The mind is the only guide we have, serving as a beam of light in an otherwise confusing and complicated world. What happens when the mind gets overwhelmed and starts misfiring?
Think about driving a car in the middle of the night on a road full of potholes. Then the lights suddenly flicker and switch off. What would you do? Would you stop the car or plough ahead, hoping to arrive at your destination?
Most people would stop and at least seek to understand the problem. Yet when it comes to us, when feeling overwhelmed, we plough ahead, hoping to arrive at clear solutions without incident. In this state of mind, we hit more potholes, damage the vehicle and put our lives at risk with poor decisions. Even worse, some of us carry dependants in our vehicles of life, which puts them at risk as well.
Unfortunately, most of us drive around life in scraps and have become accustomed to occasional breakdowns. Many people have forgotten what it’s like to drive a brand-new mind and reach a destination smoothly and without incident. But how do we get there? How do we replace an old faltering mind with a new one? Is this even possible?
The Prince and the Palace
About 2000 years ago, a prince was born to a great King. As heir to the throne, he received cultivation from the best scholars in the nation, medical treatment, pleasures, food and all forms of royal comforts. However, he was never let out of the palace for fear of danger and corruption by the greater world.
Growing up, however, he always saw people walk in and out of the giant palace gate and wondered where they were going. As a teenager, he snuck out of the palace gates with a helper to roam the streets in disguise. To his confusion, he saw an old frail person. Asking what was wrong with that person, his helper told him that people become that way as they grow older.
Again, they snuck out. On this occasion, he saw a man lying on the sidewalk, ridden with disease and shunned by everyone around him. Again he asked what was wrong with that person, to which his helper responded.
On the third occasion, he saw a dead person with flies hovering about them. Having never seen a corpse, he was utterly disturbed, sobbed and vowed to leave the palace for good, realising he was raised in an artificial reality.
Mind and Spirit
This is the origin story of Prince Gautama Siddhartha, later known as Buddha (or literally meaning the enlightened one – the knower). Perhaps this is sacrilegious, but I find it fascinating how, over time, we glorify people who lived among us. Who knows, perhaps Nelson Mandela will be regarded as a god one day. Nevertheless, I read this story more as a description of the maturation of the mind.
The first stage, like the young prince, is to enjoy protection in one’s ideological context, religion or culture. However, as one matures one begins to see the perimeters (so to speak) of the culture and its shortcomings, leading to questioning – why do we do things like this or that? However, one is often met with underwhelming responses like “This is how it is,” which sparks an impetus to explore the greater world.
Leaving the safety of one’s culture, however, is like venturing into the jungle. Without a guide, one can fall prey to subtle ideas that come into us in our sleep and gently transform us to see the world in a certain way, and to work for that which we do not fully understand. In this state of unconscious unknowing, one can even say, “But this is who I am,” of course, unaware that it is not them who speaks, but the spirits one has unknowingly imbibed.
The Path to Mindfulness
Contrary to the mountains of content on the internet, the path to mindfulness is not about spending hours and hours in meditation; it is not about becoming gentler and kinder; it is not about treading carefully and becoming softer.
In learning their ways, sometimes living on a single grain of rice per day, Gautama Siddhartha eventually realised that his teachers were themselves searching for a path and that they had no answers. Having mastered their teachings and realising there was nothing new to learn, he eventually left for a village where he found nourishment. When his strength returned, he sat under a tree and realised that our attachment to ending suffering is the cause of suffering.
In examining our unquenchable desire for well-being, we realise our attraction to symbols and people who represent a triumph over suffering, mostly wealthy people and status symbols. But looking closer and examining why one is drawn to such things, one can come to appreciate oneself as a thing pulled here and there by fear and desire and therefore never at ease – in a permanent state of dis-ease (disease).
A closer examination of this disease leads to realising that it never ends unless one becomes content with where they are, drawing wisdom from life as it is instead of constantly striving for life as it should be.
Passivism
One can mistakenly read the Buddhist ethic as encouraging passivism and non-responsiveness to the world. And my criticism, having studied Buddhist texts and attended their communities, is that many “Buddhist types” strive to suppress their instincts and passion for life in the name of “letting go.”
Perhaps this warrants an even deeper discussion, but my view is that seeking to suppress oneself is like living on a single grain of rice. Even the Buddha realised the shortcomings of this mindset. Hence, mindfulness is less about becoming and more about discovering one’s true nature and realising it in the world – whether that nature is immovable like a mountain, hot like fire, smooth like water or free like the wind. One’s spiritual obligation, as it were, is to figure out what they are and the only way to do that is by living fully in this world.
I hope you have an excellent week as many return to work and children to school.
Have a mindful week.
Vusi
Another excellent article and as always in sync with my thoughts, but written in such a profound way!
Hi Susan, thank you for the encouraging feedback. I truly appreciate you spending time every Sunday reading these newsletters. And I wish you an excellent year ahead!