Appreciation and mindfulness

• Guided meditation on our precious human life
• Lamrim meditations laying foundations for higher practices, setting proper aspirations
• Discussion on appreciation, mindfulness, introspective awareness (aspect of intelligence or wisdom) and conscientiousness
• How to develop awareness of these factors in our own minds during our daily lives

Mind and mental factors 05: Appreciation and mindfulness (download)

Guided meditation: precious human life

Imagine being born in another life form. Imagine what it would be like to be an animal. Just pick an animal and pretend that that’s what you are, who you are. You can think only like that animal. You do only what that kind of animal does. And imagine it: having limited intelligence, not being able to speak. 

And then come back to being a human. And remember what it’s like to have a human body of human intelligence: the ability to think clearly and learn the Dharma, capabilities that an animal lacks. And really feel a sense of appreciation for this quality that you have, for being a human with human intelligence. And being a human isn’t sufficient. We could have been born with defective senses or great handicaps, which would make it more difficult to practice. For some time, just imagine being blind or deaf or paralyzed or mentally retarded. And think, “Could I practice the Dharma? In those cases, would it be easy to practice?” Really imagine having those kinds of impediments. 

And then come back to being a human with healthy senses. And really rejoice at the ability to see and hear, to think clearly, to be able to remember and associate things. And generate a sense of real appreciation for that opportunity. But being a healthy human being isn’t sufficient. What if we were born in a place where it was impossible to meet the Dharma? Imagine that: being born in a country where there is no Dharma existing. There you are, you have this incredible spiritual yearning. You have a very strong wish to find meaning in your life, to make your life valuable. But there’s nobody around to learn from. There are no teachings; there are no books—there’s absolutely nothing that can speak to your spiritual yearning. Imagine being born and living in that kind of environment. What would that be like? 

And now remember the environment that we live in where there’s so much Dharma around. We’re able to meet teachers, to have a supportive community, to have books. Really appreciate that ability to encounter the Dharma in the place where we live. But just having the Dharma in the environment isn’t sufficient. We also need the freedom to practice. And so easily we could have been born into a situation where there’s no freedom to practice. There are places on this planet where if you try and practice you could get shot or thrown in prison. It’s dangerous to meet as a group to learn the Dharma. It’s dangerous even to be caught with your mouth moving to say prayers. What would it be like to live in that situation? There’s no freedom. The Dharma is there, but if you were caught with a book, if you were caught meeting together, if you were caught meditating you could be imprisoned or shot. What would that be like? 

And then come back to our present situation where we have freedom. There’s not only freedom to practice, but freedom from fear. Where we can practice openly and not be afraid for our life or our family or anything by practicing. And so let’s really appreciate this freedom that we have. And now with this great deep sense of appreciation for having a human body and having a human intelligence, for being healthy with all our senses intact, for being in a place where we can contact the Dharma, where there’s teachers and supportive community and books, where we have the freedom to be able to practice and learn as we wish—let’s really have a strong appreciation for that. And let’s develop an aspiration to really use this opportunity, not to waste it.

So easily hindrances can come, but right now we’re free of them. Develop a strong aspiration to really take the essence of the present opportunity, the present time that we have to practice. And the best way to really take the essence from our precious life is to generate the altruistic intention: the aspiration to become a fully enlightened Buddha, to develop our potential completely, to eliminate all hindrances, so that we can be of the most effective service to all other beings. Appreciate that we have the opportunity to really become a Buddha in this lifetime and generate the aspiration to do so. 

Review of meditation experience

So, what happened in that meditation? Hello?

Audience: I was a cow.

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): Yes? And what was it like to be a cow? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: It was quite bad. When you make your mind into a cow’s mind, what’s that like to be? It’s quite amazing, isn’t it? See, contrast that with being a human being. Were people able to develop some sense of appreciation? Were you all falling asleep? [laughter]

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Hmm. It might have been that you didn’t feel terribly successful with the appreciation, but maybe there was something there nonetheless. But try it some more when you go home. And like you said, you don’t know what a hamster or a snake thinks and feels. But really try and imagine being in a snake’s body. And you’re just sitting there slithering under some stones. That’s your whole life. That’s your whole realm of existence. It’s just big stones and grass and a few bits to chomp on. 

And what do you think about all that? What do you think? How many lifetimes have we lived in cyclic existence with that kind of body and mind? And we might feel like it’s hard to imagine, but remember when you were a kid and you used to play at being all these different things? It’s very much that same kind of feeling as when you were a kid. We used to be able to imagine being all sorts of things as a kid and play at it. Call up that same creative imagination. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You go and enjoy what? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You think, “Well, you just lie there and soak in a lot of teachings.” You know, our cat comes to more classes than anybody else. But then is he waking up? Imagine having that mind. And on one hand, you think, “Oh, it’s not so bad.” But then on the other hand you might not be experiencing direct physical suffering, but you know something about karma. And so even though, like I said, the cat may not realize what’s going on, you realize that there’s virtually no opportunity to create positive karma. You just live that. I mean, he has this great life. He has good company and good food. But it is very difficult. 

He gets some Dharma teaching imprint on his mind. He has a very fortunate rebirth. He has the Dharma. But most cats don’t live in a Dharma household. And then what happens? All day long maybe they eat and sleep. They use up some good karma. And then all the negative karma just festers. And then they create more and more as they go out and catch birds and bite spiders and kill all sorts of things. And so their minds are totally obscured. There’s no opportunity to prepare for future rebirth. There’s no opportunity to liberate themselves from cyclic existence. When you realize the long-reaching implications of that, you realize that it might be nice to lie in the sun, but the long implications of being a cat lying in the sun is that you just go from one rebirth to the next in the hell realms and the hungry ghost realms and all these different realms totally without control. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: It’s difficult. They basically have to rely on positive imprints that they created, for example, when they were a human being, that are still there on the mindstream that haven’t ripened yet, that hopefully will ripen at the end of this lifetime. Or they get some positive imprint, like he does, from listening to teachings—or doing circumambulation, hearing mantras, things like that. But this is the whole thing. If we don’t practice during this lifetime, and then the next lifetime we’re born as an animal, how do we get out? What happens to us? It’s very difficult at the end of a life as a cat to develop a positive thought and to die in a good space so that you create the conditions for your positive karma to ripen. It is very difficult. And when we really see that it’s so easy to be born as an animal and so difficult to get out then it makes us really appreciate that present opportunity—kind of like it’s a miracle. And then from there a very strong aspiration comes, that I don’t want to fall into lower realms again. I don’t want to be born like that.

Is this making some sense? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Well, it’s putting a good imprint on the animal’s mind. It’s a good imprint, but it’s not kind of karma from the power of their own way of thinking or their motivation. It’s still a good imprint.

This is just using one meditation as an example, but you can see how important it is to develop appreciation of the opportunities and qualities we have in our life, and from there to develop a strong aspiration not to waste it. Because we see if we waste it we’ve really blown it, big time. It’s not like losing your job or a relationship breaking up. If we blow it with this lifetime, we wind up in a lower realm with big trouble. 

The importance of aspiration

So, when we do that meditation, then a strong aspiration comes not to be reborn that way. That’s what enables us to keep good ethical conduct and to make an effort to learn the Dharma. When we don’t have that appreciation, when we don’t have that aspiration, then we stay at home and watch Part 2 of Dancing with Wolves. Because we don’t have the ability to put our life in a perspective of what we’re doing now is creating cause for future life. So then we just waste so many opportunities—just waste it, waste it, waste it. And then the time of death comes, and then what do you do? You can’t take a time machine and go backwards. We’re just left there to experience the result of our own actions. 

