Do Your Work With a Steadied Mind
The two primary aspects of Buddhist inner cultivation (bhāvanā) are called serenity (samatha) and clarity (vipassanā). Samatha practice is generally about quieting the discursive mind, settling the body and heart, and sustaining that quiet settledness in meditative absorption. Vipassanā practice in any of its varied forms is about investigating sensory experience to understand its effect on the heart and how suffering is either created or avoided.
In non-retreat life, most of our time is spent in activity rather than in stillness. Because of this, we need to bring both of these primary modes of cultivation into more activities than just meditation. Conventional "mindfulness" accomplishes some of this, but generally falls short of truly respecting either serenity or clarity.
Mindfulness leans in the direction of clarity, but for understanding to really unfold, we must bring an attitude of investigation into our life, not just the idea that if we are "present" the fruits of practice will naturally arise. Investigation often means not immediately trusting the stories told by our inner narrator—stories enlisted to justify difficult emotions—but looking for the inner cause of suffering in both pleasant and unpleasant situations.
Mindfulness also includes an element of serenity practice because presence always includes some amount of quieting the discursive mind. One way to bring serenity more strongly into our daily life is to practice quieting the mind whenever intentional thinking is not required. So in any moment that I'm not in conversation with someone, actively composing text, or doing deep work on an intellectual task, I can practice a gentle persistent silencing of the mind. And then I practice doing so even in the midst of those intentionally discursive activities.
We'll talk tonight about this kind of "active mindfulness" and bringing the inner work of bhāvanā more fully into our work and play.
