Many meditaion teachers tell their students to cling to the feelings of peace and tranquility they feel after meditating as they go about their daily activities. There is some merit to this, of course, but clinging to a feeling, even a deeply satisfying one, tends to limit one’s ability to experience the plenitude of experience.
Some schools of Zen take a somewhat different approach. Buddhist mindfulness stresses the cultivation of the ability to do and feel whatever you’re experiencing with complete detachment. The way they put it is, ‘When you practice dhyana (meditation), practice dhyana. When you sit down and eat, sit down and eat.’
An extreme example of mindfulness in action is the oft-cited experience of extreme athletes who have found themselves in life and death situations. While they were not seeking a ‘mindfulness’ experience, it seems that is what happened.
Snowboarding is an extreme sport. In order to tackle near-vertical slopes, the snowboarder must be so skilled that he acts on instinct. A Giro Ski Helmet is going to be of little use to him when he’s plummeting down a mountainside at sixty miles an hour.
A snowboarder had a Zen experience when, while snowboarding down a near vertical slope, he inadvertently started an avalanche. Suddenly his already perilous situation became one of life and death. It seems that the survival instinct took over, because he felt no fear or panic, but only a heightened sense of awareness. ‘I didn’t do anything. It was as if all I was doing was watching what was happening. I was so calm, I even looked down at my brown boots and wondered why I had chosen to buy that color!’
The snowboarder outran the avalanche and made it safely to the bottom of the slope. When he realized he was out of danger, he remained in that place of pure awareness for a few minutes, until he looked at his digital sport watch and was shocked to see that only a few minutes had passed since the beginning of his race for life. Had someone asked him, he would have guessed an hour or more.
Extreme mindfulness like this is achievable, but not just through clinging to that nice blissful feeling you get after a good meditation. Clinging to any kind of phenomenon, even the most pleasant, limits your awareness. True enlightenment is likely to come via the cultivation of complete detachment.
