Insight Into Mindfulness

Welcome. Our topic today is Buddhist meditation, and specifically insight into mindfulness. So these two words, insight and mindfulness, are often placed in the reverse order. One begins with mindfulness and then arrives at some kind of insight. Today, we’re going to actually explore experientially, looking at our own experience of insight and mindfulness, and we’re going to reverse the order in which they usually are experienced or felt.

But before we do that, before we do the experiential part of our time together, let me just say a little bit about both mindfulness and insight. Mindfulness is most famous in this part of the world by way of what’s called mindfulness based stress reduction, which Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, while working, I think, at at Massachusetts General Hospital, originally began to introduce as the practice of bare attention in outpatient clinics and various settings for the reduction of stress.

The history of mindfulness, as many of us probably know, goes back to the actual Buddha, 2,500 years ago, and there is a sutra called the Foundations of Mindfulness sutra. In that sutra, the Buddha suggests as a kind of meditation instruction that we pay attention. In some sense, mindfulness is synonymous with attention: A, T, T, E, N, T, I, O, N. Sometimes, traditionally, people say, bare attention: B. A. R. E. That mindfulness is attending to something in a simple, nonjudgmental, awake, and direct way. So mindfulness is often cultivated, or practiced, within what’s called staying, or peaceful meditation, staying peacefully. 

Mindfulness: A Natural Stability

I’m going to use my gong. Let’s say we place the mindfulness on the body. By placing the attention on the body, being aware of the body in a body scan, which we’ll do in our experiential portion, we let the attention rest almost like home ground, and then, when the attention goes elsewhere, which it almost inevitably will do, we notice that and bring the attention back and place it again on the body, which is the first the thing that the Buddha mentions. The first object of mindfulness that the Buddha suggests or invites us into, is being mindful of the body. And specifically, the Buddha says we could be mindful of the body while it’s sitting. Hence, sitting mindfulness practice, sitting meditation; while standing, sometimes we do a body scan while standing from feet, legs, torso, head, back down; walking meditation, mindfulness of the body, walking, the swing of the legs, the pressure of the feet on the floor; or lying down that can also be done. 

So the invitation is to bring the attention to the body, and then to train the mind to stay with the body. The mind will go into next week, what’s going to happen the week after next? What happened last week? The mind will hop around. The training of this peacefully staying meditation is to train it to stay. Each time you notice that it wandered, bring it back with gentleness, friendliness, and kindness. Bring it back. Let it stay. The mind learns to extend, to elongate the length of time it can stay. 

This is the practice of mindfulness. It is sometimes called calm abiding, or peacefully staying, meditation. That’s the first of the two kinds of meditation that we’re going to explore in our time together.

The word peaceful is very important there. It’s equally important to the word abiding or staying. It’s not just staying by force. One could use a kind of extra effort to make the mind stay. It’s said that that’s not effective. It’s not helpful. The mind will tend to rebel against such forcefulness. It’s a kind of subtle aggression to make the mind stay. 

Resting, on the other hand, is simply letting the mind stay. Let it stay and then let it go as well. Don’t try to make it not wander. Don’t force it. This is gentleness, peacefulness, and friendliness, are the flavors of this peaceful abiding. So we’re learning to stay and learning to stay peacefully, learning to stay gently, learning to stay naturally. 

We’re actually discovering a natural stability: the mind’s natural capacity to stay. So this is the beginning of meditation, going all the way back to the Buddha: learning to stay, cultivating the mind’s steadiness. You could say stability, steadiness, a centered quality, a present quality, a sense of presence. And it is said that eventually, out of that steadiness itself, insight will arise. 

This is the usual sequence. First we cultivate mindfulness, the ability of the mind to stay, and then something happens, just organically in that development of the steadiness, in which we see clearly. 

Insight: To See Clearly

So the word insight—to see clearly—is meant in the sense of understanding. It’s not the literal side of “I see that the light is on, I see that the sun is shining. I see the green grass.” It doesn’t mean that kind of “I see.” It’s more like someone explains something. 

