The world we are born into is imperfect and unpredictable, sometimes disappointing. Things change suddenly. We can have a clear plan for some days or a settled direction for our life and then suddenly something surprises us, moving in an opposite direction to what seemed right before. There is much to take in, and our ability to predict what can happen is quite limited. We frequently try to anticipate and maintain some order in our lives, and to remain immune from the inevitable changes that can assail us. When we fail, we can sometimes find that our moods change – an automatic reaction to things not going the way we had foreseen. Furthermore, we live with finite human beings who send mixed messages, make mistakes, and sometimes disappoint us by not acting in the way that we expected.
These changes always seem to catch us by surprise, as if we expect the default position in life to be its predictability. However, if we look around at nature these days we do not get any support for that thesis. It does not behave in predictable ways – surprisingly mild in Autumn here, while snow falls early in New York and waters flood Bangkok. The television news presents all these as sudden unexpected upheavals, as if some predictable pattern was supposed to be the norm in nature. However we should not really be surprised that calamities and turmoil happen in nature – or in our inner life – since this is the nature of the existence we are born into.
Wisdom comes if we can understand that difficulties are inevitable in this life and when we try to work with them rather than run away from them. It has been shown that the human brain prefers continuity, so change is often accompanied by fear. And often what are we afraid of a lot of the time is the unknown. Meditation invites us to work with the unknown future in whatever form it comes up, no matter how unexpected. We know that we have a choice to be mindful. Whether it is the ongoing economic and currency crisis, or extreme weather conditions, or changes in a relationship, all can be an opportunity for us to work with reality.
Mindfulness tells us that can train our minds to turn these unfavorable circumstances around to make them work to our advantage. It helps us to work with difficulties rather than allowing them to force us into a corner with no answers. Even though it is part of our conditioning to resist change – to hold on to what we label “good” and push away what we label as “bad” – practice helps to see that change is inevitable and that the real suffering comes from resisting it. Thus we try to treat difficulties as just part of nature rather than signs that things have gone wrong. Mindfulness helps us avoid the trap of thinking that the meaning of life is just to get everything working the way we want it. It adapts the mind to life’s realities, and not the other way round.
Moods dictate my behaviour. If something makes me feel good, I want to have it. If it makes me feel bad, I want to get rid of it; if it leaves me indifferent, I ignore it. I find myself in a perpetual state of conflict, emotionally pulled one way and pushed the other. Yet underpinning attraction and aversion is craving: the childish and utopian thirst for a situation in which I finally possess everything I desire and I have repelled everything I dislike. Deep down I insist that a permanent, separate self is entitled to a life removed from the contingencies and uncertainties of existence.
Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs
Here’s a definition of mindfulness: it’s a strengthening of your concentration so that you can be more precise and clear in recognizing your experience. It’s also a strengthening of your equanimity—your ability to be relaxed and open in the face of your experience. The concentration part of mindfulness is a little like drinking a cup of coffee; it kind of wakes you up. It’s like the straight spine of arousal or awareness. The equanimity part is like the relaxed limbs of the body. The spine is straight, and the limbs are relaxed. This relaxation part is a receptivity and acceptance to things as they are. It’s a kind of “friendly audience” to your own experience; a sort of “Hello. Wow! OK.” attitude—a gentle, matter-of-fact awareness of your experience, rather than a reactive pulling back. All mindfulness practices cultivate both of those, the concentration and the equanimity, so that you can be clearer, more precise and more relaxed in the face of whatever is happening to you—whether it’s loud noises coming in from a jackhammer running in the next building, or a pain in your knee, or your emotions about your spouse.
