Notes from a VisioConference by Lwiis saliba (Sur Zoom) Equanimity and mindfulness Wednesday 18 September 2024

Notes from a VisioConference by Lwiis saliba (Sur Zoom) Equanimity and mindfulness
Wednesday 18 September 2024
The Sufi is the son of the moment. All spiritual traditions insist on this presence.
A rather important sutra of the Buddha repeats: ‘Equanimity and In full presence, man lives happily’. Happiness depends on two essential factors, equanimity and full awareness.
1) First, equanimity. In the Koran, this is an attribute of God Himself. ‘The Merciful One has established Himself ‘Istawa’ on the throne’ (Surah Taha/5) الرحمن على العرش استوى (طه/5).
2) mindfulness: this is our main topic. It is talked about in Sufism: ‘The best moment to meet the Haq, the divine, the Truth, is this very moment’.
What does Buddhism advise us to do in its spiritual psychology to develop this mindfulness? William James insists on attention: ‘An education in attention would be the education par excellence’. Cf the Buddha:
O monks, you who have renounced all inheritance and wealth, your true Inheritance is in fact your Mindfulness. This is also true for non-monks: the more attention you have, the richer you are spiritually, and even materially, because most material failures come from a lack of attention.
Work on practice as ‘a clinic of slowness’, to use Thich Nhat Hanh’s expression. That’s the first step. I’ve tried it, and it works. Everything we do, we try to do more slowly: when we speak, when we eat, etc. Unfortunately, our civilisation is one of speed, especially in the West. My impression of Paris the first month was one of surprise at all the Parisians running, and after two months, I was running like them… Finally, this speed also has many negative physiological consequences. We all have symptoms of an excess of sympathetic energy. If you slow down just a little, you develop full awareness and your mind becomes less agitated. There’s an Arabic proverb that says: ‘Do things at the right pace and you’ll have peace, which is not the case if you do things in a hurry’.
The second point is to talk less. Difficult to ask of the French. A lot of tiredness on the phone. The man talks between three and five hours a day on the other end of the line, which is enormous. It wastes a lot of energy. To develop mindfulness, talk less! It also prepares you for sleep. Get into the habit of having periods of silence during the day, and one day of silence per week, or at least per month. Silence recharges the batteries. During a day of silence, I’ve found that I do twice as much work. Attention is inversely proportional to the quantity and agitation of words.
The third point is to do only one thing at a time. Yet we eat while we watch TV, we phone while we read something else… This is the greatest illusion, we think we’re saving time when in fact we’re wasting it. The Buddha said: ‘The monk, even when he is urinating or defecating, is aware that he is urinating or defecating’. Let your attention not be divided, for it will be weakened.
‘Fall in love with your breathing’, said Thay (Thich NHat Hanh). In fact, when you lose your attention, you regain it through your breathing, which you also relax as you go along. El Hallaj: ‘Even at sunrise, concentrate on your breathing’. Concentrate on it when you act, and it will sustain your attention. The presence of the absolute is associated with each breath, one after the other.
Relax so that you can feel a calm presence in the company of others. This activates the parasympathetic system.
Ananda: ‘The friend is dead, the teacher is gone, and all we have left as teachers is attention to the body’.
Don’t hesitate to go back for a body scan, to relax any tense areas. This is a good way of practising Ananda’s very valuable advice, to keep your attention focused on the body. This also applies to speaking. Many psychotherapists recommend this as a therapy for high blood pressure.
A sixth piece of advice: ‘Think of unexpected everyday events (the telephone ringing, the need to drink water, go to the toilet) as a bell ringing to warn you to pay attention again. It’s like a bell inviting you to pray. We use it to return to attention and develop mindfulness during the day.
Eating a mandarin orange with full awareness.
Seventh tip: when you’re eating, keep your awareness solely on the act of eating, don’t waste your attention, ‘He who wants to save time loses it’, and your health too.
‘Don’t look in your neighbour’s plate’ A Hadith of the Prophet: “eat and don’t look at your neighbour”.
There have been many examples of this in the Gazza war. However, one Palestinian leader agreed to give up his phone and his car, and saved his life. Chidananada, ‘If you want a spiritual life, you have to have a simple life’.