Let’s say historically you say, “Oh, I see. This is why that happened. These were the causes and conditions that came together. Oh, I get it. I understand.” Insight is that kind of seeing. It’s the seeing of “Oh, I see,” of an aha moment. And in the tradition of Buddhist meditation, that insight is said to be seeing things as they are, as opposed to how we often imagine them to be, or how we think of them as being. 

One of the main insights is into impermanence: the fact that things change. For that, the breath is an ideal focus because the body is breathing in and out. Under the heading of mindfulness of body, we could have mindfulness of the body breathing in and mindfulness of the body breathing out, and mindfulness of the body breathing in and mindfulness of the body breathing out. There is a soothing quality to this peaceful abiding. A calming, pacifying quality. And there is an insight quality that we allow the experience of the breath to change and to be different at different moments. Literally, each breath is different. 

We might say, “Well, I’ve seen one breath. I’ve seen them all.” But actually, each breath in this moment is different than the previous moment or the next moment. 

So this is the usual progression: You develop the mind’s capacity to stay, some steadiness. And from that, we see clearly. 

One analogy I’ve heard is if you had a glass of water and inside you placed a gold ring. But then as well, you put something—some substance, it could be dirt or something—in the glass, and you stir it up so that you can’t actually see the gold ring. The practice of peacefully abiding, of learning to stay, is letting the dirt settle. And when the dirt settles, we see the gold ring clearly. So in this sense, it’s an organic, natural development. You might say that insight is the natural result or fruition that comes from mindfulness and staying—learning to stay, staying peacefully. 

Today, reversing the order as I promised at the beginning, we’re going to actually start with insight.

Starting with Insight

One sense of insight is discerning insight. Meditation involves seeing the difference between this and that, and in ancient Indian texts, they often will say, you walk into a room and there’s a rope on the floor, and you mistakenly perceive the rope as a snake. Discerning the difference between the rope and the snake is insight. It’s a kind of clear seeing. It’s a kind of awareness and knowing: “Ah, it’s a rope, it’s not a snake. I may have heard that there’s snakes in this area I’m camping, or something like that. But this is just a piece of rope that looks serpentine.”

Discerning that difference, it also goes the other way around. When is it actually a snake? We could mistake a snake for rope. So it’s not just, “Oh, there are no snakes in the world.” It’s seen accurately: seeing snakes as snakes, seeing ropes as ropes. 

Mindfulness of the Senses: Hearing

So to begin with, meditation involves discerning, distinguishing, the difference between perception. You might say clear perception, and thoughts about perception. 

So let’s explore those just experientially. Now we’re moving to the experiential part of our time together. Just listen to this sound. Now think about the sound. There was a gong. The gong was struck three times. I like that sound. I don’t like that sound. I hope we don’t do that anymore. I wonder where the gong was from. Where do they sell gongs, and how much do they cost? These are all thoughts about the sound, about the gong, and now let’s listen again. 

Again, this is a discernment exercise. The point of this exercise is to clearly see the difference between hearing—that sense perception, mindfulness of hearing—and thinking about something. We’re not trying to get rid of thoughts. We’re actually trying to notice the thoughts that we’ll have. So let’s begin again with the sound. You now remember the sound. This is called memory. How many times? What was the sound like? Have some thoughts about the sound. One way that this discernment is cultivated is to ask questions. It turns out that this insight faculty that we all have likes questions. So the question would be, what’s the difference between thinking about the sound, thinking about that memory? I liked it. I didn’t like it. I’m neutral. Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I’m OK. Those are thoughts about the sound. How is that different in our experience, not according to any text, any sutra, or book by whoever, not
“What’s the answer that’s written in the book?” Looking at our own experience of memory or of anticipation, even?

Let’s say we’re going to strike the gong again. We’re anticipating. We’re thinking about something that might happen. What’s the difference between thoughts about something, thoughts about sound, in this case, thoughts about the gong, and the actual direct experience? The immediate experience? I gave that word that’s translated as bare attention—like a bare hand. It’s winter and I’m wearing gloves. I’m here in upstate New York, and I wear gloves when I go outside cold. If you take the gloves off and you have bare attention—so the mind could have bare hearing, simple hearing, very direct. There are almost no words for that, because it’s this [sound of the gong]. 

