Dear Friends,
Continuing with Kamala’s talk, “The Five Spiritual Faculties’ relationship to Equanimity,” and the third faculty of mindful awareness.
Kamala reminds us that sati, the word often translated as “mindfulness” has as it root an aspect of memory – of remembering to be mindful. She calls it a “powerful” mindfulness because it’s the type of present moment awareness that can pierce through the illusions we often believe.
She shares a quote from Chuang-tzu – “The mind is like a mirror. It grasps at nothing. It refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep.”
The mirror of mindfulness doesn’t grasp what’s pleasant; it doesn’t push away what’s unpleasant. It clearly reflects the ever-changing present moment.
Mindfulness is also the balancing factor. Kamala says that as long as we have sati, the other pairs of factors will balance out. As I understand it, we need to have mindfulness to know whether something is out of balance, and that gives us the opportunity to adjust.
There’s a lovely little summary of mindfulness from Venerable Analayo:
Keep calmly knowing change.
~ Analayo, Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization, page 267
Guided meditation: Here’s a recent body scan with mindfulness of breathing from Jill Shepherd, about 25 minutes. In this practice period, can you keep calmly knowing change?
https://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/637/talk/60366/
Feel free to share your reflections or comments below, or by email.
With warm wishes,
Andrea