Mindfulness Of Mind

Directly looking into the subtle processes of our minds brings the power to choose our course of action in life – but how can we best observe these processes? In this talk, Shaila Catherine explains how to recognize what mind states we are cultivating both during meditation and in our daily activities. As we develop the ability to more fully know our state of mind, we will increasingly be able to skillfully respond to any wholesome or unwholesome state that we find there.

Transcript

What is your state of mind?

What is the quality of mind that is knowing your experience just now?

As we explore the Sathipatthana,

The four foundations of mindfulness,

We work with mindfulness of the body,

Mindfulness of feeling.

And today I'm going to explore the next portion of this teaching,

Which is mindfulness of mind,

Citta.

Mindfulness of mind is the state of mind,

Mindfulness of mind and mental states.

When we become mindful of the mind,

We basically know mental states as mental states.

Generally,

This is about knowing the mind as it is colored by emotions,

Emotions such as love,

Joy,

Hatred,

Interest,

Boredom,

Frustration,

Excitement,

Fear,

Disappointment,

Conceit,

Pride.

We might be observing a memory,

We might be observing a plan,

A fantasy.

We can observe any mind state,

Any emotion,

Any thought.

And we can look at the quality of that mind state and distinguish this mental state as a mental experience that's different,

Distinguishable,

Not separate from,

But distinguishable from the specific aspect of the pleasantness,

Unpleasantness,

Or neutrality of the feeling,

Or the bodily sensation,

The impact.

When we look in the Satipaṭṭhāna teachings,

We find that we are encouraged to look at a few specific aspects of the mind.

In particular,

We can be mindful of the presence or the absence of greed,

Hate,

And delusion.

We look at that mind state that's happening and we notice,

Is it rooted in greed or in non-greed?

Is it rooted in hatred or non-hatred?

Is it rooted in delusion or non-delusion?

So we observe the influence of greed,

Hate,

And delusion,

Or their absence on the quality of mind that is knowing experience.

In the Buddhist teachings,

It says there is no fire like lust,

No grip like anger,

No net like delusion.

This greed,

This hatred,

This delusion,

These forces are the conditioning factors that cause so much trouble in our lives.

To read from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta,

The instruction says,

And how,

Bhikkhus,

Does a Bhikkhu abide contemplating mind as mind?

Understand it by taste as mind but Absolute as mind.

Find only what makes it,

It is only that which he aspires to do.

And mind unaffected by delusion as mind unaffected by delusion he understands contracted mind as contracted mind and distracted mind as distracted mind he understands ex Pract 손 Films exalted mind minered as exalted mind and One Exhausted mind as Exhausted mind he Understands Surpassed mind as Surpassed mind and Unsurpassed mind as Unsurpassed mind.

He List Must Neil Things concentrated mind as concentrated mind and unconcentrated mind as unconcentrated mind.

He understands liberated mind as liberated mind and unliberated mind as unliberated mind.

One of the things you might notice in this is that there's a lot of understanding,

Right?

One understands the quality of our minds.

What is arising?

We understand the quality and the state of our own mind.

We bring attention and wisdom,

Understanding to know that experience.

Now the commentary explores a little bit more as to what these states describe.

Now greed and hate and delusion might be fairly obvious.

You know,

Greed is that lust,

That desire,

That craving.

Hate is the pushing away,

The resistance,

The aversion,

The fear,

The withdrawal.

The deluded states include ignorance,

Doubt,

Confusion.

Well,

What is this cramped and scattered consciousness?

This contracted and distracted consciousness.

The commentaries say that this cramped or contracted mind is the mind that is affected by sloth and torpor and the distracted,

Scattered mind is the mind that is agitated by restlessness.

And what's the expanded,

The great,

Or the unexpanded,

The narrow consciousness?

This is referring to some of the states that we experience with the development of concentration or noticing their absence.

Same with the surpassed and the unsurpassed,

The concentrated and the unconcentrated.

These are pointing to noticing the development of our own mind in a meditative endeavor.

So we notice when the mind is concentrated or not concentrated and what the various stages of that concentrated development include.

It can go beyond specifics of concentration and include other wholesome qualities.

When loving kindness is present,

Are you mindful of that?

Do you recognize that as an expansive,

As a beautiful state?

What about this liberated and unliberated mind?

I think in this context it doesn't only refer to the ultimate liberation,

Which is the state of the Arhant,

But there are states of mind where the mind is free from something.

For example,

The loving kindness and compassion practices are described as liberations of mind because when the mind is imbued with compassion and loving kindness,

There is no ill will or cruelty or hatred present.

The mind is liberated from those forces.

When we enter deep states of concentration,

The mind is freed from,

It's liberated from the force of the hindrances.

So here throughout this exploration of the mind,

We're looking at the presence and the absence of various forces,

In particular when defilements are present and when they're absent.

So we know the texture of the mind,

The flavor of the mind,

The quality of the mind in its various degrees of being affected by defilement or being developed through the meditative path,

Through the development of concentration,

Through that stability of mind that comes with mindfulness.

So that we know the states of our mind with a balanced attention,

Knowing,

Understanding the quality of the mind is not indulging in it,

It's not wallowing in it,

But it's also not denying or rejecting or ignoring what's happening in the mind.

Very often an untrained mind sustains unwholesome states through obsessive thinking.

We experience something,

We identify with it,

And then we obsessively think about it,

We keep repeating it again and again,

Giving rise to these thoughts that stimulate these states again and again until we take it as our tendencies,

Our character,

Our disposition.

So as we're exploring the mind,

We don't have to only look at the mind,

We look at feelings also,

We look at the thoughts to know what is attracting us or what is repelling us.

We look at how we respond to contact and then we can observe the mind in action,

The mind in response to known experience.

We might see states of grief,

Of resentment,

Of anger,

Of fear,

But how are these states sustained?

How are we practicing them?

Sometimes we like to think of practice as only being the wholesome side,

But look honestly at your days.

Are there times when you're practicing,

When you're repeating,

When you're cultivating unwholesome states too?

We sometimes practice the unwholesome as well as practice the wholesome.

So as we look into the mind,

It gives us a chance to shift the balance from the habitual conditioning that keeps practicing unwholesome states to an intentional development in the practice of wholesome states.

This doesn't deny the emotions that we feel,

It doesn't reject the painful mental states that arise in life,

But we don't need to justify our right to be angry or to feel sad or to have any emotion.

Nobody questions our right to experience any state,

But in this practice we look at those qualities of mind and we ask ourselves,

Is this thought pattern,

Is this mental state,

If developed and cultivated,

Going to lead to more happiness or more sorrow?

We learn how our mental states develop and are fed,

Are sustained,

Are fueled,

And we see where they lead,

What they produce,

And through this mindful investigation of what's present,

What's absent,

Really we're looking at what's possible.

We discover that we can understand mental phenomena,

We can understand what's happening with the mind,

Thoughts,

Emotions,

Tendencies,

Mental patterns,

These do not have to be a dark scary mystery to us.

We can investigate and explore this and we don't have to take it personally.

It's not self.

We're looking at conditioned patterns,

We're looking at conditioned processes.

When we're not identified with the mind,

Then there is no problem.

As we start to look at the mind more specifically,

We might sometimes need to work with very strong emotion,

Maybe anger,

Rage,

Jealousy,

Self-pity,

Despair,

Fear,

Anxiety.

When strong emotion is present,

It's very helpful not to focus only on the emotion because it can easily get lost in just the exploration of mind.

It's very helpful to drop back into the awareness of the body and feeling,

To get our grounding,

Our strength through the first and second foundations of mindfulness.

They're easier to connect with,

They're easier to stay steady with,

They provide a more neutral container that's a little bit less easy to identify with.

It's so easy to identify with our emotions.

It's so easy to get caught up in them.

So as you're exploring these foundations of mindfulness,

There's no need to think that now you have graduated to the stage of exploring the mind and ignore the body or feelings.

