“This is the main problem for most meditators. They lack mindfulness.”

Most problems arise from a lack of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the key to successful meditation. Mindfulness is the factor that can reign in the mind and contain your thoughts. If you cannot contain your thoughts, you cannot achieve samādhi. And if you cannot achieve samādhi, you will not experience the bliss from a mind that is at ease and peaceful. So what you have to do at all times, from the time you get up to the time you fall asleep, is to develop mindfulness.

Mindfulness can be developed in many different ways. The Buddha gave us forty subjects of meditation that we can use to establish mindfulness. Thais like to use the name of the Buddha. We mentally recite Buddho, Buddho at all times. This is just a ploy, a way of preventing the mind from thinking aimlessly.

Normally we like to think aimlessly at the same time that we brush our teeth, take a bath, or do something else. This is considered as having no mindfulness since the mind is not focused. The mind should be focused on only one subject at a time. If you are using the body as the basis of your mindfulness, you have to focus on the activities of the body. You have to watch whatever the body is doing all the time and not think about other things. When you are brushing your teeth, just watch this activity; don’t brush your teeth and think about other things. Just think about the action that you are doing at the moment. This is maintaining mindfulness.

In order to bring the mind into samādhi, gaining calm and bliss, you need to have the mind focused on one object. The mind shouldn’t go to the past or future. It should always be here and now, in the present. You can use your body as an object of mindfulness, or you can use some other objects such as a mantra, like the word ‘Buddha’, ‘Buddha’, or a phrase if you like, such as Hare Krishna.

Some Thais like to use ‘Buddhaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi’, ‘Dhammaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi’, ‘Saṅghaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi. Just keep repeating that and do not think about anything. Your thinking will prevent you from achieving calm, and if you have no calm, your mind will be restless, agitated, and desirous. When you have desire, you will be uneasy and uncomfortable.

This is the main problem for most meditators. They lack mindfulness. You should try to develop mindfulness. The most efficient way to develop mindfulness is to be alone. If you live with other people, you will be distracted by their activities or their engagements. They might talk to you or ask questions, and your mind would have to think about those things instead of focusing on your object of mindfulness.

But if you are alone, by yourself, like when you stay at the temple, you can have lots of time with no distractions to maintain mindfulness. When you have good mindfulness and sit in meditation, your mind will enter calm very easily, maybe in five or ten minutes if your mindfulness is continuous and you focus your mind on just one object. When you sit, you might use the breathing as your object of establishing your mindfulness — you can just keep focusing on your breathing. As long as you don’t think about other things, very soon your mind will become calm.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto