60 /108 Gates of Dharma Illuminatioj

[Shokai]

25 Quaint gate.jpg

一百八法明門
IPPYAKUHACHI-HOMYOMON
One Hundred and Eight Gates of Dharma-Illumi

The faculty of mindfulness is the mental ability of lucid, present-moment awareness and recollection, acting as a "gatekeeper" that observes mental and bodily states to distinguish wholesome from unwholesome actions. It is one of the five spiritual faculties with faith, energy, concentration, wisdom and is central to the four foundations—body, feelings, mind, and mental objects. The cultivation of this faculty leads to the purification of beings, overcoming suffering and grief, and the realization of Nirvana. It functions like a supporting pillar for the mind, ensuring one is not negligent or "swept away" by experiences.

Give examples of how this gate is involved with your practice?

合掌,生開
gassho, Shokai
stlah
仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai
"Open to life in a benevolent way"

[Ryūdō-Liúdào]

Mindfulness feels like the cornerstone of a good life for me. By staying present and seeing what arises as it arises, I shift from automatic reaction to deliberate action.

I believe I may have mentioned this story before, but once, after a near bike accident, I felt fear and anger surge. A breath later, I considered how the other driver was likely just as startled. At the stoplight, I asked if they were okay. The relief on their face said more than anything else.

When clarity is there, kindness, patience, or helpfulness often follow naturally. In that way, a mindful response can quietly lessen suffering, both for oneself and for others.


Gasshō,
流道-Ryūdō-Liúdào
Satlah

[Tenryu]

Mindfulness, as I experience it, is very modest. It’s the sense of staying in touch while things unfold, without trying to understand or manage them. Thoughts, moods, sensations move through, and at times I notice when I’m no longer completely inside them.

Often it’s only a brief orientation. I realize I’m here. Then I’m gone again. Then back. That’s enough. It doesn’t provide answers or certainty, but it keeps life from becoming entirely absorbing. That’s where this gate shows itself for me.

Gasshō,
Tenryū
sat today&lah

[Tairin]

Thank you Shokai

Mindfulness as a gatekeeper to help distinguish between wholesome and unwholesome activities….

Well I am struggling to come up with a specific example but as a general example I try to be mindful of the words I say. I can be a little too critical sometimes and for whatever reason in my social circles my words seem to carry a lot of weight I know this so I try to be very mindful of the words I say and the context in which I say them.


Tairin
sat today and lah

[Choujou]

Mindfulness is (obviously) a major part of Zazen, being aware and present right here right now. During Zazen I try to stay aware of all that is happening… the world around me, then back into the body, then the senses, then the mind… then I try to be mindful that even THIS thought and/or emotion is being observed by Buddha nature and is part of the relative world. (Anything subject to change is part of the relative) I am mindful that the relative and absolute are two sides of a no sided coin (as Jundo says)… and “like two arrow points that meet in mid air” they are connected intimately. The absolute is the relative, the relative the absolute.
I also try to stay present during my hiking, taking in the scenery and beauty around me, the stillness… rather than the noise in my head. Eventually the noise reduces. Basically I try to bring myself back to the present whenever I can and realize that I’ve let myself get swept away with a thought or emotion. I find that the more one does this, it can be done with more ease and it doesn’t take as long as it used to to realize that I am swept up…

Gassho,
Choujou

sat/lah today

[dorgan]

Dokusan or practice discussion. In the encounter between practitioner and teacher, mindfulness operates in an interpersonal register. The practitioner must be present to what is actually being asked, not to what they have rehearsed or memorized.

The transition moments —the application of mindfulness — are in the spaces between formal activities—the walk from the cushion to the breakfast table, the moment of putting on shoes, the act of opening a door.

Kinhin (walking meditation). Between periods of zazen, the slow, formal walk around my room is a direct exercise of the four foundations. The body foundation is immediate—weight shifting, foot lifting, foot placing, and the coordination of breath with step. Feeling-tone arises in the sensations of the foot meeting the floor, the subtle pleasure or discomfort of movement after sitting meditation. Mind-state is observable in how the transition from sitting to walking affects the quality of awareness. Does it scatter? Does it sharpen? Mental objects appear in whatever arises during the walk and is noticed without pursuit. Kinhin is compact enough to serve as a laboratory for all four foundations simultaneously, and its simplicity makes it accessible in a way that more complex activities do not.

Just sit (zazen). In shikantaza, mindfulness attends to whatever is arising without selection, without preference, without the subtle aggression of trying to do something with what appears. This is extraordinarily demanding precisely because there is no technique to hide behind.

Work practice (samu). Mindfulness during samu is relational. It is not a private interior state projected onto an activity but an intimate participation in the activity's own demands. We know it, embody it, become it. Activities, embodied and executed mindfully, are not interruptions of practice but practice itself.

Recollection is what prevents present-moment awareness from becoming a kind of sophisticated amnesia, an absorption in the now that has severed itself from the continuity of practice. Conversely, recollection without present-moment lucidity is mere rumination, thinking about practice rather than practicing. If mindfulness is understood as a separate faculty standing apart from experience and passing judgment on it, the practitioner is likely to develop an inner critic disguised as awareness, a subtle dissociation where "I" watch "my mind" and approve or disapprove of what I find.

Mindfulness is not neutral observation in the sense of indifference. It recognizes the difference between wholesome and unwholesome states as they arise, not after the fact, not through deliberation, but in the moment of arising itself. This recognition is closer to perception than to judgment. An experienced gardener does not deliberate about whether a plant is a weed; the recognition is immediate, embedded in cultivated familiarity. The faculty of mindfulness does not observe as a security camera does. It observes the way a parent observes their child, with an attentiveness that is simultaneously receptive and responsive, noticing and acting in a single gesture.

The mindfulness faculty is not merely one useful quality among many but the very axis along which liberation occurs. This does not contradict the necessity of the other faculties; without faith and effort, you will never develop mindfulness, without concentration and wisdom, it cannot do its work, but it does assert that mindfulness is the faculty through which all the others converge into transformative insight. The purification it effects is not the removal of some external contaminant but the clearing of the distortions through which experience is habitually filtered. When those distortions are seen clearly, which is itself an act of mindfulness, they lose their binding power.

If faith is the vector and effort the magnitude, mindfulness is the field in which both operate—the luminous ground of awareness within which all other practice unfolds.

gassho, david
stlah

[Seikan]

Other folks have already said much of what I could say about this Gate. Mindfulness, or focused awareness, is central to our practice/path. Since ours is a path of discovery (and "self" discovery), mindfulness is the critical element for "seeing" into the nature of things. Without it, it is like being trapped in darkness. Yet with it, there is no corner of the universe that we can't illuminate.

Zazen is, in many ways, the ultimate expression of mindfulness/awareness. Off the cushion, I try to remain present and aware in a broad sense, but I will also employ a more focused sense of mindfulness at times when the activity requires it (driving, cooking, speaking with a friend, etc.).

Gassho,
Seikan
stlah

[Chikyou]

The key word here for me is “thoroughly” - without mindfulness, we can perform many kinds of work; but to do the work *thoroughly*, mindfulness is required. In terms of zen practice, mindfulness keeps us from wasting time or being caught in delusion.

Gassho,
SatLah,
Chikyō