Some friends asked what I actually learnt in Master of Buddhist Studies program.  Below was an essay which I wrote for Buddhist Psychology class and was postively graded by the Professor.  Happy to share with those who are interested.  With metta.

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One of the most important takeaways in the course is the practice of mindfulness in every moment in daily life.  We should always look inward to observe our mind, to reflect and make a change.  According to the article of "Food for the Heart" by Venerable Ajahn Chah, it is the value of constant Sati, recollection.  Some people might argue that we have been living with our mind since we were born, so what is the point in observing the mind?  To this, let’s tackle the subtle difference between ‘automatic pilot’ mode and ‘manual’ mode.

'Automatic pilot’ mode is the time when we are driven by instinct, which is somewhat close to reflex actions.  For example when hearing the gun shooting sound on the street, we immediately crawl down or look for coverage to protect ourselves first, no matter if there is any real danger or not.  Or when a man looks at the poster of a supermodel, the sensual desire immediately arises from within, and he immediately associates sex and nudity.  Or when a moth sees the flame, unaware of the danger, it automatically flies into it.  Living things including human beings are all born similarly in this respect.  It is actually our mind that controls our actions when we are on ‘automatic pilot’ mode.

'Manual’ mode, on the contrary, is the time when we exercise mindfulness, which is a series of conscious efforts that a person chooses to put in.  It goes beyond just instinct, but involves the process of knowing, thinking, judging and finally acting on it.  For example, a spokesperson is responsible to speak on behalf of an organization that he/she represents.  When a crisis happens, a skilful spokesperson will never jump out to say whatever is on his/her mind recklessly.  Instead, the spokesperson will first get to know what is going on, then consider the best approach and position, choose the most appropriate lines to take, and finally respond the media and general public.  We control our mind and hence the action when we are on ‘manual’ mode.

Why is it important to practice mindfulness at any second to make sure we are on ‘manual’ mode all the time? 

To this, we should understand the core of Buddhism of the Four Noble Truths (四聖諦 - 苦集滅道), which are 1) Life itself is Dukkha (suffering); 2) Dukkha arises from ignorance and from all types of clinging; 3) Dukkha ceases when ignorance and clinging are completely removed; and 4) the path to realization is the Noble Eightfold Path (八正道).

The first Noble Truth is Dukkha, which should be the number one agenda item on our mind.  Whatever we do, speak and think should be conducive to the cessation or reduction of Dukkha; otherwise we will end up in the endless cycle of rebirth and continuity.  According to Buddhism, there are three types of evil roots: greed, hatred and delusion (貪嗔痴); and three types of karmas (volitional actions) namely bodily acts, verbal acts and mental acts (身口意三業).  All our actions are conditioned by our mind.  If our mind is under the influence of evil roots, we commit bad karmas that will lead to bad consequences (increase of Dukkha).  Vice versa, if the act is out of good roots, it is good karma that will lead to good consequences (decrease of Dukkha).  The ultimate goal is to abandon all unwholesome deeds, and cultivate the wholesome virtues.  Therefore we should keep ourselves on ‘manual’ mode and get our mind in control.

While I fully understand why the Buddha taught us this way, and totally agree to the importance of mindfulness in every moment, I find the practice extremely difficult at the beginning.  It is because fundamentally it contradicts against the free spirit and spontaneity in my character.  I believe, so long as there is no harm caused to others, freedom should be a core value treasured by all.  But in contrast, the practice of mindfulness essentially means to restrain one’s mind, which runs in an opposite direction against this very fundamental free spirit of mine.

But when I reflect upon myself further, I start to question myself whether I could really say that my being spontaneous would not cause any harm to people around at all.  Sometimes three seconds of unconscious silence might have been more than enough to stir up uneasiness among friends.  After all we live interdependently in a conditioned state.  Could other people be completely immune from a long face of mine or the blunder of my anger?

Moreover, from a practical perspective, if the ‘manual’ mode does only the good but no harm to others, and all it takes is just to exercise mindfulness in the split second of thought, is there anything for me to lose?  I could not think of any.  The more I contemplate, the more I am convinced of the positive aspects of constant Sati.  After all, the choice is always mine.  If it turns out to be unsuitable for my self-proclaimed free-spirited lifestyle, I can always choose to stop it.

Therefore, I invent an imaginary tool that I call “camcorder shooting” to facilitate myself to cultivate mindfulness in every moment.  I imagine there is always a camcorder beside me that captures not only the actions but also the thoughts of mine.  The concept came from an incident in which I lost my temper and my friend said ‘I wish there was a camcorder here, so you could playback to see it yourself the fire in your eyes and the seeds of anger on your mind”.