We work with these together.

We continue to explore this whole psychophysical process,

This whole mind-body experience.

I tend to give great deal of emphasis to the body,

To the feelings,

Because I find just a small dose of exploration of the mind goes a very long way and then ground again with much longer periods with body and feeling.

Now you can adjust the ratios yourself,

But I want to mention this so that you don't feel like today you should be only looking at the mind.

It's too easy when we do that to then just sit here thinking.

And then it's not the genuine understanding,

The transformative knowledge that the Buddha is pointing to.

There is an enormous difference between observing a mind state and being lost in one.

But when we're attentive to the experience of the body sitting,

Then we're naturally less entangled in whatever story the mind is weaving.

We're more present.

We're able to have a more objective perspective on what is actually happening.

We can see not only what is present,

But we have the objective perspective to recognize also what is absent.

That little bit of disentanglement allows us to see what preceded,

What caused,

What triggered,

What was the proximate cause or gave rise to that state,

What fuels it,

And what it results in.

Whereas when we're swept up in the tidal wave of strong feelings and emotions and thoughts,

Then we sometimes lose touch with it and we're just caught in that wave,

Unable to discern what were the causes that gave rise to it,

Unable to recognize what the result is of this,

And we tend to think it's just the way things are.

We lose the perspective that allows us to see the conditionality of our own experience.

Grounding the attention again and again with mindfulness of the body and recognizing the feeling tone of experiences might give you some perspective,

A balanced perspective from which to explore the mind.

When our attention is stable,

We'll see the workings of the mind and discover how emotions can condition further reactions and thoughts,

When they lead to happy states,

To wholesome states,

And when they lead to sorrow,

To pain,

To cruelty,

And to more suffering in life.

When our attention is settled,

When it's clear,

We can know the nature of emotions,

Even strong emotions like anger or rapture and joy or appreciation and gratitude.

We can know anything of our mental life.

So to understand the mind,

We don't push away thoughts and mental states so that we only observe the body or the breath.

We let ourselves understand the nature of the mind.

We notice how the mind functions,

What is the experience of the mind directly,

But from a perspective that is unattached and unseduced by the content.

So I ask again,

What is the state of your mind?

What is your relationship to your present mental state?

Is aversion strong?

Is identification strong?

Is delusion grasping,

Clinging strong?

Is the mind steady,

Composed,

Concentrated,

Or scattered,

Sunk in sloth and torpor,

Diffused?

Whatever the state of mind is,

You'll also know that it arises and it vanishes.

It's impermanent.

Can you notice whatever mind state you're experiencing right now evolve,

Change,

Pass away,

And make space for something else to occur?

It could be that a slight frustration develops into an annoyance and irritation,

Anger,

Hatred,

And revenge fantasies.

It could be that those thoughts get worse,

Get more intense,

But nevertheless that's a progression of change.

It's not static.

We might also see a state of aversion arise and feel very compelling,

And then there's a bell that rings,

Ah,

And no aversion present.

It's just gone,

Just like that.

The mind changes very,

Very quickly,

And so when we're noticing mental states,

We are noticing the arising and the passing of mental states.

We're noticing changing mental states,

And as they change the feelings also change.

As the feelings change,

The mental states also change.

In the Anguttara Nikaya,

The Buddha says,

No other thing do I know,

O monks,

That changes so quickly as the mind.

It is not easy to give a simile for how quickly the mind changes.

Defilements,

Kilesas,

Are not always present.

They're not the nature of the mind,

And so we notice not only the presence of hindrances,

The presence of defilements,

We not only give attention to the times when we are affected by greed,

Hate,

And delusion,

But we notice the times when we are unaffected by greed,

Hate,

And delusion,

When the mind is radiant,

When it is clear,

When it is pure,

When it is free from,

Liberated from defilements.

In the Anguttara Nikaya it says,

This mind,

O monks,

Is luminous,

But it is defiled by adventitious defilements.

