The Agitated Mind of Sankhara

Sankhara is one of the 5 khandas that is included in the psyche part of the Buddhadasa model:- Sankhara is most important in considering the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation especially as to whether to introduce it into schools. Sankhara is often translated as mental operations, so let me describe in part these mental operations with regards to meditation. In Anapanasati, meditating is concerned with bringing the mind back to the breath when it is wandering. Typically an adult is drawn to meditation for one reason or another. They sit down and try to watch the breath, and the mind is wandering all over the place. Out of control. For some people this wandering mind is so uncomfortable they decide they cannot meditate. As examples of this difficulty I know personally of two westerners who say they are unable to meditate yet claim they are Buddhists, yet the Buddha says to meditate. It is for them to decide but their example illustrates the difficulty with mind and meditation. It is this wandering mind being out of control that stops most people from meditating – and that is people who are choosing to meditate. Basically sankhara is the problem. Through mindfulness the agitation of uncontrolled sankhara can be calmed. Let us examine that uncontrolled sankhara in a typical educated western adult. They go to school, and are convinced that it is important to get an “education” ie pass exams. In class they force themselves to listen and work – discipline. Mostly passing exams is concerned with memory so they work with their memory to pass exams – sanna as memory is also one of the 5 khandas that is part of the psyche. OK, some sankhara is involved with the use of reason but that can be relatively limited in certain parts of the curriculum where there is an over-reliance on memory. But the dominant mental force in operation is discipline, somehow we apply discipline to control our use of memory and any mental operations that are required. It is possible to go through life with disciplined use of memory and mental operations – sanna and sankhara, without ever having to look inside and cope with the agitation that occurs as a result of this discipline. Especially in the West it is this which is the normal “state of mind”. Now consider less educated people, those who are not academically successful. They do not have the motivation of academic success to help with the discipline so in school it is only discipline that controls them – and this discipline is fundamentally the fear of getting in trouble. If you are a delinquent without such fears you produce disruption in school. For adolescents how can agitation arise? One obvious way this arises is that because they have limited hope of academic success they begin to question the point of being at school. Such questioning can obviously produce agitation. Adolescence is obviously dominated by growing sexual awareness. Especially in the West sex dominates the culture where sexual imagery is constantly offered in the media typically as advertising. For adolescents who have no involvement in academic success to motivate them, more emphasis on sexual discovery when growing up is bound to cause agitation, physical agitation can cause mental agitation, and that is before considering how much of a mental operation is involved in sexual desire. Relationships with the family dominate the lives of teenagers. As they are beginning to see what life has ahead for them they begin to kick against immediate authority. Sadly parents bear the brunt of this attack but teachers are also a symbol of authority, and both are blamed for the world that we live in – yet neither are 1%. So life awareness, family issues, sexual development and lack of academic involvement all contribute to mental agitation in teenagers. If we are motivated to be mindful, mindfulness meditation can obviously help with this teenage mental agitation – sankhara. But how can we possibly interest all teenagers in mindfulness meditation? I suspect there has to be an element of genuine teacher coercion in mindfulness classes but if the student attitude is to fight that coercion mindfulness cannot be beneficial. If a teacher is forcing a student to be quiet against their will what will that do to the student’s mind? If a mindfulness session is the student sitting there silently steaming, I don’t think that would be good. Yet having said that, the “Victorian” school discipline that existed in the 1950s and before developed concentration, and there was much that was lost in terms of concentration as education sought motivation and threw the concentration baby out with the bath water. Mindfulness has to offer benefits in most situations as it deals with agitation, but if there is coercion this might not be beneficial and simply add to the agitation. Possible coercion might explain this report in a South Australia school. This agitation of mind, known as sankhara, is prevalent throughout the world, and mindfulness could help throughout. In the centre of Manchester there is a Buddhist Centre, when I was working there in 2003 it was good to sit in their quiet room. There was a Muslim prayer room at the Muscat school I taught in. A quiet room can be great for those who know they want to try to cope with their agitated minds. Mindfulness meditation has got to be of benefit to all interested to cope with the agitation that is part of sankhara. It would be especially useful for adolescents for whom life is one whole agitation. But if mindfulness meditation is coerced through genuine teacher concern or institutional imposition, it might cause problems.

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