“…In order to do this, we need mindfulness or sati. Sati is the Dhamma that will stop the mind from thinking, a process that will bring the mind into calm, into concentration, into oneness, into singularity, into the real mind, into the one who knows—all characteristics of the healthy mind.
Right now we don’t discern the knowing from the knower. We see the thoughts. We have been constantly thinking from the time we are born to the present. We might stop thinking when we go to sleep, but the rest of the time we are constantly thinking and cannot see the thoughts or the knower behind the thoughts.
When we stop the mind from thinking, we will see the knower. We will see that this is the mind, and we will understand that this mind is not the body. It is this mind that came to take possession of the body and it is this mind that will lose this body when the body dies. So this is the first thing you want to do, that is to separate the mind from the body by developing mindfulness.
Mindfulness is concentrating or focusing your mind only on one object, such as the recitation of a mantra. In Thailand we use the name of the Buddha. We keep reciting mentally Buddho, Buddho, Buddho, from the time we get up to the time we go to sleep. Because when we can maintain the recitation of Buddho, the mind cannot think.
And when the mind cannot think continually, it will eventually stop and become concentrated into the knower. When you meditate, you will see the real face of the mind, and this face is simply the act of knowing. That is all that the mind does. It knows. But it is being deluded to follow the thoughts; whatever the thoughts say, it believes.
The thoughts say this body is I, this body is mine, and the mind believes the thoughts. So whenever things happen to the body, like getting old, getting sick, or dying, the mind becomes miserable because the mind doesn’t want the body to get old, get sick, or die. So when you meditate, and your mind has temporarily withdrawn into itself, the awareness of the body and everything else will disappear.
All you have left is the mind. So you know that even though there is no body, the mind still exists. After you have experienced this truth, when you come out of your meditation, when you come out of your concentrated state and become aware of your body and things around you, what you want to do next is to keep reminding your mind that the mind is not the body and that the mind cannot keep the body forever.
Also everything else that the mind has acquired, be it fortune, wealth, money, status, fame or the happiness that the mind gets and acquires through the body are all temporary, all impermanent. One day, sooner or later, the mind will lose everything…”
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
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