by Ajahn Amaro

This is the final part of the chapter “The place of Nonabiding” in the book Small Boat, Great Mountain, a free Dhamma publication as PDF EPUB MOBI. Look for the link at the end of this text.  [Note: The first paragraph is a reprint of the closing paragraph at the end of last week’s post]

“The effort to make a clear distinction between the mind that knows and mind-objects is … very important to our practice. Mindfulness of breathing is a good way to work with this insight. Just notice the feeling of the breath as you follow the sensation of it. The breath is moving, but that which knows the breath is not moving.”

Perhaps we first pick this up by catching the space at the end of the out-breath and then at the end of the in-breath. We notice there is a pause, a space there. But, if we extend our vision, we begin to notice that that spaciousness and stillness are actually always there. As the breath flows in and out, there is an eternal spaciousness of the mind that remains unobstructed by the movement of the breath.

We can also extend this practice to walking meditation. If we stand still, with our eyes open or closed, we can notice that all of the sensations of the body are known within our mind. The feeling of the feet on the ground, the body standing, the feeling of the air, and so on are all held and known within the mind. It can take a few minutes to really get to that point, but if we make the effort, soon we will have that sense of mind established. Then we simply let the body start walking.

Usually when we walk, we’re going someplace; this can complicate the picture. Actually, there’s no essential difference in walking somewhere and going nowhere. Walking meditation is very helpful in this way; it simplifies things a lot. We know we’re going absolutely nowhere. It’s deliberately a completely pointless exercise on the level of trying to get someplace.

By working with the moving body in meditation, we can use it as an opportunity to witness the body walking without going anywhere. As the body walks along at a gentle pace, we begin to see that even though the body is moving, the mind that knows the body, is not moving. Movement does not apply to awareness. There are movements of the body, but the mind that knows the movements aren’t moving. There’s stillness, but there’s flow. The body flows, perceptions flow, but there is stillness. As soon as the mind grabs it and we think we are going somewhere, then the oil and water are mixed up. There’s a “me” going some “place.” But in that moment of recognising—“Oh, look, the stillness of the mind is utterly unaffected by the movement in the body”—we know that quality of still, flowing water.

There’s an appreciation of freedom. That which is moving is not-self. That which is moving is the aspect of flow and change. And the heart naturally takes refuge in that quality of spaciousness, stillness, and openness that knows but is unentangled. “I find meditation with the eyes open is also very helpful in this respect. With the eyes open, there’s more of a challenge to exercise the same quality that is normally established only in walking meditation. If we keep our eyes open and hold the space of the room, we see the coming and going of people, the gentle swaying of the bodies in the breeze, the changing light, the waxing and waning of the afternoon sun.

We can let all of this just come and go and be held in that space of knowing, where there is a conscious experience of both the conventional and ultimate truths. There’s the ultimate view of no person, no time, and no space, of timeless knowing and radiance. Then there are the conventions: you and me, here and there, sitting and walking, coming and going. The two truths are totally interfused; one is not obstructing the other. This is a way of directly appreciating that nonabiding is not just some kind of abstruse philosophy but is something we can taste and value.

In the moment we really understand the principle, the heart realizes, “The body is moving, the world is coming and going, but it’s absolutely going nowhere.” Birth and death have ended right there.

And we don’t have to be sitting still or walking in slow motion to awaken to this insight. We can be running, even playing tennis, and still find the same quality. It pertains equally when we are physically motionless and when we are moving at a high speed, even racing along the freeway.

-Link to original source of Ajahn Amaro’s text: https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/423-small-boat-great-mountain

[Note: the text that follows had its origin in an email to my blogging friend Ellen, over the hills and far away. Thanks El]

This is the end of the present series on “The Place of Nonabiding,” and I’d like to close with a particular observation, a glimpse you could say, arrived at through Ajahn Amaro’s teaching. My meditation had come to a standstill… I didn’t quite know how it happened but it was just a kind of ‘nothing’. Then a very specific understanding of what this was came to me through studying the above text. It’s the difference between Mind, on the one hand, and mind + mind objects, one the other. Take walking meditation, when you’re walking, doesn’t matter if it’s walking meditation or walking to get somewhere, as long as you’re mindful of what’s happening; the mind is familiar with the movement of the body walking, the muscles of the leg and the measured pressure of the feet hitting the surface you are walking on. There is an awareness of movement…but the mind that is aware of this is not moving — that Mind is outside time and space, or ‘place’ – it isn’t anywhere.

One other thing Ajahn mentions is why not try having your eyes open in meditation, so I tried that for a few days, and that’s what I was thinking when Jiab and I were walking around the shopping mall last Sunday. There is a particularly long stretch of say, half a mile we have to walk to get to where we’re going. It’s all smooth mall flooring and good lighting and I’ve done this many times so I can forget about my surroundings and focus on what’s happening in the mind. There’s a pattern in my walk these days, now walking with the cane; a regular ‘click’ sound every two steps, as well as Jiab’s small hand holding mine. I’m conscious of the Mind that’s aware of all this happening, while I’m taking care of ordinary things, the act of walking and seeing the shapes of other beings passing by.

Ajahn Amaro made this clear to me, and a memory suddenly came back of an insight into this area of awareness about 12 years ago in Switzerland. I wrote a post about it, and the link is at the end of this text. At that time ,I had only the smallest understanding of what it was and was never able to follow it up. Now after that very long stretch of time, Ajahn Amaro has identified it for me — Gratitude and Respect. I’m convinced now that’s what it is. I’m able to see it because, if you think of it only as one mind, it’s nothing, not interesting and you can’t sustain that sense of mind. If you see it as Mind, it’s not a ‘nothing,’ it becomes a ‘something.’

[A note for regular readers, thank you for following me all these years. As you know I’ve not been able to write my own posts for more than a year now due to AMD (impaired vision) in the right eye. However, my blogging friend Manish helped me activate the microphone in Word which opened the speech-to-text app and now I’m getting used to this new way of writing — it’s a bit like giving a speech in a room with no listeners!]

Link to the post in Switzerland twelve years ago

:https://dhammafootsteps.com/2012/08/24/mindful-alertness/?wref=tp