These defilements come when there is an opportunity for them.

That opportunity is usually provided by a simple absence of or weakness of mindfulness,

Combined with previous conditioning toward that defilement.

And then the conditions come together and the next thing you know we're in a state of anger or a state of desire or a state of confusion.

But it's not the ultimate nature of mind.

That should give us hope.

We all know states of mind that are free from defilement.

When you're calm and concentrated and just steady on the simple experience of sitting,

Feeling sensations in the body,

Hearing sounds.

No particular defilement.

We're just present,

Mindful,

Simple.

You might know a state of mind that's free from defilement more vividly in an act of generosity.

When we're open,

Sharing,

Helping,

Letting go,

Or in a moment of loving kindness or compassion,

When we feel the heart quiver with wanting to relieve another's suffering or just having boundless goodwill for all.

It doesn't matter if they're people or animals that we know or don't know like or don't like,

Have as an important part of our lives,

Or don't circle around our life at all.

There's nevertheless a sense of goodwill towards all.

And you all have experienced this sense of just simple,

Genuine goodwill,

Loving kindness.

This is a state of mind that is utterly free from defilement.

When we're doing a practice undertaking the development of loving-kindness,

One of the weird side effects is that we notice then,

It kind of,

We notice any moment that is not affected by loving-kindness.

Meaning we notice anger or irritation or hatred all the more vividly.

It's like it stands out at us.

Similarly when we're practicing the cultivation of joy,

Of appreciative joy,

Of sympathetic rejoicing,

Then sometimes what stands out at us is the comparing mind or the little envious mind,

You know,

Little envious thoughts.

Because we're cultivating the wholesome state,

It's opposite.

It's the defilement that's opposite to it.

Sometimes it becomes vivid and people will sometimes come and say,

My practice is getting worse,

It's not getting better.

But it's almost always the case that actually what's happening is we're simply noticing things a little bit more because of the strength of our commitment to the wholesome state.

Now the unwholesome things that we used to tolerate,

We now are no longer tolerating.

We look at them and we don't want to make space for them in our minds anymore.

And this is a wonderful development in the practice.

Similarly people sometimes say when they sit down to meditate,

Things go well for a little while and then all of a sudden they feel like they're thinking more than they ever thought before.

Very often they're not thinking more than they ever thought before.

They're now,

They're just noticing the thoughts and they have less indulgence,

Less tolerance for,

Less inviting in of the restless,

Agitated,

Distracted mind.

It's a good development.

It helps us discern what is present through recognizing moments of what is absent also.

So in today's meditation,

Please continue to work with mindfulness of the body,

Mindfulness of the feeling tone of experience,

The pleasantness,

Unpleasantness,

And neutrality.

And check in with the quality of mind.

What is the quality of mind that is knowing your experience?

You might even ask what is present.

Is the mind affected by lust or unaffected by lust?

Is the mind affected by hate or unaffected by hate?

Is the mind affected by delusion or unaffected by delusion?

Is it contracted or distracted?

That means affected by sloth and torpor or restlessness?

Is it exalted or unexalted,

Surpassed,

Unsurpassed,

Or concentrated,

Unconcentrated?

Meaning what is the quality of mental development that is occurring in the development of tranquility,

The development of mindfulness,

The development of understanding,

Of wisdom,

Of concentration?

So we look at the mind,

Look directly at the mind to know its nature.

Reviews

🙏🏼🙏🏼🕊️🕊️
Deep bows to this teacher!

Many bows

Only a few moments of silence but brilliant guidance.

Insightful takeaways about growth of practice. Thank you.

Very interesting. Thank you 💜 x

Very helpful. Thank you.

VERY INTERESTING and Thought-Provoking❣️ I’ll be listening to this one again!
🙏🏻💕

Excellent talk, affirms my experience, deepens my understanding of those experiences and encourages me to continue mindfulness practices! Thank you 🙏🏼

That was a great talk and most helpful for my continued practice.... I will listen again and would recommend it to anyone of this app.☘️❤️