When we’re talking about aspiration, you see how important aspiration is. Because when we don’t have aspiration then we don’t make use of our life. And if we don’t make use of our life then we experience the result of not doing that. And you can see, like I explained last time, so many of the lamrim meditations are really designed to help us create positive aspirations. That’s why it’s really important to do the lamrim meditations so we have those aspirations.  That’s why I really stress people getting a good foundation in these basic practices. Because if we start to do all sorts of high practices but we don’t have the proper aspiration, those higher practices are not going to become virtuous, and we’re not going to have the ability to sustain the practice. Because we’ll go with an attitude of, “Oh, I’m going to do this real high practice.” But in the back of our mind is the aspiration of, “I want a big peak experience; I want a big rush.” Then you get a rush a few times when you do it, but then you keep doing it, you stop getting the rush, and then you go, “Well, that’s a drag.” And then you stop your practice. 

That’s why it’s so important at the beginning really to imbue our minds with this kind of appreciation and aspiration. Because if that’s real solid, then it becomes very easy to practice. And it is very easy to practice continuously. Is this making some sense to you?

Object-ascertaining mental factors: appreciation 

The next of the five object ascertaining mental factors is appreciation. I’ve been touching on this a little bit so far, but we’ll talk about it more in depth now. It’s:

A distinct mental factor that stabilizes the apprehension of a previously ascertained object and cherishes it such that it can’t be distracted by anything else. 

The more we understand something, the more we’re able to ascertain the object’s qualities, then the more we’re able to appreciate it and see it as worthwhile or valuable. 

This mental factor functions to cherish the object—[whatever it is we’re meditating on, for example]—and hold that object to be just what it is, just as we’re perceiving it. It stabilizes our mindfulness on the object and it helps us to create aspiration to develop it. 

We have to really look in our life and ask ourselves, “What do we appreciate?” And this sometimes can be really embarrassing when we look, when we see what it is in our life that we really appreciate. Now, sometimes we appreciate people who can kick a football really far, and we think that’s great, and we marvel over them and rave over them, but is this a valuable kind of appreciation? Is this a talent that is worthwhile for our appreciation to go after? Is this a talent that really it’s fine if other people have it, but do we need to put our mental energy of appreciation towards appreciating that? Is it valuable or not? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: As opposed to directing our appreciation elsewhere, directing our attention elsewhere—like if we appreciate somebody with the ability to kick a football really far, then we’re going to have an aspiration to develop that talent ourselves. So then we’re going to put our energy into it. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Could there be different levels? Yes, there are many different levels. And that’s what I’m getting at—let’s look at the different things that we appreciate and see what’s really valuable. Where do we have correct appreciation and where do we have actually misdirected appreciation? 

There’s nothing wrong with appreciating the ability to kick a football. That’s not nonvirtuous or anything. But given that we have a limited amount of time and mental energy, is that how we want to gear our mind to develop that appreciation and consequently that aspiration? Whereas, for example, if we’re able to think about the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and appreciate their qualities, then we appreciate their ability to guide us. We develop some aspiration to follow their instructions, some aspiration to become like them. Because we become what we appreciate. And we become what we aspire to become very often. And we aspire to become something we appreciate. So, we have to look at, what do we appreciate? What do we believe in? What do we have conviction in? What do we hold as valuable? What do we cherish? And it’s important to really ask ourselves, “Am I cherishing proper things? Am I appreciating proper things? Are these worthwhile things in my life?”

For example, we might really think about the qualities of the Buddha, and how the Buddha has eliminated all defilements, generated all good qualities. You think of the qualities of the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind. Buddha can appear in many different forms spontaneously to be able to help sentient beings. The Buddha’s voice can really communicate with others and knows exactly what to say and the right time to say it and how to say it and what to do. And the Buddha’s mind knows somebody else’s level of mind and knows what they’re interested in, knows how to explain things to them. It really has compassion that doesn’t fade away. When we think about these kinds of qualities of the Buddha, then we really appreciate those qualities. That sets the stage for faith to come in our mind and aspiration to come. And then effort, enthusiasm for practice, flows very easily after that. 

It’s the same way with the Dharma. If we think about the qualities of the Dharma—how it gives meaning to our life, how it gives direction, how it helps us explain the things that we experience in a way that makes sense—then we really appreciate that. Because what was it like before you met the Dharma when you were sitting there kind of wanting happiness and wanting something to explain your life, but there was nothing around except all these weird philosophies that don’t speak to your heart and seem really contradictory? That was my experience at least. I don’t know about you, but that was my experience. I tried all these different religions, you know, but nothing made any sense. And yet, there was this real strong yearning inside. What do you do with that? And then you meet the Dharma, and you see the qualities of the Dharma and how it makes sense, explains your life, gives you meaning, gives you direction, shows you how to do it, how to improve—then you have a really strong appreciation of the Dharma. Then with that strong appreciation, our refuge increases, and it becomes much easier to practice. It’s the same with the Sangha when we meditate on their qualities. 

So you see, I’m trying to relate this to the lamrim meditation to show you how lamrim helps you generate these qualities, so that as you’re aware of these qualities, then when you do the lamrim meditation you’ll be able to see: Well, is this the kind of attitude I have? Am I meditating properly? Am I generating this kind of appreciation when I think about these things? 

Forms of appreciation

There are limitless forms of appreciation, because we appreciate all sorts of things, don’t we? We appreciate football. We appreciate rollerblades. We appreciate the man in the moon. So, there are different levels of appreciation. 

One level is appreciation that is mistaken or valueless. We appreciate things that really don’t have any essential meaning at all. Or this is when we appreciate things that are actually incorrect, like when we hold wrong views. Or it’s when we appreciate wrong views, wrong philosophical texts. It’s like religious leaders that advocate killing people or something like that. In other words, it’s appreciations that are misleading us, that are mistaken, or that just don’t have any value.  

Another kind of appreciation is appreciations that are realistic. Here’s where we appreciate correct views, like when we think about the view of emptiness and we appreciate it. Or we appreciate the doctrine of impermanence, and we realize it’s true and have some appreciation and respect for that. Or it’s when we appreciate the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and want to generate them in ourselves and want to follow their example and their teachings. Or it’s when we appreciate our precious human life and so want to make it meaningful and take the essence from it. 

It’s helpful to look in our own mind and consider, well, what are things do we appreciate that are actually mistaken? Or what things do we appreciate that don’t have much value? And what things do we appreciate that are correct? And what things do we appreciate that have value? And how can we decrease one and increase the other? And then we can really put our mind to do it. We can train our mind, re-form our mind—re-train our mind in this direction. Because that’s the whole thing about Dharma: we actually have the ability to change. And we’re going to change for sure whether we want to or not. But are we going to leave how we change just to this process of being on automatic to our previous karma, depending on what we encounter in our environment? Or are we going to become an active agent in how we change and really direct it and guide ourselves? 

Object-ascertaining mental factors: mindfulness or memory

The next of the five object ascertaining mental factors is memory—or mindfulness. This one you hear a lot in Buddhist circles: mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. It’s used all the time, just mindfulness. Nobody really knows what it means, but we always talk about being mindful. So, here we’re going to get a definition. And we’re going to try and figure out what mindfulness really means. It’s:

A distinct mental factor that repeatedly brings to mind a phenomena of previous acquaintance without forgetting it. It doesn’t allow the mind to be distracted from the object and is the basis for concentration.

Three features of mindfulness

There are three things about mindfulness. First of all, there’s the objective feature. There’s an object that we’re familiar with. We can’t be mindful of an unfamiliar object. It has to be an object we’re familiar with. That’s why, for example, when we meditate we might use the breath as an object of concentration. It’s a fairly easy object to become familiar with. Or when we use the image of the Buddha, the visualized image of the Buddha as our object of concentration, then we have to make ourselves familiar with that visualized image. So, we spend some time looking at the picture. You look at the picture of the Buddha and really concentrate on that. And then you can remember it. You can be mindful of it when you close your eyes. So, the first quality of mindfulness, the first thing it depends on, is having an object that you’re familiar with. 

