Mindlessness

“The Buddha diagnosed our problem as ‘mindlessness,’ meaning that we live semiconsciously because our awareness is clouded and our spiritual vision asleep.” (175)  This comment from Roger Walsh’s book, Essential Spirituality, is a good description of our cultural norm.  And of course, if living mindlessness is a cultural norm, then it seems normal.  Most of us would not think we are living mindlessly.  That is because we seldom see any evidence or folks living mindfully. 

This is fascinating to me because there is so much interest today in being mindful.  It has become commonplace for businesses to offer mindfulness training.  Those kinds of classes and experiences have blossomed across college campuses.  And yet, I am confident students do not report less stress.  Maybe they do for a little bit while they are in a class or taking advantage of an 8-week mindfulness experience. 

What I have learned over some significant amount of time is simply having an experience may be nice and provide a good memory.  However, unless we find a way to disciplined the experience in order to stretch it out over time, it is highly unlikely a new habit will be formed.  And unless mindfulness becomes a habit---a way of life, if you will---we will return to the norm of our culture. 

Learning to be mindful is not the kind of thing we do in six lessons or an eight-week class.  Learning to be mindful is to create a new habit.  A habit ingrains a particular focus into our way of living.  The key to mindfulness is awareness.  One does not cultivate mindfulness.  Instead, we learn to be more aware.  To be unaware is what Walsh means by semiconsciousness.  Most of us know what this is like, even if we don’t know this term.   

Semiconscious is a life that goes through the motions.  If we do nothing besides our routine, chances are we live semiconsciously.  We don’t have to think to do.  But we do things without thinking---we are not aware of ourselves doing something.  Driving down the interstate is always a great example of this kind of action.  Clearly, we can go mile after mile without killing ourselves.  But if we were asked, we have no memory of what we just passed or what we might have seen.  A car can pass by and we won’t know for sure what color it was.   

Walsh describes another kind of unawareness as absentmindedness. (176)  He begins this section with an innocent sounding statement, but it is really profound.  “This moment is the only time there is.”  We laugh, because this is so true---so true, in fact, we never even think about it that way.  Most of the time, this moment may be like so many other minutes of the hour or the day, we pay no attention.  Of course, we can’t pay attention if we are semiconscious!  We can’t pay attention if we are unaware. 

Walsh adds his commentary.  “How sad we so rarely open to this present moment.”  Living absentmindedly is not so much a refusal to be open to the present moment, as it is an abdication of the chance to be present.  It is more like missed opportunities.  We live in the middle of a glorious fall day and we do not see one colored leaf.  We wake up to an early morning with our earth covered by a new snowfall and we complain about the inconvenience.  We walk out on a warm summer rainy day and we snarl about our crummy umbrella.  It is very difficult to be grateful when we are grumpy and snarling.  Instead of a “thank God,” we are more likely to utter, “God damn.” 

God causes beauty and we ask God for damnation!  Awareness sets us up for mindful living, if we opt for it.  As part of living mindfully, we are able to cultivate some appreciation for the life we have been given.  I have spent some time and given some effort over the past few years to cultivate my own sense of appreciation.  For example, one of the places on campus with which I am affiliated has created a gratitude wall.  It is very simple.  If I or anyone in that Center feels grateful, we take a post-it note and very briefly write our reason for being grateful.  It could even be one word, such as “health” or “friends.”  It might be specific for something that just happened or it could be general and ongoing.   

If we cultivate our awareness, we will learn to see the things for which we could be grateful.  We will be open to the beauty of our day.  We will catch the little things others do for us.  If we can convert this into a mindful way of life, then we can live gratefully.  Gratitude can become more than “thank you” for some social niceness, like the cup of coffee handed to me by the store clerk every morning.   

Awareness is possible for each one of us.  It is free---no cost.  It does not take much effort.  As we cultivate it, our absentmindedness will begin to dissolve and we are free to be open to the present moment.  Instead of being sad that we missed it, we can become grateful to the possibility of living life this moment---this present moment.   

We don’t give up mindlessness like a cigarette.  We simply begin to be aware, which leads to mindfulness.  It really is simple.