I finished at least a first draft of a collection of my writing, and titled it A Natural Mindfulness. I did so because I have confidence in the happiness of breathing in and out, and in Gautama’s description of his ability to remain in this kind of happiness for seven days at a time.
Turns out it’s extremely difficult to convey to someone what it means to act consciously yet without intention. When Gautama spoke of his way of living, he described a rhythm of awarenesses in connection with breathing in and breathing out, and yet the ability to breathe in or breathe out with awareness and without intention I believe is fundamental to the experience of such a rhythm. We all find our way to the breath in or out with awareness and without intention in falling asleep, and again in waking up (though it may not be as noticeable in waking up). Gautama appears to suggest that the experience of a rhythm of mindfulness as a way of living involves finding our way to happiness in this movement of breath or that, one breath at a time, and that action is mindful when in effect the breath acts without conscious volition.
My friend tells me today of a master who said that things must be treated as though they were our eyes. I am so full of my eyes, I am bent over, yet I understand that the experience of things can support my posture, often with the involvement of my eyes. It’s different from seeing, per se. My friend proposed this as the meaning of menmitsu.