The second feature of mindfulness is the subjective quality, the subjective feature.  It’s a non-forgetfulness within the observation of that object. We have to be actively observing that object, being mindful of it, and not forgetting it while we’re observing it. So, a subjective feature of the mind is not forgetting it, the mind holding it in retention. 

The third feature is that it functions. It’s a functional feature. And here mindfulness functions to prevent distraction. Because there’s the stability of the mind, the mind is holding the object; it’s having a strong memory of the object. Mindfulness functions in a way to not forget the object. 

You can really see why mindfulness is important at the beginning of your meditation. Because if you cultivate strong mindfulness then there’s a familiar object, and you call it to mind in such a way that you don’t forget it. If your mindfulness is strong then it’s going to be very easy to generate good concentration from that. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): The first one was the objective feature. It’s an object that is familiar—for example, the breath. We take time also to make ourselves familiarized with the image of the Buddha. 

And the second is this subjective feature that is an attitude or an awareness of not forgetting the object within observing the object. So, we’re actively focusing on the object. And we’re not forgetting it. And that functions to eliminate distractions, to prevent distractions. 

You can see at the beginning of the meditation why it’s important to generate strong mindfulness. And you can also see why mindfulness is sometimes called memory, but it doesn’t mean memory in the same way as we usually talk about memory in English. Because mindfulness isn’t just a recalling of something that happened in the past. It isn’t like some storage of information. It’s not some storage of dry past information. Mindfulness is an active mental factor in which we are aware of something, and holding that in mind in a way that doesn’t forget it. In terms of meditation, it’s just like I described. It helps you to get your object of meditation and hold it there, and it causes concentration of single-pointedness to arise.

In terms of ethics and in terms of how we live our life, mindfulness holds in mind our ethical values and our precepts. It doesn’t mean that you’re actively going around all day saying, “I’m not going to kill. I’m not going to steal. I’m not going to have unwise sexual behavior. I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to take intoxicants.” It’s not that you’re going around saying those things like a mantra. But you’re holding them in mind; you are remembering that. Your ethical values are in your mind. You’re remembering them. You’re aware of them. Whatever level of precepts you’ve taken or whatever determination you have to abandon the ten destructive actions, you’re able to hold that in your mind. You know what the ten destructive actions are—you can’t be mindful of them if you don’t know what they are—so, you have them memorized. You know what they are, and then you hold that in your mind.

Introspective alertness

Then what you do is you use this other factor of introspective alertness, and it pops up from time to time to check to see if you’re actually living according to your values, or if mind is running around the universe causing body and speech to do the same. We check to see if we’re doing something that isn’t according to our own values. In terms of ethical discipline and in terms of how we live our life, we’re mindful of what we want to do and what we don’t want to do. Then this other mental factor of introspective alertness pops up and checks what we’re really doing.

Nowadays, mindfulness is just kind of used in the sense of being aware of what you’re saying and thinking and feeling and doing. And I often use it in that way because that’s kind of the very way we use it in Buddhism in America—just being aware of what you’re saying and thinking and feeling and doing. But that’s not the real deep, lasting meaning of it because just being aware of what we’re saying and feeling and thinking and doing doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re engaging in anything worthwhile. I can be completely mindful of telling somebody off and hurting their feelings. Actually, what mindfulness is meaning here is that we have in mind what our values and principles are, and those are in mind. And then we’re using the introspective alertness to pop up and discriminate and determine if we’re really following our heart or if we’re following our delusions or disturbing attitudes.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: No, mindfulness can also be when you’re just looking at an object with your eyes. You hold it. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Not necessarily, because I think this one must be able to arise with non-conceptual.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes. I never thought about that. It does say “previous,” but it could mean that you’ve known it the moment before. Yes, like if you’re looking at something, maybe you have some mindfulness at that time with your visual consciousness. The way I’m describing it is in terms of your mental consciousness. The way I’m applying it to the path is in terms of the mental consciousness. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: They go very much together. Well, the intention gets your mind near the object. The attention gets your mind on the object. And the mindfulness holds it there. And the concentration sticks it there. So, they’re all kind of related. In all these mental factors, I think in any perception there are lots of them coming in, and they’re working back and forth in a network.

