The Naked Monk

From Inquiring Mind Volume 26 Number 1 / Fall 2009

“We’re all in the same boat. Born as we are in this human body, we can’t escape the blessings and tortures of the human brain. From our first breath, we yearn for love and understanding in the most complicated ways imaginable. We find it most satisfyingly as we learn to give it. The ability to do this comes from acceptance of our frailties. By understanding the conditions of our own lives, we accept the conditions of others. Compassion is not condescension, but a leveling of the playing field, a recognition of yourself in others and an acceptance that their stress is your stress, that their happiness is your own. The gulf between us all is imaginary, born of insecurity and fear.”

—It Begins with Silence (Chapter 9)

Caroline and I were watching TV the other night when we lost interest and turned to each other. It was just one of those things—we were on the same page and grateful for it. Sounds a bit dreamy, I suppose, but it was special. Then her eyes welled up. I reached for her hand and waited for her to speak.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “Each day we’re together, each moment—it’s one less.”

I know exactly where she’s coming from, and feel the same way. Like her I spent too many years with the wrong person, trying against all odds to make it work.

Those moments of exquisite happiness seem to come with searing pain built right in, don’t they? You can’t have one without the other. Most of the time, things hum along normally and we don’t notice the underlying stress of life, but it’s always there.

It was warm today—a full, balmy six degrees Celsius—and the squirrels were out in the melting snow as I drove up Côte-Saint-Charles. In fact, one of them almost dashed under the wheels of my car—after which I was much more attentive. I like squirrels. More to the point, I hate running them over; but there’s no way around it—when it comes to crossing the road, they don’t come any dumber.

As my driving became more attentive, I got to thinking. Attention is the key to mindfulness; and ‘mindfulness,’ like ‘meditation,’ is becoming ridiculously misunderstood. As I watched out for squirrels I realized that it came at a cost—my attention to other things on the road, like fallen branches, pedestrians and other vehicles. I couldn’t be equally attentive to everything. The more I tried to look, the more I realized just how much I had to choose. This applies not just on Côte-Saint-Charles on a balmy winter’s day, but in all situations. I recalled the Buddha’s instruction on mindfulness—it’s very specific.

The popular take on mindfulness has become, “being in the moment,” which sounds really cool but doesn’t by itself mean a damn thing. The point is that ‘attentiveness’ is transitive—you’re attentive (or not) of something. The sort of practice that leads to awakening doesn’t just let go of annoying thoughts and groove on sensory perception, but actually attends to the three marks of existence: inconstancy, stress and emptiness. This is a lot more substantial, and a lot less airy-fairy. It’s not what people want to hear—which is perhaps why it disables wishful thinking so effectively.

For meditators who seek value for their investment of time and effort, mindfulness brings a) insight into the nature of existence, and b) a letting go of the illusions that keep us committed to cyclic existence. By seeing every breath, every thought, feeling and sense perception as inconstant, stressful and empty, we develop an intuitive sense of urgency, and are shifted from the theoretical realm of good ideas to the immanent one of good sense, here and now. It’s how we become happy.

Our daughter Melanie introduced us to her new boyfriend last night. Although she’s been dating for years, she’s never been as excited about a boy before; she even suggested I blog about love.

That surprised me because she’s really not the starry-eyed type; in fact, she’s generally on guard in her relationships—in part because that’s who she is, but also because we’ve encouraged her to be mindful of her own hopes just as much as other people’s motivations. I was perhaps a bit overbearing on that count—she once begged me to let her enjoy her illusions while she was still young and innocent!

Still, she knows better. Last night, she confessed to falling in love. “It’s crazy,” she said. “We’re crazy. We both feel that way, and we haven’t even known each other a month. That’s not possible is it? I mean, it can’t be real, can it?”

Obviously, her feelings are real. We tell her so. Our concern is that she doesn’t jump from this fact to the belief that this love will last forever. Of course, it might; plus they’d be crazy not to want that—after all, they’re risking their hearts. Still, chemistry is volatile; they’re better off avoiding interpretations about ‘what it all means’ and enjoying the moment. Apart from avoiding complications, it enhances the experience and the focus one brings to it.

Mindfulness is so useful—it cultivates letting go of compelling thoughts and staying with what we know. We all gravitate towards what we want, and speculating about that usually means thinking wishfully. Hopes and dreams beg to be believed in; it takes skill to keep letting them go, but to the extent I’ve been able to do that I’ve found myself more able to follow my gut, sidestep my fantasies and trust myself.

Melanie’s made a good start on these mental factors, and her new boyfriend seems to be of like mind. If that’s part of their chemistry, they’re off to a good start. We found out that he plans to run for public office one day. Lord knows, we need leaders with ethics and clear-headedness. He believes that that career path “holds the greatest potential to effect positive change for the most people.” Let’s hope he pursues both his personal and his public life with discernment and a clear head.