Freedom from Distraction

The Free Mind starts with a problem we all face on a daily basis—how to manage our relationship with digital devices without losing ourselves in an endless stream of information. In this well-written and pragmatic book, Kilung Rinpoche presents a way out of the distracted, reactive attention that our digital devices condition in us. He then goes on to describe a way forward to a resilient inner peace, a source of sanity, balance, compassion, and wisdom for ourselves and those around us.

It is a deceptively simple yet profound guide to freedom, freedom from the winds of dissipation and distraction, freedom from the tyranny of emotional reactions, and freedom from the darkness of confusion about who or what we are and what we should be doing in our lives.

The book has four parts. The first, “Under the Spell of Distraction,” describes how our relationship with digital devices is based on distraction—the weak, unstable attention elicited by the stream of text, images, and videos displayed on our screens. Seduced by the speed and convenience of modern technology (when it works), we accept, in return, an incessant stream of conditioning that puts us in a constant state of distraction. As Kilung Rinpoche writes: “Distraction and conditioning often go hand in hand. Our most deeply ingrained habits prime us to act and react. Both the trigger and the reaction are causes that are basically distractive.”

This conditioning is nothing new. Among other sources, Kilung Rinpoche cites The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard’s best seller in the 1950s, that described how, even then, radio, television, and magazine advertising, as well as the layout of stores, were all designed to induce a state of dullness and perpetual distraction in consumers and shoppers.

Whether they manufacture computers, design software, host search engines, or run social media, today’s tech companies take this conditioning to new levels, designing devices that elicit a perpetual state of addiction to information and social media that provides a constant distraction from the actual relationships through which we can live truly meaningful lives. This distraction is monkey mind writ large, the monkey mind being a frequently used metaphor for the constant activity of grasping or rejecting whatever comes our way. Monkey mind dissipates stable attention, long-term intentions, and the ability to enjoy peace and quiet.

Kilung Rinpoche’s approach is incremental. Based on his own experience with digital devices, he starts by encouraging us to reflect on how we really want to live and, from there, to explore simple ways to cultivate a different relationship with our devices and, indeed, with our lives. Throughout the book, he makes liberal use of questions for the reader to consider and backs up his practice suggestions with brief but comprehensive instruction free of technical Buddhist jargon.

The second part, “Learning to Breathe Easily,” adds more structure and depth to this exploration. While Kilung Rinpoche goes over ground that will be familiar to almost any student of mindfulness (mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of experience, and mindfulness of mind), he does so not as remedies to stress and anxiety but as a way to replace problematic patterns of breathing, posture, and behavior with habits that cultivate and nurture “peace of mind, balance, and authentic happiness.”

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For Kilung Rinpoche, the primary quality to cultivate here is patience—patience with the whole range of pleasant and unpleasant sensations in the body, patience with the turmoil of feelings that come and go, patience with how we engage the thoughts, sensations, and emotions that make up our lives, and patience with the recalcitrance and stubbornness of our minds.

With patience, we may happen upon an innate patience almost by accident, and he points out that “there is a quality of natural, effortless, innate patience in the heart-mind of every one of us.” Further, he says, the more we cultivate a relationship with that natural patience, the more it becomes a constant companion, a guide in good times and bad, and a source of wisdom in our lives.

Patience leads to openness. Like patience, at some point, we discover a natural openness that is also always there, a quality innate to both heart and mind. When we discover this possibility, he advises, “Always stay with that positive motivation. Improvement will come naturally, at its own pace.”

To enhance these practices, he introduces us to two traditional frameworks for practice: the six perfections (generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, stable attention, and wisdom) and the four immeasurables (loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity).

Kilung Rinpoche’s approach is different from many presentations of mindfulness. Whether he is talking about patience, openness, compassion, or wisdom, he consistently points out the natural, inherent presence of these qualities in us. His emphasis on the natural presence of these qualities helps to shift us away from a transactional, utilitarian approach to meditation. Instead of trying to control our experience, his approach encourages us to create the conditions in body, speech, and mind that allow these qualities that are already present in us to flower in our lives.