Mindfulness and precepts

We talked about mindfulness in terms of meditation and mindfulness in terms of daily life. Now for mindfulness in terms of our study: here it allows us to remember what we learned. When you go home and you think about what you heard in class, mindfulness is the one that’s remembering what you heard in class. When you can’t remember what you heard in class that’s… non-mindfulness. Yes. That’s the mental factor of spaced-out-ed-ness. [laughter] In daily life, mindfulness and memory allows us to remember what has been done and what we need to do. So, just in practical ways, mindfulness knows “Here’s my list of things I need to do, and I’m going to remember to do them. Or I’m going to write them down like I do because I know I won’t remember to do them.” 

One reason that alcohol and intoxicants are really discouraged in the Buddhist path is because they obscure mindfulness. When we get intoxicated, in terms of developing single-pointedness in meditation, it’s very difficult. When you’re loaded, to try and keep your mind single-pointedly on an object in meditation is very difficult. In terms of keeping our ethical discipline, again, when we’re loaded, it’s very difficult because the mind forgets our ethical values. It forgets the value and worth of keeping our precepts. It forgets what the ten destructive actions are.

In terms of studying, again, when we’re intoxicated we can’t remember what we studied either. And we can’t remember what we said to other people. You can really see why the precept about intoxicants is included in the five major precepts. It’s not that Buddha said intoxicants are bad and you can’t get drunk. Buddha’s not being moralistic. There’s a real reason for this. When you see the mental factors that are important to generate in our mind to gain realization, and you see how intoxicating substances prevent the arisal of those mental factors, then we see the reason why Buddha gave that kind of guideline. 

I think this way of thinking is quite important. Otherwise, we see, for example, the precept against intoxicants as if the Buddha’s just being puritanical. And I’m using this because so many Buddhists in this country have an incredible amount of difficulty with the precept about intoxicants. There’s all sorts of bargaining going around about that: “Well, can I drink a little bit? How about if we make the precept against intoxicants that you just don’t get so loaded that you can’t think. But a little bit is okay.” Americans want to bargain and do this. Some Buddhist teachers say that’s okay. But my teachers were very clear that you don’t abuse intoxicants until you use it. First you use it, then you abuse it. If you don’t use it, then there’s no chance that you abuse it. This is coming from somebody who did a fair share of intoxicants in her past. 

Audience: Previous life.

VTC: Previous life, right. My previous life. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

VTC: Yes. [laughter] I did tell you this story. I didn’t tell you all of it. I didn’t tell you everything I did with intoxicants. [laughter]

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: I have some good stories to tell you when I do. One time when I was in Singapore, the people there are real sweet but very innocent in a certain way. I was telling some of the college students a little bit of what I did. And one of them looked at me and he said, “Wow, Venerable, you’ve sure changed.” [laughter] He had this incredible appreciation for what the Dharma did to me.

How mental factors function together

Mindfulness also works to help us remember what to practice and what to abandon. This is a really key phrase; you’re going to hear it a lot in Buddhist studies: “What to practice and what to abandon.” And that this is something we have to use our intelligence to discriminate. Our intelligence discriminates what to practice and what to abandon based on listening to the Buddhist teachings and thinking about them. And then our mindfulness holds that in mind so we remember, “Oh, we decided it was worthwhile to practice meditation every day,” or, “We decided it was not worthwhile to swear at people”—whatever it was. It’s this thing of being able to ascertain what’s valuable to practice and to abandon, and then not just ascertain it but to remember it, to hold it in our mind, so that it becomes kind of the framework or the filter through which we live our life.