So what is the difference between hearing, bare attention to hearing, and thinking about hearing? How would you describe it? Sometimes people say, “Well, one is an idea about the sound.” If I’m a musical person, I might be able to say something about pitch or the rhythm with which the three was struck. So those are ideas. Those are thoughts. That’s true. Sometimes people talk about concepts that are involved. Notice that it’s not like concepts are bad or wrong or we’re trying to not have any concepts, or there’s some problem with thinking. In fact, we’re including thinking, but we’re developing our ability to discern, “When am I thinking about the sound” and “When am I hearing the sound?” 

1. I think you got it. So let’s move on. Let’s now go back to the Buddha’s suggestion of mindfulness of body, which was one or four: mindfulness of body, mindfulness of feeling, mindfulness of mind, and mindfulness of sense perception. In a sense, we’ve begun with mindfulness of sense perception—of hearing one of the senses. 

 

Mindfulness of Body

Let’s go to the body now, and let’s just sit upright and relaxed. Let yourself feel your body. Sometimes we do a body scan to feel the parts of the body, to articulate our body. Sense that it’s not just one lump—the body—but it has parts. Feel your feet. You could wiggle your toes, feel the bottoms of your feet on the floor, on the rug. Feel your ankles. Feel the calves of your legs, feel your knees, thighs, waist, torso, head, shoulders. Just feel the parts of the body from down below the middle to the top. We could go back down: the top of the head, face, shoulders, chest, front and back. Waist, legs, knees, shin bones connected to ankle bones. Feet. Feel the parts of the body. So we’re starting with naming them, but the naming is just a pointer, just an invitation, just a suggestion, to feel into the body. So please do that. Just let yourself feel your body. Nothing about breath or breathing to begin with. Just let your bare attention—B. A. R. E.—be in the body. Feel the body. One teacher calls this a sense of physical being. Our body is being physically. We’re physically embodied beings. Just feel that we’re not looking for anything special or spiritual, necessarily, just simple somatic awareness. You could say awareness of the body. Feel that and stay with it. 

Remember: peacefully abiding, calmly staying, learning to stay. Just let the mindfulness stay in the body, just for a moment. Just do this for a few seconds. This is analogous, directly parallel, to what we did with the sound in the gong. Now think about the body. Just have some thoughts about the body. Oh, my head, my eyes, my ears, my throat, my neck, my shoulders, my torso, the back, the front of the body, my knees, the body all together. It’s one body, but it has parts. Just have some thoughts about the body. “I like my body,” or “my body feels well rested,” whatever it might be. Just let the mind play like children on a playground. Let the mind play with thoughts about the body, thinking ideas. 

Of course, our culture teaches us many things about bodies, right? Pay attention to bodies, health, sports, go to the gym all kinds of this is cardio, this is weightlifting. We have lots of teachings and thoughts and opinions and judgments as well about bodies. So we experience those personally. But they’re actually part of our social milieu, right? That we grew up and we were taught certain words for bodies and covering parts of the body, fixing ourselves up. So all of that is at play. All that we bring to meditation when we sit down with the body. It’s not a simple event. It’s an event that has history, our family history, our personal history, where we grew up, the culture we were a part of… It’s given us lots of ideas about bodies. 

So we’re just taking a moment. We’ll just do a few seconds, just think about your body. That’s the invitation. Have some thoughts. Let yourself have thoughts about the body, this body, one’s own body. Like, dislike, pleased, friendly, avoiding history. “Oh, I had a leg injury…” All kinds of thoughts about the body and its past, its present, and possibly its future. Those are thoughts about the body, and the same as what we did with the sound. 

Now let’s, let’s let go of the thoughts and once again, return to just being in the body, feeling the body: hearts, feet, legs, torso, head and shoulders, upright. What if you have thoughts? If you have thoughts, notice those. But rather than proliferating and making more of them, just return your attention as gently as you can to resting in the body. 

We’re going to do one minute of mindfulness of the body. Bare attention to the body, discerning. When are we edging more into thoughts about the body? When we notice those thoughts, just return the attention to our experience of the body, of being the body. Please, go ahead.

We will also notice and be aware of thoughts that are happening, but are not necessarily about the body: thoughts about the future, what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, later in the year, thoughts about the past. So this discernment, this insight, is distinguishing thoughts from the bare attention. 

Once again, as much as you can, let the attention just rest in the body. Feel the body sitting here. Good. 

Mindfulness of Feeling

Let’s keep going with at least one more of the four foundations of mindfulness that the Buddha invited practitioners to experience for themselves. There is the sense that it’s not dogmatic, that the Buddha gave a bunch of teachings necessarily about the body. There are many teachings, but what those teachings point to is what’s our experience, and trusting that having confidence in our own experience, which is more meaningful to us than anyone else’s set of ideas or theories or opinions or so. 

After the mindfulness of body, the Buddha introduced mindfulness of feeling. And again, we’re going to have the feeling and then generate some thoughts about the feeling, and then let’s see if we can return bare attention to the feeling. What’s that like? 

We’re using insight and mindfulness together. Let’s bring up a feeling. Let’s start with, say, the feeling of liking something. Let’s say you like yogurt. So remember yogurt and the pleasure of tasting yogurt. So that feeling of liking. And let’s say that it’s linked to, oh, I’d like more. I’d like to experience that again sometime. I’d like that taste. I enjoy that. So bring up that sense of pleasure, that sense of wanting, that sense of desire or enjoyment. It’s a pleasant feeling around something you think of, something you like. It could either be, I’ve started with food, but it could be, “I enjoy this park, I enjoy the view.” It could be a person that we’re fond of. Just bring up something that you like, a feeling of pleasure and of desire and of wanting. 

The impulse is to move toward, to move closer, when we like something or someone. So bring that up—that sense of desire, of wanting, of liking, of appreciation. Broadly, this is related to passion, and compassion as well. Friendliness, friendly feelings, positive feelings. Can you feel that something you like, someone you like, some experience that you are fond of, appreciate, or enjoy? Rest in that.

Then generate some thoughts about that—that emotion, that feeling of liking, that feeling of wanting. What are our thoughts about liking, about wanting, about desire, about passion? Can you have some thoughts the same way we did with the sound and with the body? Now we’re doing that with feeling. It’s a positive feeling of love, enjoyment, and appreciation. Oh, it’s good. It’s good to like, it’s good to enjoy. That’s part of life, isn’t it? The joy of life. We might have thoughts that one could get into trouble with. You know, “I’m too dependent on having pleasant experiences.” These are more thoughts. So generate some thoughts about desire, about wanting, about passion and compassion and appreciation, friendliness, all of those positive emotions, those feelings anywhere in that realm of liking. Then thoughts about that liking, wondering, what is it? What is it? What is it and where does it come from? Where does it go? What? When have I felt something like this before? All kinds of thoughts may come up about the feeling. So just do that for a little bit so now we’re thinking about wanting, thinking about desire, thinking about passion, compassion, love, friendliness.

Now, discernment or insight: Can you feel the emotion of desire, of wanting, of appreciation? Can you feel that in the body? Can you? Can you feel it directly? Not so much thinking about it, but what’s your somatic, embodied experience? What does wanting feel like? Not thoughts about wanting, but what’s our embodied experience of liking, of enjoying, laughing? Let’s say pleasure. What does that feel like? Can we move toward a bare awareness of enjoyment? What is the experience of joy? 

We really like something. “I’m really enjoying. I’m enjoying being here. I’m enjoying being in this place.” What if we let go of our thoughts about joy, our ideas, sometimes called the storyline? If we let go of that and just sort of let ourselves sink into what is pleasure, the feeling of pleasure or joy itself? Close your eyes. In fact, to do this, just let yourself sink in a way into the embodied experience of pleasure, desire, wanting. 

Mindfulness of the Senses: Seeing

I’m going to do one more. I’ll skip to the end of the list, which is sense perception, which is where we began with the sound of the gong. Let’s do sight this time. Look at something in the room where you are, and just let your gaze rest on, let’s say light, if there’s a lamp on, or if you can see outside. I can see outside my window the sunlight falling on the grass. Just rest your eyes there. Look at whatever you’re seeing. Just look. So this is mindfulness of seeing. The attention is placed on seeing something. What color is it? How far away is it? Just see it as directly as you can.

Let your mind rest there. Let your attention rest on seeing so that there is seeing in the seeing. Let seeing be in the seeing. I’m seeing out the window a tree across our yard. So I’m going to let my gaze rest on the tree. Pick any object that you’d like and just let your gaze rest there. Let your attention be there.

And now think about what one is seeing. I like what I’m seeing. I don’t like it so much. I’m bored with this. I’d like to look at something else. That tree has green leaves, even though it’s winter. It’s an evergreen. I can see these are thoughts about what I’m seeing. So have some thoughts. One teacher has an exercise called “having a thought party.” Allow yourself to have many thoughts. So this is clarifying. 

This is sometimes an approach to Buddhist meditation, that it’s against thoughts. It’s anti-thought. Not at all, actually, but we are interested in distinguishing and clearly seeing when we’re thinking about something, and when we’re directly seeing. So as much as you can generate some thoughts up and down, this and that, here and there, what I was seeing, what I might be seeing, other things to see, thoughts about seeing… and then let those thoughts go and pay attention to what you’re actually seeing: its color, its shape, its distance from you… Let your eyes and your visual consciousness rest in seeing something, seeing just the way we began with hearing and sound. Here we’re ending with mindfulness of seeing the body. 

I’m going to just bring the gong to mark the end of our exercise.

Our Capacity to Discern

So we’ve been exploring insight into mindfulness of hearing, insight into mindfulness of body, insight into mindfulness of seeing, and then insight into mindfulness of feeling as well. What would be the result or the point of doing this exercise, or doing insight meditation into mindfulness? Well, in our everyday life, we sometimes mistake a rope for a snake, or mistake a snake for a rope. In other words, our hopefulness is sometimes exaggerating the positive qualities of something. Our fearfulness may be exaggerating the negative qualities and the threat. 

What we want to do is see clearly. So within meditation, we’re cultivating this discerning capacity. 

This cognitive capacity is an inborn, innate cognitive capacity that all human beings have to distinguish one thing from the other, to distinguish sound from thoughts about sound. So we’re relying on something innate, something natural, and at the same time, we are cultivating that so that it grows, almost like there’s a seed and it can sprout, grow, and flower. There are degrees of this insight in which we make finer and finer distinctions of, “Yes, I’m more or less hearing the sound, but there’s so many thoughts wrapped up in the sound that I’m really flickering back and forth very quickly.” 

I think this is encouraging us to notice our experience, to be with our experience, to befriend our experience, and be inquisitive about it in everyday life, not just on the cushion or on the chair when we’re doing the meditation. It’s a quality of meditation in action that we bring meditation into everyday life. And we’re continuing to work with, “What am I seeing, what am I hearing, what am I feeling? What am I thinking and noticing? The differences between these two, noticing when there’s a preponderance of one rather than the other. And in that way, it’s said that we are freed from the self enclosed, overlapping cocoon of thoughts that we often find ourselves kind of encased in. So many thoughts about whatever is going on with us, our family, our world—there’s some possibility of freedom or liberation through seeing clearly again. 

This is not meant in a Pollyanna-ish sense of “Oh, if we see clearly, then everything’s OK.” No, we may see danger. We may see a threat. We may see things that really need attending to. But the discernment is, in itself, neutral. It’s not saying, “Oh, only notice the pretty parts, or only notice the ugly parts,” or something. It’s more like, “Ah, going to the museum and ah, let’s see this. Let’s see this clearly.” 

So I wish you good luck with your insight and mindfulness practice. Thank you.