But if you seek happiness for others, you'll be happy yourself.
That's the way it is.
-The Dalai Lama
Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension
Among the two factors of that division, it is Mindfulness, in its
specific aspect of Bare Attention, that provides the key to the
distinctive method of Satipatthina, and accompanies the systematic
practice of it, from its very beginning to the achievement of its
highest goal. It is, therefore, treated here first, and in greater
detail.
What is Bare Attention?
Bare Attention is the clear and single minded awareness of what
actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception.
It is called 'bare', because it attends just to the bare facts of
a perception as presented either through the five physical senses
or through the mind which, for Buddhist thought, constitutes the
sixth sense. When attending to that sixfold sense impression, attention
or mindfulness is kept to a bare registering of the facts observed,
without reacting to them by deed, speech or by mental comment which
may be one of self reference (like, dislike, etc), judgement or
reflection. If during the time, short or long, given to the practice
of Bare Attention, any such comments arise in one's mind, they themselves
are made objects of Bare Attention, and are neither repudiated nor
pursued, but are dismissed, after a brief mental note has been made
of them.
This may suffice here for indicating the general principle underlying
the practice of Bare Attention. Detailed information on the methodical
practice will be given in Chapters Four and Five. In the following
pages we shall deal with the theoretical and practical significance
of Bare Attention, and with the results to be expected from its
application. It was thought advisable to dwell on these subjects
in some greater detail, so that those who wish to take up a practice
which, to some, will appear unusual, may start with some confidence
in its efficacy, and an understanding of its purpose. It is, however,
only by one's own personal experience gained in the course of persistent
practice, that this initial confidence and understanding will find
final and indubitable confirmation.
Thoroughness
Every effort of worth requires thoroughness if it is to achieve
its purpose; particularly so if the work is as lofty and arduous
as that mapped out by the Buddha in the Noble Eightfold Path, leading
to the Extinction of Suffering. Among the eight factors of that
Path, it is Right Mindfulness that represents that indispensable
element of thoroughness, though Right Mindfulness has many other
aspects in addition. In the Buddhist scriptures one of the qualities
attributed to Right Mindfulness is called 'non superficiality',
and this is, of course, just a negative. way of expressing our positive
term 'thoroughness'.
It is obvious that the practice of Right Mindfulness itself will
have to employ thoroughness of procedure, to the highest extent.
The absence or neglect of it would be just the opposite of a quality
deserving the name of Mindfulness and would deprive the method of
its chances of success. just as detrimental cons quences must result
from an unstable and carelessly laid founda so the blessings of
a solid and reliable one will extend far into the future.
Therefore, Right Mindfulness starts at the beginning. In employing
the method of Bare Attention, it goes back to the seed state of
things. Applied to the activity of mind this m cans: observation
reverts to the very first phase of the process of perception when
mind is in a purely receptive state, and when attention is restricted
to a bare noticing of the object (sec PP. 24 f). That phase is of
a very short and hardly perceptible duration, and, as we have said,
it furnishes a superficial, incomplete and often faulty picture
of the object. It is the task of the next perceptual phase to correct
and to supplement that first impression, but this is not always
done. Often the first impression is taken for granted, and even
new distortions, characteristic of the more complex mental functions
of the second stage, are added.
Here starts the work of Bare Attention, being a deliberate cultivation
and strengthening of that first receptive state of mind, giving
it a longer chance to fulfil its important task in the process of
cognition. Bare Attention proves the thoroughness of its procedure
by cleansing and preparing the ground carefully for all subsequent
mental processes. By that cleansing function, it serves the high
purpose of the entire Method set forth in the Discourse: 'for the
purification of beings . . .', which, in the Commentary, is explained
as the purification, or cleansing, of mind.
From The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, Nyanaponika Thera
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