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It's a pleasure to continue this series on the Eightfold Path. This is part of the very first teachings of the Buddha, after the, as the story goes, after his or awakening. He gave the teachings of the Four Noble Truths—which included the path to freedom, the Fourth of these Noble Truths—which is an invitation to all who hear it to move from confusion, entanglement, suffering, to freedom, and ease, and wellbeing.

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So here we sit together in this mystery of human incarnation. If you go out at night, on a clear night, and look up and you can see the Milky Way, or at least part of it, and the Milky Way, our local galaxy that we are in, one of the big arms that moves around every 250,000,000 years, has billions of stars. There are, as we now know, hundreds of billions of galaxies the size of the Milky Way, each with billions, if not hundreds of billions of stars. And here we are as human beings, looking up at the sky, this great mystery with the gift of consciousness that we can see and register with awe and wonder.

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The Eightfold Path is a way for us to awaken the heart and mind even more fully as human beings, to live in a way that is wise and free, not just conscious, but truly awake. And it's laid out as a path, but in fact, it is more like a mandala. Each step supports the other. It starts with wise understanding and with or right understanding and with wise intention, and then with the wise ethics of right speech and action and livelihood. But each of these is informed by the other. Our understanding deepens. Our ethics become more refined. It includes wise mindfulness and wise concentration. And as we become more mindful, our understanding grows. So each of the parts of the path weave together to offer us a way of flowering, opening, awakening heart and mind.

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The 7th step of the Eightfold Path, called wise mindfulness, or right mindfulness, is probably the most revolutionary of all the steps. How to bring it alive? The Buddha said at one point, "I know of no other quality, no other quality more helpful than mindfulness."

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What could this mean? It's sometimes called the abode of the wise. It's like the refreshing pond after being lost in the scorching desert. It is called by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh a miracle, the miracle of mindfulness. And what it means is that we're invited—we have the capacity—to come and be present for this life in a fully open way, fully open mind and heart, to see with clarity and with understanding, and not be caught entangled in confusion and suffering.

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Now you might say, okay, this is another talk on mindfulness. I've heard a lot of them. Mindfulness is everywhere now. It's sort of become ubiquitous.

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Mindfulness in business, mindfulness in healing, mindfulness and creativity, mindfulness in the schools and so forth. Nearly every corner has a Starbucks, a yoga studio, and now there's like some mindfulness thing happening there. In the 50 years that I've been teaching, it's spread wildly, and yet we need it. We need it because the world doesn't need more food. It doesn't need more oil or energy. It needs less greed. It needs less hatred and ignorance, less racism, and less confusion, and less blame, and judgment. It needs more love and mindfulness. This is what would make the world wise. This is what would make our humanity flower and rise.

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So it's not a small thing, it's a reminder. So hang in as you listen, even though you've heard talks about mindfulness, it's an amazing capacity to step back in a spacious and balanced way, to have a presence, to say, yes, this moment's experience is like this. It's not a state or something you hold on to, but it's the spaciousness of freedom that says, yes, with loving awareness. This is the way it is. It's called mindfulness. It could equally well be called heartfulness, to hold it all with kindness. And you know as well as I that there are times in your life that call for heartfulness more than anything.

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Now, what's beautiful is that while it can be developed and trained—and we'll talk about this—more fundamentally and deeply, it's who you really are. You're born with consciousness. When you die, your consciousness leaves your body. You're not made of this body, of whatever it is you eat kale, or Big Macs, or green beans, or salad, or salmon, or whatever it is. That's just not who you are.

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And your body's always changing. It was little and medium sized and big, and then it will go back to the earth in some form. But that's not who you are. Consciousness inhabits or uses this body. You are this consciousness.

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You are awareness. You are loving awareness. And even as you listen here, you are. You can be focused on the words I'm saying on the movement on the screen, but also, even though you see these things and hear the words, you are the awareness that's receiving them, that's receiving the words, and the sounds, and the images. You are awareness.

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It's amazing. We take it for granted, like fish in the sea, but it's what we are. Now, here's a poem I love to read from Juan Ramon Jimenez. And it's his language of reminding us that we're not what we usually take ourselves to be. It's called Yo Noso Yo (I am not I). "I'm not I. I'm this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and at other times I forget. The one who remains silent when I talk. The one who forgives sweet when I hate. The one who takes a walk when I'm indoors. The one who will remain standing when I die."

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And it's his poetic license that speaks to this part of us that's not lost in the experience, but somehow, even in the midst of it all, say, "Wow. Really caught in this one, aren't I? Oh, this is a tough one. This hurts. I long, I love, I hurt I wish, I'm afraid."

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But some part of us goes, "Really in this one, aren't we?" There's a part of us, my teacher called it :the one who knows," the awareness itself that's ever-present. And let's do a little experiment.

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In just a few moments, I'm going to ask you to try not to be aware. When I say start, we'll give you 30 seconds. And I want you to do whatever you can to not be aware. You can close your eyes, grit your teeth, put your fingers in your ears, hum to yourself, anything you want. Do what you can to not be aware.

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All right, on your mark, get set, go.

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You can't do it, can you? I love it. We don't usually pay attention to awareness. We're always focused outwardly. Our education, our society pulls us out.

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The awareness is ever-present.

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This is part of the mystery, that who we are is awareness. And mindfulness, then, is a way of acknowledging and resting more fully in the field of awareness, of loving awareness, rather than being completely entangled or caught in the dramas of our life, which, I hate to say it, but they will pass, the good ones and the bad ones. The bad ones you want to pass, the good ones you want to keep. But whatever it is, baby, it's going to pass. It's just how it is.