Mindfulness Training in Openness and Non-Attachment
by Ray Chin
I was recently asked to give a talk on the first and second mindfulness trainings of Thich Nhat Hanh’s (Thay’s) Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS). The first training is Openness and the second is Non-Attachment. These are components of right view, the first aspect of the Buddha’s eightfold path. I thought about it and realized how they are part of my practice of kyudo, Japanese archery. I was trained by Shibata Sensei XX to practice kyudo as a form of meditation that we sometimes refer to as Zen archery. Sensei was the twentieth kyudo master and bowmaker of the Shibata family in a Samurai lineage that dates back to the 1400s.
Let’s begin with the first training: Openness. Openness is training our heart-minds to be fully open. (I will use the word mind to mean heart-mind as translated by the single Chinese character 心). The open mind is ready to accept every sensation, experience, and person without judgment and division. That allows you to eventually see the myriad connections among all Dharma, that is, all beings, all nature, all objects, that constitute Interbeing. Thay uses the example of a piece of paper in which you will recognize the tree, the forest, water, clouds, sun, the hands of the lumberman and paper maker, and everyone’s exhalation of CO2 that feeds all plants in that piece of paper. Even when the paper is burned, it continues to exist in the heat released, the smoke, and the ash, to continue in the stream of Interbeing.
How does kyudo promote Openness? In kyudo, as in many of the mindfulness practices, beginner’s mind is frequently cited as the way to approach shooting. It means you are always a beginner, no matter how long you have practiced. This attitude develops openness of heart-mind which allows you to see things as fresh and not get stuck in habits. After much practice, you realize that you change with each shot. Thus, a new you shoots each arrow so that no two shots are the same.
Beginner’s mind can also mean the moment of birth when every sensation is new—light, faces, sounds of voices, smells, taste of mother’s milk, gravity, temperature changes, the warmth of a parent’s body, discovery of your own body, and so on. At that moment the baby may also feel intense love, compassion, and joy directed at her by others simply because of her being. We are tabula rasa, a blank slate, open to receiving everything without judgement.
The second mindfulness training is Non-Attachment. Thay described birth as the moment of Original Fear and Original Desire. Original Fear is felt when we are pushed from our mother’s womb, which is called “the palace” by the Chinese and Vietnamese. During her pregnancy, the mother feeds, breathes, cradles, and protects the baby from all irritants. But all of this suddenly changes at birth when the baby leaves the palace. We then hear the first cry of fear necessary to start the lungs breathing on their own. The baby’s Original Fear dissipates with the comforting of the mother’s warm body, cradling, and nursing. This is the moment of Original Desire, the desire to always have everything be pleasant, comforting, and “just right.”
In kyudo, we experience both this Original Fear and Original Desire with every shot. We are afraid to miss the target, and we desire to hit the target. All our kyudo forms involve two arrows shot in sequence, that is a first and a second arrow. The first arrow is often called the father and the second the mother. If the first misses the target we may feel frustrated and blame ourselves, the wind, the equipment, etc., and may start to worry that we will miss with the second arrow. Or if we hit the target, we may feel elated, attributing our success to ourselves, and we may start to worry about whether we can make it happen again. In both cases, we feel fear and desire that can lead to rumination, which can interfere with our concentration for the second arrow and likely spoil the second shot. Thus, letting go of the first shot is the practice of non-attachment. Of course, the desire to let go of the first shot is a trap because our desire is to be without desire, however noble. How then can we learn to let go of the first shot?
Thay advised that focusing on your breath is the answer. “Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out” is the way to let go of both our fear and desire. Focusing on your breath keeps you in the present moment, and you will automatically forget about the last shot as well as the next shot, the past and future respectively. Moreover, when you practice Openness by focusing on your surroundings and other kyudokas (shooters) with love, compassion, shared joy, and equanimity (the Brahma Viharas) you lose the siren’s call of the mato (the target) and its hypnotic eye. Fear and desire can’t exist with an open and non-attached mind.
Sensei often asked his students, What is the target? Students typically pointed to the makiwara or the mato (short and long-distance target, respectively). Sensei would correct them saying the target is yourself. He repeated this simple message by saying,
You do not practice kyudo to polish your form.
You practice kyudo to polish your heart.
Don’t let the target steal your heart.
You may not hit the target, but you never miss.
Can you see the bow character in Buddha? It depicts a man with a bow and two arrows.
