Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension: An Interview with Bhante Gunaratana

The Sri Lankan monk Ven. Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, who at nearly 80 still walks 4-6 miles a day, visited Spirit Rock this past November to lead a retreat on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. I caught up with him as he was having tea alone in his room late one afternoon during the retreat. “Bhante G” as he is affectionately known to his students, is very skillful at presenting the dharma in a concise and straightforward manner. His well-received books include Mindfulness In Plain English and Eight Mindful Steps To Happiness: Walking the Buddha’s Path. At the age of 12, he was ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk in his native Sri Lanka. Currently he is the abbot of the Bhavana Society Monastery and Meditation Center in High View, West Virginia.

SR: I would like to ask you about mindfulness. What is the most important thing for us to remember on being mindful off the cushion, or outside the retreat or monastery environment? That is where mindfulness often tends to be most difficult.

BG: Actually, whether we are on the cushion or off the cushion, our mindfulness practice is the same. As we practice we become more mindful all the time—mindful of our mental states—because it is really the mental state that is expressed through the body. When I say through the body, I mean through our actions and through our words we express what is on the mind. Therefore we always look at our mind in mindfulness training.

People talk particularly about clear comprehension. Basically, clear comprehension is divided into four groups—clear comprehension of purpose, suitability, domain and non-delusion. Most of the time people use the example of washing dishes with clear comprehension of purpose. You don’t need too much mindfulness and clear comprehension in order to wash dishes. All these restaurant workers, they wash dishes, and all they have to know is how to follow the health department’s regulations to get the dirt off the plates, saucers, cups, spoons, knives and so forth. You don’t need that much deep clear comprehension and mindfulness to do that. But the purpose of true mindfulness and clear comprehension is to remove the dirt in the mind, not on the dish!

While washing dishes, your mind will be filled with dirt of its own—a lot of impurities such as resentment, competition, hatred, fear, tension, worry, anxiety... While trying to remove the dirt from the plate, there is dirt building up in your mind (laughs), so we pay attention directly to our mind to get rid of these impurities while getting rid of the dirt on the plates.

Therefore this is one of the purposes of clear comprehension—that is, purifying the mind, not purifying the dish, the cloth, the room, the carpet or the environment. The purpose is to remove the dirt from our mind to make it pure, clean and what we call “purified.” So whether we sit on the cushion or find ourselves outside doing something else, we always keep looking at our mind to see how many unwholesome things we’ve built up to make our life painful, and to make us suffer. It is not the dirt on the cloth or the dish that makes us suffer, but the dirt in the mind that makes us suffer.

The second purpose of clear comprehension is to overcome sorrow and lamentation. Sorrow and lamentation are also caused by impure mental states.

The third purpose of clear comprehension is to remove our suffering. When we are washing dishes (or doing other things) we may have very pleasant, beautiful sensations. There’s nothing wrong with that, but underneath any beautiful, pleasant sensation there is the underlying tendency of greed which causes suffering. So we look at that, understand this pleasant experience and don’t try foolishly to cling to it. We experience it fully well knowing that this pleasant sensation is impermanent.

So we have the clear comprehension of the purpose of cleansing the mind of the cause of suffering. Then the next clear comprehension—the fourth purpose—is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path. Actually, when we are outside and off the cushion, following the Eightfold Path is more practical because every moment we have to understand—we have to understand people, we have to understand ourselves, we have to understand our situations, and we have to understand our mental state. Understanding always must be present, whether we are on the cushion or off the cushion.

SR: What exactly do you mean when you say we must understand?

BG: We have to understand suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering and the path leading to the end of suffering. And these are always working. We always see the cause of suffering. At any given moment we have a desire, and that is the cause of suffering, so we understand that. That understanding does not differ from place to place, time to time, situation to situation, person to person. That is the invariable understanding of the truth, whether we are on the cushion or off the cushion.

The cause of suffering is greed. Whenever greed arises we recognize it exactly as it is and know, “This is my problem—this is what causes my problem, my suffering, my pain.” For instance, I said a pleasant sensation arises. I understand that the underlying tendency is greed, and that greed is the cause of my suffering. When I have a pleasant sensation or a pleasant feeling, I enjoy it, I like it and I hope that it stays for a while, but right as I’m thinking about holding onto it, maintaining it, wanting it to exist forever, it disappears. While I’m trying to keep it, it disappears.

SR: Because you are grasping?

BG: Because I’m trying to grasp.

Unfortunately it always slips away from your grip. Your grip is not tight enough—always it slips away through or between your fingers (demonstrates with his hands). It’s just like trying to grab air into a fist—it slips away. Then we end up in pain and suffering.

But if you understand that this pleasure arose many times in the past and disappeared, then this time when it arises, you know it will also pass. But I enjoy it while having it. There is understanding and enjoyment. So understanding has many, many various areas.

The last purpose of clear comprehension is attaining liberation from our suffering. The purposes are fivefold. The first is purifying the mind, the second is to overcome sorrow and lamentation, the third is overcoming pain and suffering, the fourth is following the Noble Eightfold Path and the fifth is attaining liberation. And these fivefold purposes we must keep in our mind all the time. They are not different from sitting meditation and outside meditation.

And then whenever something happens in our mind, we always refer to this fivefold purpose and ask, “Am I trying to purify my mind? Am I trying to overcome my sorrow and lamentation? Am I trying to overcome my pain and suffering? Am I trying to follow the Noble Eightfold Path? Am I trying to liberate myself?” We keep asking these questions. That is what we call “making effort” to understand this very first part of clear comprehension.

The second part of clear comprehension is the suitability. That is, I must ask myself, “Is this practice suitable for attaining this goal?” That means I am becoming mindful of this all the time. I am asking these questions and looking at the mind asking, “Is this the way I should follow?” That is what is called clear comprehension of the suitability. The method must suit or agree with the goal. That means when I follow these steps, “Can I reach this goal?” That is the question we have to ask. And the answer is, “Yes.”

The third clear comprehension is the domain. Domain is the field—the field of my mindfulness. What is the field of my mindfulness? It is my body and my mind, along with the feelings, perceptions, thoughts and consciousness. These are my field, my subject—and these are divided into four categories called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

Form is the body, that’s the first foundation; then the feeling, that is the second foundation; consciousness is the third foundation; and the phenomena or the dhamma is the fourth foundation. Now, that is our field of mindfulness—not the dish, not the cup, not the house, not the car and not the money in the bank, they are not our fields. (He pours more hot water into his tea cup.)

SR: From Zen Buddhism we often hear the phrase, “When drinking tea, just drink tea.” I believe this is pointing towards being in the present moment, but perhaps I’ve had a misunderstanding about that because when drinking tea I often forget that I’m supposed to be mindful here with my mind, first and foremost. Could you explain how you see this?

BG: I think when you drink, you drink mindfully. How do you drink mindfully? It is not just lifting the cup in a ceremonial way (he demonstrates gingerly with his white mug), and turning the cup in a ceremonial way. It is not ceremonial drinking, to be mindful of the present moment (he sips and swallows). That is, while drinking, we must experience the elements—earth element, air element, water element, fire element—in the drinking itself.

While I’m drinking, I feel the touch of the cup, feel the touch of the liquid that I drink, and that touch comes from the earth element. And then the liquid is the water element. Heat or cold is the fire element. And movement is the air element. That is one part to be mindful of. And these all change. The touch or feel of the cup is changing, our movement is changing, heat or cold is changing, and the liquid is changing.

The second part is, while I’m drinking I feel the liquid, and that feeling is changing as I sip. From the moment the liquid touches my lips, going through my mouth, down my throat and into the stomach, I experience many different moments of feelings. Each feeling is totally different from the previous feeling. So I become aware of that change of feeling. I perceive this liquid, I perceive the feeling, and as the feeling changes, my perception changes. I pay ‘intentional attention’ to the drinking, and that intentional attention also is changing. And then I have conscious awareness of the drink, of the feelings, of intentional attention, and of the perception—I’m fully aware, and that also changes.

So what happens, all the five aggregates are involved, and all the five aggregates are changing. Liquid and so forth is the form (or matter) aggregate, feeling is the feeling (or sensation) aggregate, perception is the perception (or cognition) aggregate, intentional attention is the volition (or mental formations) aggregate, and consciousness is the consciousness aggregate. These are what we call the five aggregates—rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana in Pali.

When we are mindful of the present moment, we are mindful of all these things happening in a split second. All the five aggregates are involved, all are changing, and none of the five aggregates have any permanent entity in them. So we can see impermanence, and no matter how pleasant this experience is, it is not permanent. Therefore it is unsatisfactory, and therefore it does not have permanent self. To see these three things while drinking, this is our way of being mindful of the present moment, not ceremonial drinking (he laughs and enjoys several more sips of tea).

*This interview was done for the Spirit Rock newsletter, but we ran out of space this issue so it will not be printed there after all and appears here instead. Conducted by Walt Opie at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in November 2006. Photo of Bhante Gunaratana by Walt Opie.

Link