2020-11-23 Eightfold Path Right Mindfulness (3 of 6)

Insight Meditation Center15min

Gil Fronsdal

00:01

So today I'm going to continue, certainly on this longer series on the Eightfold Path. But on the talks about right mindfulness, the seventh step of the Eightfold Path.

Gil Fronsdal

00:21

Mindfulness is a great joy. It's a great pleasure and it's such a wise teacher for us. That it brings so much wisdom and freedom. And it's just a fantastic thing. And here we're calling it right mindfulness. And what makes it right? We have to go back to the first step of the Eightfold Path, which is the right view. And right view, which indicates or points to how all these other steps are right or complete or invaluable for the purpose of becoming free of suffering. So right mindfulness is that mindfulness, that attention that's used, to help us live a healthy, wholesome life. A mentally healthy life. A life that supports us in the direction of bringing suffering to an end, to alleviate suffering, to discover some kind of profound peace. Or mine right mindfulness is a mindfulness that we cultivate or live in as we discover freedom, freedom from suffering. And that freedom from suffering is then a reference point for the growing of this mindfulness. That freedom of suffering, to be aware of that, to have an awareness that has no suffering in it, that is without any attachment or clinging to it, is a phenomenal thing. And to have a taste of it. And then to know that clearly enough that taste, that sense of it, that then we keep coming back to that way of being aware. So it's the awareness of that helps us to become free of suffering. And it's the awareness that is an expansion of that suffering into our fullness of our lives.

Gil Fronsdal

02:34

So that's what right mindfulness is. And there's plenty of wrong mindfulness in the sense that there's mindfulness, is ways of using attention, that doesn't really contribute to us being free. And so one example recently, maybe still today, is the way that some people their attention gets pulled into the world of politics. And politicians are sometimes experts at getting our attention, having people wake up in the morning and regularly check through the day, what's happening there, what's happening there. And the attention that goes into some politics, tension that goes into other areas of life, into the entertainment industry, that goes into our greed and our hatred, that attention. That precious resource of awareness, when it goes into that, that would be considered not right mindfulness. Because it's not leading to freedom. It's not bringing the end of suffering. And so we want to learn how to use this attention, this awareness, in some way that brings the end of suffering.

Gil Fronsdal

03:44

And so the Buddha provided four different areas in which we can apply our attention or awareness. Some people call it frameworks. Four different frameworks for being present for our experience, regardless of what it is. Whatever is going on in our experience, whether we are reading about politics, learning about it, or whether we are involved in whatever it might be. The right mindfulness is to apply our attention to these areas here for the purpose of freedom. And these four are the body, feelings, mind states, and kind of mental activities. So I'll talk about each of these over the next four days. Today being the body.

Gil Fronsdal

04:35

And the way that we know that we're coming into the fullness of this mindfulness, this awareness that's going to move towards freedom, is when awareness has been freed enough from its attachments, enough from all the identifications we have about who we are. So that awareness can settle back in a sense, and just observe phenomenon. Observation doesn't interfere with what it looks at. It jis ust kind of there and just sees. Awareness is not seeing, is not impacted usually by what is seen, unless it's bright light or something. It's the impact goes is deeper in, in the mind. But to have the inner mind have no attachments. So the seeing is just seeing, clear and full. The ability to observe.

Gil Fronsdal

05:29

Some of the deepest states of meditation, the Buddha taught, he uses the verb observing to describe how to be with those experiences. He doesn't talk about watching or observing earlier in practice, but he does at when the mind is really well established. And one of the great metaphors for this that I love is a shepherd or a cow herder, who is during the growing season when rice is growing in India, a shepherd has to be very close to the cattle in order to keep them from eating their farmer's rice. But once the rice has all been harvested, then is no longer needed to be careful. So now the farmer, the cow herder, rests against an oak tree, acts against the tree, and looks out across the land at the cows, keeps track of them, but in a very relaxed way. The cows can wonder where they go and back and forth. And the cow herder can just rest there and observe without having to stay close and stopping them from going into the fields and things like that. So at some point as the mind gets settled, and the mind's cows are not going around eating everything or causing damage, then we can just relax and settle and observe. How we get to this mature observation is what the exercises in the four areas, the four foundations of mindfulness, are about. And it's how to develop an acute or strong or effective way of being present and attentive here and now.

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