Mindfulness of Breathing (30) The Mind as Activity

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Dharmette: Mindfulness of Breathing (30) The Mind as Activity. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on February 11, 2021. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Mindfulness of Breathing (30) The Mind as Activity

So, continuing these talks on anapanasati^[1]—mindfulness of breathing—we've entered into the domain of mental activity. The Pali word is citta-sankhara^[2]. It's usually translated as "mind" (citta) and "formations" (sankhara), or, calling it for this week, "activities of the mind."

It turns out that the mind is not the container for activities, or the organ for activities like the brain—that's maybe the organ for what many of us in the modern world think of as mental activities. The citta^[3] is itself an activity, or it's the sum total of all the activities of what we might call the mind. The citta is all the activities of the mind as we experience them, as we can know them.

And so, this idea that the mind itself is an activity is an encouragement not to take the mind as a particular thing, not to reify it or treat it almost like a foreign object. Rather, all we have as human beings, really, from the Buddhist point of view, is the activities that are all operating together to make us alive. When the activities of life are no longer here, we're no longer alive. And one of those activities is the activities of the mind, the mental activities.

To start becoming aware of the mind, appreciating it, is the task now in the middle stages of anapanasati. It's very important to appreciate that it's kind of in the middle here. There's been a lot of emphasis on breathing, for sure—embodied breathing—but also being rooted in the body, really feeling the whole body, and then also starting to feel a real sense of well-being: a contentment in the body, joy in the body, and spreading that contentment throughout the body. There's a movement towards becoming whole, or the classic language is becoming unified, where everything is included.

So, as we move through anapanasati, it's not so much that we're now starting to emphasize the mind more, but we're opening up wider and wider to be more and more inclusive of this whole. If we're very quiet, still, centered, and in the body, the body begins to—because it's taken care of so well, because it's no longer a challenging place to be—in deeper meditation, the body begins to recede from the central focus of awareness. The breathing tends to change its quality. It's fascinating to watch, as we go through meditation, the different stages that breathing will take. Sometimes breathing will go very quiet, subtle, and still. Sometimes it's so quiet it seems like we've stopped breathing.

The first time that happened to me in meditation, I was very content, with a lot of well-being, and just sitting there very still. No trouble at all. And then I noticed I hadn't breathed for a while, and I immediately gasped for breath with fear. I had this thought: "I'm going to die." But there was no danger of that, it was just that I'd never... you know, you're supposed to be breathing all the time. So this idea that the breathing had seemingly stopped was a little bit jarring for me. Eventually, I learned that it seems like there's plenty of oxygen getting into the bloodstream some way or other, even when the experience of breathing has gotten so still that it's kind of stopped.

And so the body and the breathing sometimes recede. Then this sense of wholeness and inclusion begins to include the mental activity, the mind itself. One of the things we begin appreciating on this path, this journey, is that at some point it's possible to understand that the body itself—not the physical body, but the body that we experience, how we experience the body—is a byproduct of, or contingent upon, the mental activities we have. If the mind is really quiet and still, the construction of the body, the making of the body experiences, interpreting the body, and focusing on the body begins to recede as well. The experienced body begins to become more porous, more transparent, more translucent, until it also sometimes kind of disappears.

So this activity of the mind is part of this. In a sense,^[4] in some forms of Buddhism they say it's all we have, consciousness is all there is. I don't think that the Buddha would say that, but he would say that most of what we experience, the experience of life, is very much conditioned and affected by the quality and the activity of the mind itself, of this citta. This citta activity, the activity of the mind, is actually a hugely important part of our life. It's how we construct ourselves, construct our world, and the way that we live in it and experience it.

To start becoming aware—not of this complicated idea that we're constructing our own experience or influencing it greatly, but to begin appreciating that it's actually possible to quiet the mind, still the mind, soften the mind. Not so much by necessarily doing it too intentionally, but it tends to happen as we start getting more settled and unified, less in conflict with things, less in conflict with the mind, the heart, or the world. When there's less being for and against things, the mind tends to become quieter and the activity slows down.

Slowing down doesn't mean we become slow-witted. As I've said the last few days, the mind actually operates so much better, more clearly, more creatively, more intelligently, more wisely, when less active energy or applied energy goes into our thinking, into the mental activity. The mental activity begins coasting, or it comes into a harmony where there's no resistance to anything. It just begins to operate in a very harmonious, deep way, almost effortlessly.

Part of this movement of quieting the mental activity is to recognize what it feels like—the mental activity, the experience of it. That's how we can start becoming aware of how energetic it is, how tense it is, how much pressure is in it, how much contraction, how much resistance there is, how much agitation there is in the mental activity. Then, to hold that in awareness, breathe with that, just be aware of that. And then, when it's easy, to relax, to calm the mental activities. Not to do that too much, not to make it a big project. In fact, the bigger project than calming the mental activities is just to get to know it: step seven.

I can't underestimate how important it is for people who do the vipassana^[5] practice to really just learn the art of knowing the experience really well, and knowing how to be with it without being for and against it, without actively being engaged in trying to do something with it. When that's learned well, then it's a really good time to actively quiet and soften the mind, the mental activity, to let go of our thoughts, to let go of our preoccupations too. Not to do it because we have to, but because it's wise to do it. And not to do it because we're expecting to be successful, but just because we're quiet and peaceful and calm enough that, why not? Why not let the mind become even stiller and quieter?

And so, appreciating the mind as activities, relaxing and calming it. Then also beginning to appreciate and recognize the ways in which the mental activity has become calm, has become quieter. And that's a relative degree. If you're super agitated, it's really good to appreciate that now you're half agitated, rather than feeling upset about the 50% agitation—celebrate it! Any movement in the right direction in meditation should be celebrated, rather than giving yourself more material for why you're not far enough along and not doing better.

Then to appreciate the calmness of the mind, the tranquility of the mind. For the Buddha, tranquility begets tranquility. He actually used the word "food." Tranquility is the food, or the nourishment, for more tranquility. So as we relax and calm the mind, as the mind becomes calmer, nourish yourself with that calm. Take it in, enjoy it. Let it spread, let it be more a part of who you are, and appreciate it.

I've had situations where I got calm enough, but the authority of my thoughts and my sense of responsibility were strong enough that I felt like I had to think about things and not sit and appreciate the calm. But tranquility is the food for more tranquility, so you're allowed to take in that food. You're allowed to be nourished by it when it's there, when it comes.

So step seven is: breathing in, one experiences mental activity; breathing out, one experiences mental activity. Step eight is: breathing in, one calms the mental activity; breathing out, one calms the mental activity.

I hope that you enjoy that. And also, I hope that you don't set up an excited mind in opposition to a calm mind, because there are times in life where it's quite wonderful to be excited and engaged in things. To be able to be fluid and relaxed, just going back and forth between happily excited minds and happily calm minds^[6], is one of the joys of practice.

So enjoy your day. Thank you.