"Camcorder shooting" helps develop a sense of detachment that enables me to objectively observe myself.  In other words, through the imaginary lens, it is the pseudo me who have an oversight on the real me, in particular whether there are the three evil roots inside of me.  For example, I see him checking on the stock quote during office hour (I am aware of my greed).  I see him getting angry (I am aware of my hatred).  I see him looking at the picture of ex-girlfriend (I am aware of my delusion – still clinging, refusing to accept the nature of impermanence of all things including relationship).  It is a practice through which I can clearly myself, sometimes the bright but mostly the dark side of mine.

The more I observe my mind, the more I discover how vivid and dynamic it is.  I recalled one time Venerable Xingyun (星雲大師) gave a dharma talk in which he said that even for himself he could not count how many times his mind traveled back-and-forth from heaven to hell within a day.  It explains the ever-changing nature of the mind, which is also the reason why mindfulness should be practiced at anytime and at anywhere.

The following was one of the video clippings that my ‘camcorder shooting’ recorded during the seven-minute walk from the MTR station to my apartment one night.  My mind, which was on ‘automatic pilot’ mode at the time, jumped like a monkey from one tree to another during these seven minutes.  But at the same time mindfulness also came in, and with Sati, I looked inward and reflected upon myself.  Here was the journey.

First I was talking on my cell phone when walking out of the train compartment about an incident that happened earlier today in the office.  It was not essentially an act of bad mouth, but undeniably it was gossip.  I knew it was wrong speech, i.e. bad verbal karma, but what’s done was done.

At the same time I was approaching the escalator where as usual it was crowded with people.  I always despised those who just loved to stand on the left side of the escalator, which was supposed to be kept clear for those wanting to walk.  Without any surprise, there was a middle-aged man who just stood there with no sense of guilt at all.  My big fat ego immediately arose as I considered myself a better-educated and more civilized person.  All at once, I also realized my ego centeredness came about, which I knew I should abandon this thought and should develop compassion on him instead.  I felt better and I moved on.  But I could not distinguish if my act of developing compassion on that guy was indeed really out of compassion or out of my conceit again.  Would I be rationalizing for my bad mental action?  I still did not know the answer.

Then I arrived at the turnstile (the cell phone talk was over).  As usual a lady put her whole handbag on the Octopus sensor instead of taking her purse out.  As expected, the Octopus card could not be detected at all.  It wasted 3 seconds of mine, but felt like 3 minutes already.  A little bit of hatred grew inside of mine together with my impatience and the fire seemed starting to widespread.  Gladly she passed through the gate all of a sudden, and all my negative emotions subdued.  It showed how quickly aversion could come and go.

I then arrived at the entrance to my building.  The old watchman opened the door for me, and I felt thankful for him giving him a smile.  But in the meantime I wondered if he would do the same even to strangers.  I found myself a hypocritical person, and disliked my egocentric character again because deep down I knew my sense of hierarchy was here.

After collecting my letters at the mailbox, I realized the lift door was still open, so I rushed into it quickly.  In fact there was a woman inside who purposely pressed the OPEN button to wait for me (I guess for at least 10 seconds).  I spotted her polo shirt with the logo of “Dhamma Drum Hill” (法鼓山).  I said thank you and saluted to her.  She gave me back a smile, and I felt good.  I could sense the positive effect of good karma (bodily action, verbal and mental actions) interacting.

At the end I reached the door of my apartment but was suddenly shocked by the barking of the dog next door.  I had never liked this dog because a) no dogs were allowed in the building; b) it did not look adorable and c) it was never friendly to me.  I really had the burning impulse to officially lodge a complaint to the estate office tonight.  But soon after getting into my house with my door closed, the work of Sati took effect, and I thought to myself, “What was the big deal?”  Undoubtedly my neighbor did violate the Deeds of Mutual Covenant.  But if I reported the case, the worst-case scenario I could imagine would be the giving up or killing of the dog.  Well, maybe the following day I could smile it away and began to appreciate its wake-up calls every morning.  I thought to myself, maybe a slight change in mind could make a day.

This seven-minute journey may be too typical and trivial to mention because it repeats almost any other day.  But life itself is series of moments, and moment itself is a chain of thoughts.  It does not really matter if it is as eventful as Armstrong landing onto the Moon, or as simple as taking the subway and the bus.  Every moment counts.  To see it from a broader perspective by zooming out from the seven-minute journey of camcorder shooting, life can also be seen as a continuous process of video playing across space and time.  A moment comes and it goes.  So does a thought, which arises and then passes away.  What I have learnt is that all things are impermanent.  What really matters is to do good acts, speak good words and have good thoughts in this present moment.  Then we move on to the next moment one after another without clinging to anything.  We practice mindfulness moment-to-moment, and breath-by-breath.  That’s the simplest but also the most important way to look at Dhamma, I think.