Awareness That Knows the Knowing

After asking a few questions, he [Ajahn Tate] spoke to us for some time, during which he said something that has stayed with me; something that still seems as significant as it did then. Through the translator, he said, “Your task in practice is to realise the difference between the heart and the activity of the heart. It’s that simple.”

As I recall this now, I can almost hear him saying it; his voice gentle yet strong and full, clearly rich in experience and unshakeable understanding. I hadn’t expected him to say something so straightforward. I suppose I had expected something more complex and difficult to understand, but my response when I heard what he said was, “Yes, I get that, I can relate to that.”

To observe inwardly, to direct attention so that we come to know intimately for ourselves that which is the heart and that which is the activity of the heart: this was and is the foundation of my meditation practice and my enquiry. The words he used were jit and argarn kong jit. Citta, a Pali word, is shortened in Thai to ‘jit’, and both words mean ‘heart’ or ‘mind’. ‘Argarn kong jit’ means ‘the activity of the heart or mind’.

I had heard a lot of talk about developing jhanas – states of meditative absorption – and about attaining different levels of realisation and insight, but Ajahn Tate was pointing out that it is important not to be distracted by ideas of practice nor by the various experiences, sensations or mental impressions that we are subject to. We should view them all simply as the activity of the mind. They are all the content of the mind. If the heart or mind – the citta – is like an ocean, then the activities of the heart or mind are like the waves on that ocean. Our practice should consist in seeing these waves as waves, passing on the surface of the ocean.

Most of us are usually caught up in the activity. I still get caught up in the waves, in the movements of mind, and I forget, I lose perspective. Practice means remembering perspective, and cultivating an awareness that distinguishes the knowing itself from that which is known.

We can know the sensations in the body; we can know feelings, energetic movements, mental formations, ideas, impressions, concepts, memories and fantasies. All these need to be known as activity. If we don’t know them as activity, what happens? We become the activity and get caught up in that activity.

There is a poignant saying in Japanese Buddhism: ‘Laugh, but don’t get lost in laughter; cry, but don’t get lost in crying.’ We could also say, ‘Think, but don’t get lost in thinking; enjoy, but don’t get lost in enjoyment.’

Sometimes people come across Buddhist teachings or Buddhist meditation and they get the idea that peacefulness means getting rid of all the content of the mind, making the mind empty. In meditation it sometimes appears that the mind is very open and spacious and that there’s very little happening.

However, this does not mean that we’ve made it, that we’re enlightened. In that state of openness, clarity and spaciousness, we might experience vitality and pleasure, and if we’re not properly informed and prepared, we can make the mistake of thinking ‘This is it! This good feeling is the point of it all.’

Ajahn Tate was saying that even this good feeling is also just the activity of the heart. The point of practice is to know this activity in relation to that in which the activity is taking place. What is it in which this activity is taking place? What is it that knows?

We should cultivate an awareness that knows the knowing as well as that which is known.

This reflection by Ajahn Munindo is from the book, Unexpected Freedom, (pdf) pp. 5-6.