It is a deceptively simple yet profound guide to freedom from the winds of dissipation and distraction.

In the third section, “Going Deeper,” he invites the reader to further exploration of how happiness and suffering arise. This exploration naturally leads to a view of interdependence. Some of the passages here are reminiscent of Thich Nhat Hanh’s principle of interbeing, and, like Thich Nath Hanh’s teachings, they point to nonself, the possibility of living our lives without a constant effort to define and maintain who we might think we are. Through all of this, Kilung Rinpoche keeps coming back to the natural patience and the natural openness uncovered in the preceding section. The clarity and awareness inherent in them are what make this deeper
exploration possible.

The fourth and final section, “The Value of a Spiritual Path,” builds on that clarity to explore the possibility of wisdom. Here, Kilung Rinpoche explores the two principles to which wisdom leads. The first is karma, or the way that what we do in life and how we react to what arises determine, to a large extent, how we experience everything that arises, good and bad. In short, the more aware and the clearer we become, the more responsibility we take not only for what we do in our lives but also how we experience our lives. The second principle is loving-kindness and compassion, which are cultivated as natural qualities of mind and heart. Again, the approach of seeing them as natural qualities frees us from any sense of transactional utility or benefit for ourselves.

An experiential understanding of karma and interdependence naturally leads to an understanding of what it means to live without a sense of a solid permanent self. Loving-kindness and compassion, on the other hand, naturally lead to the bodhisattva ethic, that is, naturally responding to the pain and struggles in the world with understanding and compassion. Wisdom and compassion together then lead to an ecological approach to life, cultivating clarity and freedom internally and externally, letting them grow and take expression in our lives naturally.

This book is highly readable. The language is simple, clear, and to the point. Here and there, Kilung Rinpoche mentions events in his own life that shaped his understanding. For instance, his mother was wounded by random gunfire in the capricious violence of the Cultural Revolution in the ’70s. Her ability to express not only equanimity but also loving-kindness and compassion for the Chinese soldiers despite her injury left him with a deep appreciation of how important it is not to succumb to the power of anger and hatred in even the most difficult situations.

To illustrate the points he is making, he borrows metaphors from areas of modern life with which we are already familiar. For instance, he makes use of virtual reality, that is “reality in effect, though not in fact,” to illustrate nonself. The self that we think we are is real in its effect on how we live our lives. Yet, just as the folders on our computer screens are not real but virtual folders, the self that we think we are is not a real entity. It is merely a deeply conditioned way of experiencing life, and that way of experiencing life can be changed.

The greatest strength of this book is that it offers an approach to practice that moves us away from using meditation as a way of controlling what we experience. We move, instead, in the direction of being willing to be with whatever arises, good or bad, and experience it without having to act on it or suppress it—in other words, when distractions arise, they don’t distract us.

In contrast to many other books on mindfulness and meditation, this approach enables us to discover the infinite possibilities for peace, freedom, compassion, and wisdom in our own experience.

Throughout the book, he acknowledges difficulties and problems that may arise, provides effective remedies and solutions, and consistently encourages us to see them as part of the larger picture that unfolds in the course of practice. For instance, many people experience energy imbalances (Tib.: lung) at some point in their practice, but there are relatively few texts that discuss them. In an appendix, Kilung Rinpoche explicitly addresses these imbalances and how to remedy them.

For some inexplicable reason, the editor of this book declares in his preface that this is not a book on Buddhism. On the contrary, this book is one of the best introductions I’ve come across to meditation as practiced in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. The simplicity of language belies the subtlety and depth of its teachings. It positions us in important principles of practice. And it does so in a context that any Western reader will relate to.

I’m glad to have had the opportunity to review this book. It has given me something that I have long looked for—a well-written, clear, accessible, and authoritative book on the practice of meditation in the Tibetan tradition that I can recommend without reservation to anyone interested in exploring this path.