When you meditate, you will see the real face of the mind

“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.”

The first step is that we must develop samatha-bhāvanā. 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.

When you meditate, and your mind has temporarily withdrawn into itself, the awareness of the body and everything else will disappear.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.

If the mind is constantly reminded of this fact, the mind can then make preparations for this eventuality. When things happen, when the mind loses anything, it will not have any desire to have it back because the mind doesn’t really need it anyway.

If the mind has developed samatha-bhāvanā and samādhi, the mind will be peaceful, contented, and happy. So it knows that it doesn’t need anything to make it happy and that nothing in this world can make it forever happy because everything in this world is temporary. So this is the development of vipassanā, to constantly remind the mind to let go, not to cling to the body and to things because clinging will only cause the mind to have suffering, sadness, misery, fear, worry, and anxiety.

So this is the development of vipassanā. You can do it effectively only after you have developed samatha bhāvanā, after you have experienced the true mind, seen the true mind, known that the true mind is not the body, and experienced the peace and happiness that arise from this experience. Then you will know that you can let go of everything because nothing you have is as good as what you have from your samatha-bhāvanā, from your peace of mind.

This is very important. You first must have something better, a better kind of happiness, before you can give up the lesser kind of happiness. If you don’t have this happiness that comes from having peace of mind, from samādhi, you cannot give up the happiness that you have through your body. This is the reason why the Buddha said you must first develop samādhi.

If you have no samādhi, your mind will be constantly desiring, wanting, hungry for this or that. But when you have samādhi, your mind will become peaceful and calm, your mind will become contented, it will be full. It doesn’t feel like it needs anything. Once it has this fullness, this contentment, then it can give up everything, especially seeing the result of not giving up, of clinging. When you cling to something and when you lose it, it can make you become very unhappy, very miserable.

So this is the thing that you have to develop, this samādhi, and samādhi can only happen if you have mindfulness. So you need to first develop mindfulness, which you can do all the time, from the time you get up until the time you go to sleep.

You don’t have to go the temple. You don’t have to be alone. Yes, it will help if you can be alone, or if you can go to the temple. But if you have not yet gone to the temple, or been alone for a long time, you can still develop the mindfulness by reciting the mantra.

When you don’t have to use your thoughts for necessary activities, keep reciting your mantra. Don’t let your mind think aimlessly and emotionally because it is useless and harmful to your state of mind. It can only make you feel miserable, unhappy, and discontented.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto