Mindfulness Primer

Literally mindfulness means being mindful. That is, to be aware and present to what is occurring in you and around you, from your breathing to the fluttering of the leaves on the trees.

More specifically, mindfulness is the name for a set of practices and a way of approaching and being in the world. It has deep roots in ancient spiritual traditions, most notably Buddhism.

Mindfulness involves a depth and quality of awareness and being that is different from our ordinary everyday state. Ordinarily we are occupied with our thoughts, or with sensations, lost in them – and often without self-conscious awareness of them even though they entirely occupy us. Our thoughts jump from place to place. Mindfulness involves creating perspective, truly attending to what is happening.

Cultivating it involves becoming aware of ourselves and our thoughts whilst remaining with them. Metaphors help: mindfulness is the state where we can watch our thoughts wander across our minds like clouds across a sky. Or, that our minds are like a glass of water with sediment. If you keep shaking the glass the sediment is churned up and the water is muddy and opaque. If you allow the glass to become still then the sediment can settle allowing the water to become clear. So mindfulness and meditation allow our minds to settle, bringing clarity and equanimity.

At the its most profound, mindfulness is a practice that enables us to realise – and experience – important truths: that we are not our thoughts, that we are all interconnected(interbeing), that there is no permanent self.

Mindfulness is less an idea and more a practice or set of practices. Its most basic and essential practice is meditation. Meditation is both a way to create mindfulness in the moment and to develop our capacity for mindfulness.

Mindfulness is not intellectual, it is not thought, in fact it involves us seeing that we are not (only) our thoughts, that like clouds crossing the sky, they travel across the mind but are not the mind.

Background

Mindfulness is an idea that can be traced back millenia into ancient Buddhism – and beyond. However, its recent usage in English and the West can be traced to the last few decades where it has been used as a term for secularized version of these traditional practices. Major promoters of mindfulness have intentionally sought to distance mindfulness from its origins in Buddhism in order to keep it separate from religion. This allows for it to be seen as neutral and more scientific. This, in turn, enables broader adoption both in specific sectors such as healthcare and education and also societally where its neutrality makes it acceptable to all groups whether devout or anti-religious.

In this context, mindfulness becomes a practice done for its near-term (mental) health benefits without any deeper spiritual context. This is similar to the way in which yoga has become a fitness and exercise practice, shorn of its original spiritual purpose and context.

Whilst this can be valuable, we think it is important to retain the deeper spiritual context. In any case, Buddhism, is less a religion and more a philosophy or way of being – especially in its Zen form. Mindfulness need not have any religious overtones, but it would be a mistake to see it in isolation from its richer spiritual and philosophical context and the approach to being and mind associated with it.

Practices

• Awareness of the breath and body
• Sitting meditation
• Walking meditation
• Deep listening: attending and listening to others without your thoughts, judgments and filters interposing themselves (as much). A way of hearing in which we are fully present with what is happening in the moment without trying to control it or judge it.

Meditation

There are many excellent introductions to meditation. This section only seeks to offer a very short summary for beginners.

We also emphasize that meditation is a practice. You need to do it to learn it. Furthermore, it is a physical exercise and it is beneficial to see guidance from practitioner, and if possible an expert.

Meditation is possible in any circumstance. However, it is much easier in some circumstances than others: for example, in quiet surroundings rather than noisy ones. It also requires practice, in keeping with this tradition highlights two major ways of doing meditation: sitting, walking, eating.

Sitting: TODO\

Walking: TODO

Eating: TODO

Philosophical viewpoints

• Compassion and Loving Kindness (relation to Empathy?)
• Respect for all beings - Universalism. Reverence for Life.
• Open mindedness. Non-attachment to views. Guarding of the senses.
• Prudent consumption. You are what you eat. You are what you watch.

Buddhist - 4 noble truths

*"I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That's all I teach"

• Buddha*

The Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha's teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree¹.

1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/four-noble-truths:

1. All existence is dukkha. The word dukkha has been variously translated as ‘suffering’, ‘anguish’, ‘pain’, or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. The Buddha’s insight was that our lives are a struggle, and we do not find ultimate happiness or satisfaction in anything we experience. This is the problem of existence.

2. The cause of dukkha is craving². The natural human tendency is to blame our difficulties on things outside ourselves. But the Buddha says that their actual root is to be found in the mind itself. In particular our tendency to grasp at things (or alternatively to push them away) places us fundamentally at odds with the way life really is.

3. The cessation of dukkha comes with the cessation of craving. As we are the ultimate cause of our difficulties, we are also the solution. We cannot change the things that happen to us, but we can change our responses.

expressed as follows:

4. There is a path that leads from dukkha. Although the Buddha throws responsibility back on to the individual he also taught methods through which we can change ourselves, for example the Noble Eightfold Path.

Ethics

• No: killing, stealing, adultery, lying, using immoral language, gossiping, slandering, giving vent to anger, holding wrong views (ten evil deeds)

Buddhist emphasises non-attachment above all else, even around ethics. Of course, avoid doing those things which are prohibited. At the same time, do not get attached to these things and certainly avoid judging others.

The story of 2 monks who come to a river. There is a beautiful woman who cannot cross. The older monk carries her across and puts her down on the other side. The two monks walk on. An hour later the young one bursts out: you broke our precepts by carrying that young woman. The older one says: I put her down an hour ago but you are still carrying her.

Recommended Reading & Watching

• Three Pillars of Zen - really solid introduction on the practical side. Oriented to Japanese Rinzai zen so emphasis on zazen (sitting meditation), koans, satori (enlightenment, self realization), sesshin (intensive retreats), dokusan (private encounter with a teacher)

• Thich Nhat Hanh (??)

  • 4m video - [*What is

  • 1h video - [*the art of mindful

  • Mindful living techniques -

    http://www.lionsroar.com/mindful-living-thich-nhat-hanh-on-the-practice-of-mindfulness-march-2010/

• Wonders of Natural Mind, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

• Suggest we include this article - http://palousemindfulness.com/docs/JKZ_thinking.pdf

• Great article on mindful eating - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought.html?pagewanted=all&\_r=1