Cultivating Equanimity - The Mindfulness
Wedge
Handle with
care Andrew
Olendzki
Mindfulness
is the thin edge of a wedge that, if inserted deeply enough into
our minds, will open them to wisdom. Whether or not this actually
happens, however, depends on various causes and
conditions.
Some say
the process is natural and inevitable, that once the practice of
mindfulness is taken up its power of transformation is inexorable.
This can sound similar to the monkeys-and-typewriters theory,
though, and indeed there is usually a footnote in small print
invoking countless lifetimes over multiple aeons. Most others
acknowledge that mindfulness is a tool whose effectiveness requires
such things as right view, diligent practice, long-term retreats,
the guidance of a good teacher, a strong ethical base, and a
karmic, if not genetic, predisposition for spiritual
progress.
There is
considerable enthusiasm for mindfulness these days, as long as it
does not threaten to make us wise. Corporate tycoons would like to
bring mindfulness into their world to help them achieve a
competitive edge, as long as they do not have to spend too much of
their valuable time meditating, and only if they can be reassured
that they will not lose their killer instincts and get all mushy
and compassionate. And they are interested in training their
workers in mindfulness, as long as it makes employees more
accepting about what they are required to do and does not raise
troublesome ethical questions or throw their workers into a midlife
crisis that leads them to drop out in order to do something more
meaningful with their lives.
The
military are always likewise interested in producing a more
effective soldier. You have to be careful, though. I knew a guy who
quit his job as a police officer after getting involved with
mindfulness meditation because he realized that now he would
hesitate to shoot if he had to draw his weapon. This was a threat
to his fellow officers, he knew, and so he resigned. His personal
transformation was part of a larger engagement with Buddhist
thought and practice, but still—if this is the effect of
mindfulness training, it clearly will not do for the armed forces.
Yet we know how effective such training was for the samurai, and
ethical difficulties did not seem to intrude at the critical moment
when launching an offensive war in the middle of the last century.
Perhaps the wedge can be used to pry things open a little, without
allowing the process to go too far.
When
“mindfulness” is defined in contrast to “mindlessness,” it roughly
means “attention,” and this is the sense in which the word is most
commonly used outside Buddhist circles these days. In an age when
attention is a rare and precious commodity, even as it is spread
around so promiscuously, training in attention skills is an
understandably popular program. The ability to hold awareness upon
a chosen object with some stability or to return it to a primary
object once it has strayed, and to do so without agitation,
self-blame, or frustration, is a useful skill to learn. It is also
the leading edge of the mindfulness wedge as described in the
classical Buddhist texts.
But the
crux of mindfulness training is found in the chorus that repeats 16
times in the brief Satipatthana Sutta, “The Establishment
of Mindfulness Discourse”: “One abides independent, not clinging to
anything in the world.” True mindfulness training involves learning
to entirely disengage from, disidentify with, and become
non-attached to the phenomena under review. Neither favoring nor
opposing, neither liking nor disliking, the Great Way is not
difficult for one with no preferences (to cite the later Chinese
text Trust in Mind). Such disengagement is incompatible
with corporate, military, and many other secular applications of
mindfulness training, however, since it is the very move that opens
the way for wisdom.
The mind is
habitually caught up in some very deep reflexes of craving and
aversion. Wanting what pleases us and wanting to do away with what
causes us distress is part of a primordial operating system that
has served all creatures on this earth quite well for aeons.
Buddhism is pointing to an evolutionary step requiring us to
abandon this reflex and replace it with a more mature mental state:
equanimity. Classical mindfulness, unlike popular mindfulness, is
all about the cultivation of equanimity. One is able to experience
both pleasure and pain without clinging to anything in the
world. One can be aware of what is gratifying and
distressing, and still abide independent, not needing things to be
other than they are.
According
to Buddhist analysis, reflexive craving and aversion keep us bound
up with suffering. Any moment of desire, by definition, is a moment
of dissatisfaction, because desire is an experience of lacking
something. And the desire can never be satisfied, for even when our
wishes are granted it is always in the next moment. Look for the
truth of this in your own experience. Even when it feels like we
get what we want, we immediately worry it will slip away, yearn for
more of it, or move on to wanting the next thing.
No amount
of attention training is going to help us escape this cycle. In
fact, incomplete mindfulness practice, focusing on attention but
neglecting equanimity and the insights it brings, may serve only to
strengthen the bonds that bind us. When King Menander asks about
this, the sage Nagasena tells him, “Goats, sheep, cows, buffalos,
camels, and donkeys have attention, but they do not have wisdom.”
He goes on to offer this analogy: “As a barley-reaper grasps a
handful of barley in the left hand and a sickle in the right and
cuts it off with the sickle, even so does the earnest student,
taking hold of the mind with attention, cut off the defilements
with wisdom” (Milinda Panha 2.1.7–8).
Paying close attention to what is happening under our gaze is an
important first step, but let’s not get stuck with a handful of
barley and our backsides up in the air. Attending with an
unattached attitude that allows us to understand the impermanent,
interdependent, and selfless nature of it all is what cuts the
attachment and is truly transformative. Not everyone is ready for
such a transformation, so handle this tool with care.