Something I've come across in the workplace is people who think mindfulness is the final aim of meditation.
That is wrong: mindfulness is an essential early part of meditation, but the ultimate form of meditation are loving-kindness, with discovering (philosophical) information being a close second. Becoming mindful, or awake as Gurdjieff referred to it (although, to be fair, Gurdjieff was really talking about an elevated awareness - such as me hearing the heater tick, conversations elsewhere in the house, birds outside, smelling the various scents of the room [I must turn on the ultrasonic aromatherapy], feeling the seat and my clothes and the tension in muscles, and being aware of my mind - all at the same time), is a tool that enables you to stop doing harm - to yourself, if not to others. Loving-kindness enables you to take those skills and go a step further, and begin to actively heal both yourself and others - and the world.
If I was to use an example from sailing, when I was learning to skipper a dinghy - in small waves, around two to three feet high - on a broad reach, what I had to deal with was this:
As the wave approached from behind and began to lift the dinghy's stern, the water in the front of the wave was moving faster than the water where the bow of the boat was (which was either the back of the wave or the trough - there are a stack of images here to illustrate that), so, in addition to the direct pressure of the wave on the stern of the boat there was an additional kinetic energy effect.
This tends to push the stern in the direction the wave is going. In more dynamic conditions, that can lead to broaching.
However, in the more gentle conditions I was learning in, all that I had to learn to do was to pull the tiller slightly to windward to compensate for the dynamic effects of the waves, and I would be able to maintain a straight course.
Of course, initially what would happen is the boat would start to go off course, then I would move the tiller and return to course - lead to a wake that, in the words of my Aussie skipper, would have broken a snake's back to follow 😂 . (This was not helped by my arms having, as my colourful skipper also noted, "the muscles of chicken legs" ... which is why I started doing weight training using bricks and bottles of water ☺ )
With practice, I was able to anticipate the effects of the wave, and then keep a straight course.
Great.
But then, by modifying (actually, exaggerating) the technique I had learned slightly, I could actually learn to go with the wave slightly, and start surfing the approaching wave.
Mindfulness is like learning to keep a straight course on a broad reach; loving-kindness meditation is taking those skills and actively applying them to making the world a better place, which is like using those skills and using them to start surfing.
This is a topic which is covered well in books like, for instance, Pema Chödrön's "Meditation: How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind". Here are a few quotes from that book which may you, Dear Reader, to reflect on this matter.
“The word chitta means “heart” and “mind”; it means both things simultaneously, so we define it as “heart-mind.” So you could say that bodhichitta is awakened heart-mind, or enlightened heart-mind, or completely open heart-mind. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche had a synonym for bodhichitta: he called it ‘soft spot.’ He said that we all have this “soft spot”; all living beings have this tenderness.”
“Another definition of the word bodhichitta might be “becoming a completely loving person.” If someone says, “What is the purpose of spiritual practice?” I personally feel that the ultimate reason why we practice, why we listen to these teachings, why we try to begin to bring this into every moment of our life, is so that we can become completely loving people. And this is what the world needs.”
