Smrti: Present Moment Remembering
Mind gets carried away with things. It is the nature of mind to forget it is mind, and to see thought as reality. So this question can be helpful — what is going on in my mind right now? With patience and compassion, remembering the simplest thing is not so easy.
There are so many ways we attempt to describe states of mind, awareness, or consciousness. We have esoteric language, and we have art, poetry, and music, to point toward the ineffable. Language only goes so far in this intangible realm. A state of being changes in describing it. Making words changes the state they describe. Hearing or reading about it may not bring us to that state. Yet, the attempt and desire to share reinforces and reflects our humanity, approximate as the transmission may be.
In a recent yoga philosophy session a student asked, “Is it even possible to teach meditation?” The teacher answered “Not really.” I believe she is correct — how can you teach an inner state of mind? But we can spend time in practice together, where we mirror and co-regulate in subtle ways, even online. We can study what philosophers and logicians and meditators over millennia have written, and work with the practices they have taught, which live on through the sharing. We may worry that we are not “doing it right.” Wise friends can remind us, there is no right or wrong way if the practice is, in an ongoing way, making ourselves available to awareness. The hindrances or obstacles that show up are part of the whole picture we can work with.
Mindfulness is the awareness practice that is broadly taught in the west and its benefits are generally well-accepted, even if pure scientific measurement is complicated. For most of us, mindfulness is the main practice we know as meditation, and we have felt a benefit on some level.
I have fallen out-of-love with the word “mindfulness” in English. As it comes into ever more common and commercial use it seems to mean less — or too much: a commodity to be bought, or a righteous virtue to strive for. My favourite antidote to such disenchantment is to go to the root! The word that is often translated as “mindfulness” is in Pali, or , in Sanskrit. The word has many applications and translations, as potent conceptual terms do. The translation I like best in relation to meditation, despite or perhaps because of it’s awkwardness, is: present moment remembering.
Sometimes we say “present moment awareness,” but I like “present moment remembering” with its quality of remembering to wake up. We catch ourselves in delusion, distraction, or thought tangles, and wake up to awareness — which feels like remembering. Perhaps you recognize this sensation. Next time you are practicing, if you remember — remember! This waking up must repeat, again and again, in our meditation and our daily lives too, if you believe, as I do, that we all benefit from deeper awareness.
Be well, be brave! Don’t believe everything you think.
Originally published at https://ramischandall.com on January 17, 2021.
Much gratitude to Anam Thubten of the Dharmata Foundation for inspirations gleaned from his recent meditation retreat: “A Path of Awareness.”