Instead of the filter of our life being my happiness and my ego and my well-being and a “me, me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, I” kind of framework, the paradigm of our life becomes our values and our aspirations that are quite virtuous. With mindfulness we hold in our mind what we want to practice and what we want to abandon. The other mental factor of introspective alertness checks up to see if we’re acting according to this. And then if introspective alertness finds that we aren’t, then another mental factor called conscientiousness steps in. And conscientiousness is what cherishes what is virtuous. Conscientiousness says, “Okay, turn right, get off this track; it’s not going anywhere productive,” and gets us back on track here.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Non-introspective alertness is listed under the twenty auxiliary disturbing attitudes. Actually, introspective alertness is an aspect of intelligence or of wisdom which is one of the five object-ascertaining minds. Like I said before, the fifty-one are not an exhaustive list. There are many that are left out here. For example, they don’t point out introspective alertness as a separate one, but it actually is and it’s quite important. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Well, you need both mindfulness and introspective awareness together because the mindfulness holds the object in such a way that you don’t forget, and the introspective alertness checks up to see if you’re on it or you’re off it. If introspective alertness checks up and sees, “Oh, I’m still concentrating,” then you keep going on that way. If introspective alertness finds that you’re off in never, never land, then… 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, introspective alertness will see you’ve lost the mindfulness, so it rings the burglar alarm, and then we generate some other mental factors, according to the situation, to get our mind back on the object and regenerate our mindfulness. You see how these things work in tandem? How we need both of them? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes. Well, it’s hanging out in this really kind of discreet way. When we’re trying to develop concentration, it’s like a spy. It just comes up in the mind, just kind of checks up what’s going on there. It’s not this real hard thing of, “What am I thinking?” We’re not driving ourselves nuts about it. It’s just this one that kind of checks up and surveys the situation.

It’s a very important one. It’s very important. Because if we don’t have introspective alertness, then if we lose our mindfulness, we’re not aware that we’ve lost it. That’s why you start to meditate, you watch two breaths, or you have the image of the Buddha for about five seconds, and then ten minutes later the bell rings, and you go, “Oh, where was I?” And the reason is our mindfulness got lost. The reason we didn’t get back to the object was because we had no introspective alertness that became aware that the mindfulness was lost. So, you see, these have two different functions, but we need both of them.

Another way of looking at introspective alertness, like I was just saying, is that it’s an aspect of intelligence. That helps us to distinguish, for example, a good motivation from a bad motivation. And then mindfulness keeps our mind fixed on the good motivation. And then conscientiousness reinforces this and cherishes the good motivation. Again, you see how they’re all separate mental factors, but they all affect one another and help each other. If we don’t have alertness, then very often we practice things out of order. We do things incorrectly because we’re not aware of what we’re doing. If we lack mindfulness, then we also do things incorrectly, out of order, because it’s not clear in our mind. We don’t remember what to do. We start the meditation. We meditate completely backwards to front, upside down. And then we wonder why nothing’s happening. Actually, as you strengthen your mindfulness, your introspective alertness automatically increases, too. And as your introspective alertness increases, your mindfulness gets stronger. So, they help each other. That’s kind of what you were asking before. 

It’s quite interesting to spend some time thinking about this and really applying it to your life. Be aware, have the introspective alertness of what you’re mindful of. And see if you’re mindful of the proper things. Try it in your meditation this week. Be really aware of mindfulness as you meditate, and of introspective alertness, to see if you’re still on the object. In your daily life, try and use the intelligence to discriminate what to practice and what to abandon. And then use mindfulness to hold that in your mind. And then use introspective alertness to see if you’re still there. Try and be really aware of that this week, the interplay of these different things. Because when we’re studying all these mental factors, this isn’t some kind of abstract thing. This is describing what’s going on in our minds. His Holiness always says that the best laboratory is right in here. We have our own laboratory here. We take these things and apply them to what’s going on in the world.