Anthony

Bernie's Home Page alt.meditation Anthony

The first time I read posts from Anthony in the alt.meditation newsgroup, I was taken slightly aback by the sheer originality of his thought, but as I kept reading I went "Wow" and "Waw" and after a while I felt like reading it from very far high some pure worlds.	Mindfulness and Happiness
Mindfulness and Happiness Mindfulness is very known concept in meditation milieus. Anthony, however, gently questions this notion, pointing out that in fact a still mind might not arise from conscious efforts but rather as a natural outcome of an open heart.

An interesting post. I thought I would just make a couple of points.

I tend to think that suffering is, in part, due to the incongruence between what the mind thinks reality should be like and what reality is actually like. In creating expectations about what the future should hold, but where reality becomes different, the mind begins to worry or get angry - it loses its footing - and the individual suffers. To live in the moment is to spend much less time creating expectations about what the future should hold, or even worrying about why the past did not turn out as you think it should.

One major question is: why do our minds always want to create expectations for the way reality should be? I think that the answer is that the mind is seeking happiness, greater and greater degrees of happiness. The mind says, "I will be happy if such and such happens", and it imagines how happy this such and such will be. Should it not happen, the mind is thrown off course for a time, plunging into more obvious depths of worry or anger, until the next formulation for happiness is created. To say it like this is rather simplistic but I think that it is, at least, implicit in much of the behaviour of the mind.

Now if this is the case, then what is a way for the mind to become more focused in the present? It is this question that I think is controversial. You have outlined one possible way. You have advocated the idea that if one meditates, then one learns to remain focused in the present. If I am reading this correctly, you are suggesting that the mind is in some way trained to rest in the present. If I have made a misinterpretation, then please correct me. But can the mind really be trained to do this? I think it can *to a certain extent*, but I would also think that this would be rather difficult for many people, especially trying to maintain 'mindfulness' during the activity of the day. This latter technique could actually be a strain, dividing the mind during activity, because one part of the mind always needs to be watching the other part of the mind in order to assess whether it is remaining focused in the present. Otherwise, you are saying that when the mind is resting more in the present, then a new found "underlying" joy can be experienced in whatever is happening.

The other possibility is that happiness itself is the solution for bringing the mind to a state of greater restfulness and focus in the present. This is placing the cause and effect the other way around. Happiness becomes the cause and life in the moment becomes the effect, rather than describing it the other way around. Some have advocated that certain types of meditation bring the individual to a state of deep rest, and within this state, a feeling of contentment or joy or peace or whatever, is found. This state may not last for a great deal of time outside of meditation, but it can grow over time to continue for longer and longer periods outside of meditation. Now the claim is that such a state of contentment results in the mind just naturally being focused in the present. If the mind is searching for happiness, but a deep state of happiness (or contentment, I am referring to 'happiness' in quite a broad sense), then the mind doesn't feel any impulse to spend much time trying to envision the future; it has what it needs.

Now we could say that it doesn't really matter how we intellectualise the process in which meditation leads to greater focus in the present moment; the outcome may well be the same regardless. However, it does matter when we start to advocate other practices like trying to stay mindful outside meditation. These often require mental effort, and in trying to control the mind, a lot of frustration can result, the net effect of which is a lack of peacefulness and much less chance of stilling the mind (assuming that the second approach that I outlined has some merit to it). The other consequence of reversing the cause and effect of what you wrote is that we begin to see enlightenment in a different way. To live in the present moment may not be *all* that enlightenment is; it may be one of the features of being in some kind of a state where the mind naturally comes to rest. When one is living in the present most of the time, with much less fear of the future, one would be living in that state of greater happiness. What else does this state produce in the individual?

Just a few ideas. I am not necessarily advocating one position over another, but rather documenting them here for the time being. I would be interested to know what you think.

-- Regards,

Anthony

Jennifer Avalon

Judy Stein