Concentration versus Pure Awareness

When we begin practicing meditation, most of us start with a basic concentration exercise, like focusing on our breath or a candle or a mantra or some object. All these objects of meditation can work well to help us still our minds by first seeing how our minds get distracted. And this first step in meditation is critical to begin honing our ability to pay more raw attention to what is happening in any given moment. In Sanskrit, this is called Shamatha, and is usually translated as calm abiding. Concentration is an important part in beginning a meditation session.

Cultivating concentration is so important that it’s included as the eighth step on the eightfold path. It is about taming our mind, gently with pure intention of waking up from this distracted slumber that we have created to cope with our busy and sometimes frustrated world. You may have had that feeling at the end of difficult day, the feeling that you just need to shut off your brain for awhile, by watching TV, having a drink, any number of distractions. Yet, if we were to stop and think about it for a second, isn’t it strange that when we are frustrated or angry, we want to give up some of the precious moments of our lives by not being present. Imagine that you find out you will die in three months—most likely we wouldn’t want to waste those precious moments watching TV or numbing out in some way. Well, the truth is that we are all going to die—why not start preparing for it now versus waiting until the last minute? This is an essential Buddhist teaching, starting now to prepare for death and some might add going beyond death, by training our mind.

So, the practice of concentration is critical to start cultivating mindfulness, which grows out of concentration. And it’s important to note that concentration is not mindfulness. Concentration is a tool, like our minds are wild horses that need to first be reined in, and concentration practice has been proven to tame our minds in this way for the good. However, concentration is not the whole of meditation nor is it the goal of meditation. Concentration is only the door through which we walk to get to the place of mindfulness and pure awareness. Concentration gets us through the doorway, so we can leave behind the illusions that we have created in this world and go through the doorway to get beyond them. Going through the doorway of concentration brings us to the practice of mindfulness which is the seventh step in the eightfold path, First the mind is tamed, the illusions are peeled away, then mindfulness and pure awareness can be exposed and cultivated.

There’s a wonderful article this quarter in the Buddhadharma magazine by Andrew Olendzki about the practice of Mindfulness. In it, he describes mindfulness as a heightened attentiveness to objects …in the present moment. So mindfulness is often described as the heightened perception of all objects in any given situation. Mindfulness is leading to insights, or vipassana. Seeing beyond these forms that our minds have created to the impermanence of all things. Mindfulness is about clear seeing, not as our minds need things to be, but just seeing things as they are without judgments or preferences. A good example is when we discuss things with long time friends, spouses or family members. When there is a long history of assumptions and pre-conceived notions, then our current conversations can often have absolutely nothing to do with what is actually being said in the present moment. Pema Chodron says that when you begin to be more present, and you see yourself changing and interacting with others in more positive ways, your family will most likely be the last to recognize it. Why? Because your family, as we all often do to each other, has put you in a box with a certain label on it, and it will take a while for them to take your present action and decide it’s time to look at you in a whole new way. Sometimes they would rather you just stay in your box! But gradually, as you grow spiritually, you often find that you can’t go back to the old way of being, and that’s the benefit of these teachings.

So these practices are designed to enable the layers of our illusions of life to fall away and lay bare the pure essence of being. Eckhart Tolle, in an interview out at Unity Village several weeks ago, described this mindfulness far beyond the stillness we might find on the meditation cushion. Eckhart described the value, of letting go of our obsession with putting the world around us into neat little boxes, and the reward is the discovery of pure awareness in each and every moment, not just while we’re sitting and meditating, but in every moment of every interaction. Eckhart said,

“Underneath the form of the world, is the timeless time, the spirit.” “The mystery of the universe is surrounding you…Being present is experiencing a sense of aliveness of the universe.”

What if the most amazing energy lie just beyond your superficial thoughts? It’s so close, it’s like a birthday gift that we open anew each moment, and never look in the bottom of the package to find the best gift of all. Instead of spending so much time in the past and the future, we could try just hanging out in the present, finding a stillness as we interact with others. For instance, you might recall a past heated argument you had with someone, those times when we feel consumed with the need to have our opinion prevail. Imagine in that moment, stopping. Just stopping all words, stopping all activity. Just for a moment, pull your attention directly into the moment of your pain, of your suffering. Imagine in that moment, just letting go, letting go of our need to be right, of our need to be smarter, to be in control, to have our way. Just letting go of all our pre-conceived notions about how things are supposed to be. By staying present, the wisdom of each situation can be allowed to rise and be exposed. What is the right thing to say? What is the right thing to do? What if a fresh answer could be discovered in that very moment?

Mindfulness helps us recognize that we are not our thoughts, no matter how real they seem. We start with concentration, then move into mindfulness, which leads us to pure awareness. Lama Surya Das, in his book Awakening the Buddha Within, has a great quote by Kalu Rinpoche, who said,

“You are the Buddha. You are the truth. Then why do you not feel it? Why don’t you know it through and through? Because there is a veil in the way, which is attachment to appearances, such as a belief that you are not Buddha, that you are a separate individual, an ego. If you cannot remove this veil all at once, then it must be dissolved gradually.

If you have seen through it totally, even for one glimpse, then you can see through it at any time. Wherever you are, whatever presents itself, however things seem to be; simply refer to that ever-present, spacious openness and clarity.”

So, in this next week, look for opportunities to stop in the middle of whatever you doing, particularly any difficult interactions with another, practice stopping right then and bringing mindfulness to that moment, the moments when it’s most difficult to be present.

As kalu rinpoche encourages us,

. Wherever you are, whatever presents itself, however things seem to be; simply refer to that ever-present, spacious openness and clarity.

AND LET THE MAGIC OF THE UNIVERSE UNFOLD

Blessings,

Janet Taylor