Beyond the expense of replacing a lost phone, we can imagine many other situations where simple mindfulness will not be enough to protect us from all manner of mistakes and accidents. For example, when you are driving, even if using mental notation, if your notes are “rising, falling, seeing, touching” instead of “checking for stop sign, applying brakes” you place yourself and others at risk. If you are upset and in danger of losing your temper with harsh speech “feeling angry, feeling angry” even while using mental notation, will not be as effective in curbing bad behavior as “feeling angry, desiring to scold.” The latter gives you the opportunity to make a better choice.

The Pali Suttas are very clear. If you are doing something, or experiencing something, and you don’t clearly know what you are doing or experiencing, this is considered a state of delusion. Simple mindfulness is not enough to bring wisdom to play in our activities because in our activities our mental bandwidth is largely occupied with maintaining intentions, and reacting. Unlike seated meditation where simply adding a mental note to our experience will bring understanding into the flow of our mindfulness, in our “active” meditation, noting needs to be adjusted to reflect our activities and the mind states that accompany our moment by moment experiences. Besides protecting us from accidents and forgetfulness, the application of clear-comprehension to our daylong activities will prevent those moments of unknowing delusion that the defilement in the mind is quick to exploit.

I’m sure all here can think of multiple examples of such moments where an accident, something important forgotten or some harsh language would have been prevented if clear-comprehension had been the companion of the mind. Of course, formal sitting and walking practice are different, and in those specific circumstances we do want the mind to drop deeper than the level of understanding defined by traditional clear-comprehension. In those situations, the level of attention given to a conceptually organized universe begins to fade as we move more deeply into the contemplation of anicca, anatta and dukkha. As the yogi matures in his or her practice, they will acquire facility in moving between different levels of mindfulness and wisdom, as necessary and appropriate for the activity at hand.

Daniel