Is it normal or is it part of the path to feel that switch of your mind when it becomes mindful during daily life?
And why is it so difficult to go into this mindful state and stay in it?
Why do you keep forgetting?
It's habits.
We have lots and lots of conflicting habits.
Mindfulness is just another habit.
If you haven't spent the time to develop it, it's not going to come by itself.
The Buddha taught the cause of those dammas that arise with the cause.
Those dhammas that arise with the cause of the Buddha taught those dhammas and their cause.
That's what it is.
So the Buddha's teaching is cause and effect.
You only get so much mindfulness as you put in work and intention.
But yeah, the switch seems to me to be quite clear that it just comes on and you suddenly say, oh, now I should be mindful.
And then you actually are.
But not necessarily.
That switch doesn't necessarily mean mindfulness.
It can mean worrying.
It can mean stressing.
It can mean trying to control.
But yeah, I think the switch itself, in a sense, is mindfulness.
What it leads to.
It can lead you to get worried and stressed if you've got those bad habits.
But it's becoming aware, oh, yes, what am I doing here?
I'm not actually flying through the air or living out this fantasy or so on.
I'm right here now.
I think that's a very good explanation.
Because mindfulness is so different.
A clear mind state is so different from an ordinary, diluted mind state that it's, I would say, very much a switch until it becomes, of course, the predominating habit, in which case there's less of a switch.
yet it's funny there's almost there's more you can talk about the diluted mind state that uh... where you're feeling the chaos and the the poll group of attraction and avoidance but the the actual peaceful meditative mind state
there's really not much to talk about because it's like talking about the stillness of a of a of a still pond as opposed to the raging of an ocean you know it's there's really not much to to say about the the calmness of meditation once you're really achieving it but they the constant chaos you know this is this is what we perceive to be the problem in our meditation
But it's really not.
It's the problem of our daily life.
It's the problem of our habits, as Biku just said right there.
Okay, let's skip right along and see if we can get through some more.
I just want to add one thing.
Isn't it just you're losing your concentration throughout the day?
It's like
you got moments of being mindful, you got moments of not being, like, you can't be, it's physically impossible to be, I mean, your mind is in that perfect that you can bring it to be mindful all the time.
That's what I, you know, like, sometimes you feel a little bit sleepy, sometimes you do, I don't think you can be awake all the time, like,
We strive to reach that level, right?
Even though it's very far.
How are you going to reach that level if you don't sleep two days?
Well, a bull will only hold so much.
So if you put something into it, something else has to come out.
And if you put more mindfulness in, the bad habits will come out.
They're replaced by mindful habits.
The mind can only hold so much.
Well, the mind can hold much more, and it's much more complicated.
OK.
So if you are 24-7, you're mindful.
You're a Buddha.
You're awakened now.
Something like that.
There's something about mindful sleeping.
Yes, not exactly.
You know, I mean, you could be completely mindful, but yet your mind is focused on harming beings.
You know, being a Buddha doesn't just mean that you have conscious dexterity.
You know, the qualities of a Buddha.
Yeah, right, exactly.
You think you can mindfully kill someone?
What's that?
I think in the conventional use of the term mindful, yes, unfortunately.
I think in the terms of mindful and how we want to define it, no.
But in conventional mindfulness, I mean,
that that's what they have training of like the green berets that's what that's about uh... you know uh... black ops admit ninjas are a perfect example where they will you know some people will say that they are then train and uh... you know they're very mindful of their stuff that's it doesn't mean that they're closer to buddha hood
There is mindfulness in there, right?
Any wholesome mind state has mindfulness, I think.
The question is getting rid of the unmindful states of wanting to kill someone.
So if you don't have to be mindful at every moment to become a Buddha, the purpose of life is to become a Buddha.
So you don't have to be mindful all the time.
So don't worry.
Well, I think being mindful all the time is the way to reach the goal, which is probably getting rid of all the bad habits of your mind.
For sure.
I mean, being mindful is much more difficult.
But, yeah.
The more mindful you are, the better suited you are to get rid of those bad habits.
Your own mind will notice them.
Let's define being mindful.
You can be mindful about that you're losing your concentration or you can't be aware of the present moment.
There's no you.
There's just moments and they're based on cause and effect.
There's no you saying, oh, look, now I'm losing my mindfulness.
You're losing your mindfulness.
How can you be mindful of that?
At that moment, that's the predominant mind state.
Okay.
So I don't know then.
So you're supposed to be all the time mindful, right?
you can't become without the well you're allowed you're a lot of five-minute break every well I just wanted to I just wanted to clarify because what if you said oh you've now become a Buddha if you're 24-7 mindful that's different and on the other hand you have to be mindful of the time you know because
A Buddha has to do much more than just be mindful.
A Buddha has to come to know everything, according to the Theravada tradition anyway.
So an arahant... Yes, even for an arahant, there's something more than mindfulness, probably getting rid of all your ferrets.
I don't know about that.
If you're truly mindful, and if you cultivate mindfulness, you really don't have to worry about the rest of the Buddha's teachings.
because it all comes into place.
But you don't become a Sammasambuddha that way.
A Sammasambuddha has to learn everything, has to come to know everything, has to get to the point where their mind is able to understand, able to know everything, not just let go of everything.
That's the difference between an Arahant and a Buddha from the Theravada tradition.
But the point is not... I think it's more...
If we can be clear about this, you don't have to be mindful every moment in order to become a Buddha.
You have to be mindful, or an Arahant.
You have to be mindful in one moment.
And if in that one moment you're perfectly and clearly aware of something for what it is, as being in permanent suffering and non-self, the next moment is enlightenment.
The next moment is, well, the next few moments anyway is the process of becoming an Arahant.
But, of course, that moment has to be cultivated.
has to be led up to through constant practice of mindfulness.
And that doesn't have to be every single moment.
It just has to be enough moments to create a level of understanding that allows you to become an artist.