Awareness in Everyday Life

As time passes day by day, do we not feel a sense of insecurity? Do we feel that we do not get a hold of something, and that there are things requiring amendments or letting go? The sole objective of a monastic life is the attainment of buddhahood and the liberation of all sentient beings. Therefore, we must constantly enrich ourselves and refrain from squandering our lives on frivolous amusements or idle pleasures, or from becoming trapped in emotional turbulence and psychological imbalance. We should not waste time on idle speech, emotions, judgments of good and bad, right and wrong, fame and gain, or calculative manipulation that are not aligned with the Dharma. Rather, at all times, we must maintain an attitude grounded in right mindfulness and right view.

If one genuinely aspires to learn the path of Dharma practice and to accord with it, one must honestly and realistically face life, accept the cleansing of the mind, and cultivate a clear and luminous awareness endowed with right mindfulness and right view. Our mental states resemble clouds, mist, or flowing rivers: at times they become obstructed, their movement slows, or even ceases altogether. When the mind ceases to flow, suffering arises; such stagnation is what is termed ignorance. When one becomes habituated to ignorance, one continually seeks intoxication in illusory dreams, becoming submerged in emotional habits and tendencies. For example, some people delight in lingering in sorrow, others in pleasure, still others in fixation on the self, and yet others in attachment to their own ingrained dispositions. As a result, the innate luminosity of one’s nature and the vitality of the mind are diminished. Hence, we must keep enlivening the mind so that it is not governed by external phenomena, objects, or emotions, and must consistently distance ourselves from ignorance. When habitual tendencies are cultivated into fixed habits, they become the very mechanism of cyclic existence.

When we speak of “Buddha-nature,” does it not seem remote from us? Yet our degree of alignment within daily life is the most direct measure. Thus, we must constantly examine whether the points of contact between our innate awareness and the world are obstructed—whether they manifest as affliction, sorrow, habitual tendencies, compassion, wisdom, or the revelation of awakening itself. Are we engaging in calculations of loss and gain? At each point of contact, do obstructions arise? And why do such obstructions occur at every juncture? It is because there is no continuity—no coherence, integration, universality, or connection. It is a lack of vigilance, that is, an insufficiency of acuity or sensitivity. Therefore, in studying and practicing the Dharma, we must enhance this sensitivity. If this cannot be heightened, delusion proliferates everywhere; once delusion arises, ignorance constantly takes effect. Ignorance is precisely that which gives rise to afflictions.

Awakening is not confined to any particular place. It is not the case that realization can occur only within the meditation hall; every place affords the possibility of awareness. Wherever awareness arises is a place free from obstruction; wherever awareness arises is a locus of compassion and wisdom; wherever awareness arises is a domain of unobstructed liberation. Thus, wherever the mind arrives is a place of luminous clarity free from delusion—this is what is meant by Dharma practice.