When you understand the present moment then you can understand how to bring mindfulness into your daily life…Meditation doesn't work because we mediate with our thinking mind. – Venerable Sudhammacara

Thich Nhat Hanh has a gatha, “Present moment. Wonderful moment” and today Venerable Sudhammacara led us through a discovery of why the present moment is a wonderful moment. We need to really “get” the present moment because most of the time we are not present we are living in the future and in the past. The strange human condition is that our minds are almost always in a place that doesn’t really exist. Moreover, we are not even really aware that our minds are always in the past and future and rarely in the present. The thinking mind doesn't like the present moment and loves past and future because it can’t survive in the present moment. You can only think in 2 ways in the past and future but when you are really in the present moment your suspend your thinking and touch the Ultimate dimension—this is why being in the present moment can be wonderful, peaceful and joyful.  

When you enter meditation regardless of tradition wherever you go you end up facing your mind.  Oftentimes we cannot meditate because we are thinking or our thinking mind is meditating and that makes meditation impossible. Making this shift is challenging because we have been educated to think and the problem is that we are meditating with our thinking mind.

For me, the times when I can suspend my thinking easily are when I am mindful of my breath.  My first experience of this was during the second day of a 10 Day Goenka-ji Vipassana Retreat where I learned about the Anapanasati Sutta which essentially means mindfulness of the in breath and out breath. In Goenka-ji’s tradition we are taught to focus on our breath on our upper lip. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition we focus on abdominal breathing. Focusing on abdominal breathing really gets us into our bodies which makes it easier to suspend thinking.  Other instances where I’ve suspended thinking are during certain poses in my yoga practice, swimming, singing, mindful walking and eating. We spent time in walking meditation today which is a great way to practice mindfulness since we usually have to walk to get where we are going anyway!    

Venerable spoke about how in the present moment you are one with your situation, you aren’t treating it as an obstacle, you are one with your situation, you aren’t unconscious, your awareness is crystal clear. Only in the present moment can we be free. Our thinking mind is a tool, it is not who we are and our suffering is because we often self identify with our thoughts. Even when we do this practice our thinking mind is still arising and passing but we can understand it in a larger perspective.  

When you teach children how to stay in the present moment they taste a glimpse of this ultimate dimension.  Venerable shared that if kids know how to come back to their peaceful dimension they can avoid crazy things which usually happen to teenagers because they are so irritated and agitated.

A wonderful Belgian born Swamiji in joined us for the teachings and in the afternoon we engaged in an interreligious dialogue. I found this discussion very fruitful because even though I’m a practicing Buddhist, having been born into a Hindu-Brahmin family, I still have a deep connection with Hindu philosophy, especially from the Advaita Vedanta school. Swamiji was first ordained as a Monk in the Christian tradition before coming to India and meeting his root teacher who is Hindu. When I asked him where he was from he looked at me, smiled and said, “I come from where you are from, do you understand what I mean? But in form I’m from Belgium.”

We discussed the useless controversy between Anatman (No-Self, a key element in Buddhism) and Atman (Self, a key element of Hindusm) since they essentially lead to the same place of knowing your true self. Swamiji did however say that knowledge of Anatman is a prerequisite for knowing Atman. When talking about reincarnation

Swamiji shared that mindfulness is so important because it is the closest many of us get to absolute awareness which is formless, beyond concepts, everywhere, timeless, unborn and that which is beyond words (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). In a discussion about reincarnation both Venerable and Swamiji said that our strong attachment to a new existence is the reason why we reincarnate and mind, which is subtle matter is what is brought to the next life.