The Power of Humility by PV Ramana Murthy

Author:PV Ramana Murthy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperBusiness
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

Mindful Excellence

‘The education of attention would be an education par excellence’

—William James

‘WOULD YOU BE DOING THAT ONE OF THESE DAYS WHEN you are here, PV?’

The words broke my reverie. I looked at Nitya, who had asked me this question.

Nitya, whom I had met at the monastery barely an hour ago, was looking up at the sky, an endless immense blue, save for a few drifting specks—paragliders, far up in the air.

‘No, Nitya, paragliding is not my cup of tea at all,’ I said.

It was an honest confession. Paragliding, bungee jumping … in fact, no adventure sport had any attraction for me. I always felt they were way too dangerous and the risks involved far outweighed the pleasure. So, there I was, looking up at the sky but feet reassuringly on the ground.

That was a few years back. I had gone to a place called Deer Park Institute, situated on the campus of a former Buddhist monastic centre at Bir in Himachal Pradesh, India, to attend a silent mindfulness retreat conducted by a Zen monk from Japan. The Bir Billing area is also known for paragliding, and there I had met Nitya, a fellow visitor, soon after reaching the institute. An hour later we were walking around the place, silently soaking in the natural beauty of the surroundings, when Nitya suddenly stopped, looked up and pointed at the specks in the sky.

I stayed at the institute for a week, practising mindfulness meditation under the guidance of the Zen monk. The sessions would start at 6 a.m. and continue through the day. Apart from sitting in the usual meditation posture and ‘observing’ our breath and bodily sensations, we would do other forms of meditation, such as mindful walking, mindful drinking of tea, mindful eating and mindful washing of dishes. On the last day, when the retreat ended, we broke our silence.

Something else ended too—for me. I travelled 14 km up a dusty hill in a crowded jeep and jumped off a cliff, strapped to a paraglider. The fear had gone. Paragliding—a sport I had thought was too risky to attempt before getting into mindful meditation—no longer held any terrors for me.

No one had pushed me into trying it; there was no external motivation either. It just came from within, and I did it. The joy of gliding at 8,000 ft above the ground, the uninterrupted panoramic view of the Himalayan ranges and the valleys below, can’t be described in words; one needs to experience it. I think this is what mindfulness does to us. It takes us to a higher plateau and makes us do things we couldn’t have done otherwise, thanks to the daily distractions that life hurls at us.

But what does being ‘mindful’ mean?

Psychologist Rick Hanson deals with this question in his book Buddha’s Brain:

[W]e hear the word ‘mindful’ more and more these days, but what does it actually mean? Being mindful simply means having good control over your attention: you can place your attention wherever you want and it stays there; when you want to shift it to something else, you can.

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