This “secret” of Buddhist meditation is the simplest way to actualize your hidden mental power.
"An arhat’s mindfulness is undiminishable."
This simple yet profound statement from a modern-day monk in Sri Lanka completely shifted my perspective on what mindfulness can truly do for us.
In Sanskrit, arhat means "foe-destroyer"—someone who has completely rid their mind of the barriers to awareness: sensual desire, ill will, over-excitation, and laxity of attention.
To think of such a state seems almost unfathomable, unless, perhaps, you’ve met someone who has reached this extraordinary level.
An arhat embodies the ultimate goal in Buddhist practice, having mastered the mind to such an extent that they can witness even the most subtle elements of causality.
For someone like me—raised in a Western culture where we’re conditioned to learn quickly and immediately declare ourselves experts—this idea that awareness could be trained to such an advanced level was a game-changer.
Some skills require months to develop. Some, years. Other practices demand a lifetime.
The lesson here is simple: mindfulness isn’t something you just turn on and off. It’s a spectrum of potential that we can continue to explore, deeper than we can imagine.
Sadly, we either don’t tap into this vast potential, or we simply aren’t able to.
How do we actually deepen mindfulness?
To many people enamored with the secular version of mindfulness—“McMindfulness”—the imagery of this painting may seem like mere cultural fluff. To them, it’s just decoration.
But what it conveys is anything but trivial. It contains instructions so important that they are painted on the walls of nearly every Tibetan temple.
The monk in the painting represents the journey toward mind-mastery, and the animals in the picture symbolize different aspects of the mind:
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The elephant represents the mind’s stubbornness and raw power.
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The monkey reflects its tendency for distraction.
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The rabbit symbolizes lethargy, subtle laziness, and sinking into apathy.
The monk’s tools for success, depicted in the painting, are equally significant:
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A stick or goad symbolizes full alertness, used to prod the elephant and keep it moving forward.
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A lasso in the monk’s left hand represents mindfulness, tethering the elephant and ensuring continuous control.
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Flames symbolize the effort required at first. Early practice is filled with struggle and discomfort. But with time, raw effort fades into skillful maneuvering and harmonious energy use.
All these elements come together during the practice of shamatha, or calming meditation, which trains our mindfulness to the point where it can spiritually liberate us.
To achieve this, we focus our attention on one object—like the breath or a mental image—and practice sustaining that focus with a relaxed, stable, and vivid awareness.
Even just ten minutes of meditation a day can enhance leadership abilities. Thirty minutes a day can physically alter the structure of your brain in beneficial ways.
But what if we dedicated more time to this practice? What if we fully committed to mastering our attention?
We might experience the same transformative results as successful practitioners have over the past 2,500 years of Buddhist meditation.
This is what makes mindfulness a tradition that can be empirically tested—not just a set of "silly superstitions" or cultural adornments.
Unfortunately, we may not even possess the qualities needed to commit to this practice, let alone see it through to its intended results.
We’re not ready for the “calm revolution.”
Every time I look at the details in this painting, I’m overwhelmed. Each step on the path requires a specific strategy for progress. What’s not shown is how we often get in our own way—making progress even harder:
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Emotional baggage can cause upheavals too intense to process, especially when practicing for hours a day.
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Ingrained habits make it difficult to relax enough to sustain awareness, blocking forward progress.
When these obstacles arose for me, I asked myself: Am I giving myself permission to be calm enough to continue this training? Is the society around me giving me permission to do so?
In a traditional environment, social support and guidance from a teacher help navigate these hurdles. But in the West, even acknowledging mental cultivation as a worthy pursuit is rare. We are still captivated by hustle culture and materialism.
This doesn’t mean we should abandon mindfulness or reduce it to another tool for productivity in a capitalist world. We don’t need to throw away its spiritual potential.
There’s a balance to be found.
Can we treat mindfulness as something to be perfected, bit by bit?
Can we learn to overcome our emotional baggage on and off the cushion?
Can we stop blaming our external circumstances and take full responsibility for our own progress?
It all comes down to our mindset.
The Future of Mindfulness Training
One of the most astounding findings from a study on meditators was that practicing shamatha for six hours a day slowed aging by inhibiting the enzyme telomerase, after just three months of continuous practice.
But what if scientists went further? What if they established permanent contemplative observatories to study the neurological results of “Olympic-level” meditators?
Scholar and teacher Alan Wallace is working toward that very goal. What excites me about his project is that it’s backed by both traditional Eastern teachings and modern Western science.
The aim is to rewrite psychology from the ground up, challenging the Freudian model which has largely focused on studying psychopaths.
Will it be successful? The Dalai Lama certainly hopes so. And perhaps, if we’re lucky, this new approach will spark a psychology revolution, just as the rediscovery of Greek knowledge sparked the Renaissance.
Here’s hoping that something meaningful emerges from our efforts—whether it’s a ten-minute daily practice that improves our health or a months-long retreat that heals us in ways traditional psychology could only dream of!
