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we knew it all along...
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
[This](http:// https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=_6dqU5t6iYE469WA2AU&url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/06/mindfulness-hospitals-schools&cd=4&ved=0CDMQFjAD&usg=AFQjCNF3SdrwHXHCVC5vqXjy_b7VnUkHPA&sig2=GinlGb6e-CIz_C4ZF1F0Xg) news article appeared today and was even mentioned on morning radio. Thoughts are that this will become as important a state as being in business itself....
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Comments
(posted from my phone. If it's a mess, I'm sorry, but I don't know how to work this thing!!) /
This could be the beginning. Not the beginning, but a beginning. Imagine how the world will change when mindfulness goes mainstream/popular by being integrated with schools and the like (and it's clearly going that way already)? It'll be like a giant can-opener.
Sounds too good to be true... But then, we've been talking of implementing emotional intelligence in schools for twenty years and I'm still waiting.
I wonder why these methods, which are proven to improve one's life quality fail to make it into the educational system?
Yes, too good to be true, I think I feel where your coming from.
What exactly is mindfullness? Good question. Some say Mindfulness is a particularly hard thing to explain to people. I heard a monk on youtube say that mindfulness is bassically to remember to practice the factors of the eightfold path.
All this mindfulness bonanza should encourage us to be better Buddhists.
ugh im such a hypocrite! lol... I guess I'm sort of quasi - Buddhist.
Mindfulness is how we get back to the breath. It involves coming back here and also diffusing outward. It is mindfulness which can distinguish between thoughts wandering and thoughts on the breath. It notes the eightfold, and our experienced consciousness.
Here in the US, the failure to introduce such things into the education system comes entirely from fear and Christian belief systems. Schools that have tried yoga in gym class, were met with resistance and threats to remove children from school. I think one group of parents in CA even brought the case to court. Yet our supreme court the other day voted that Christian based prayers are just fine in local governments as long as they aren't denigrating other religions. The idea that America was founded on Christian beliefs is still quite strong, and I don't see it changing any time soon, not in the normal public school systems that are government funded.
I question how long the mindfulness fad will hang around. Because it's so typical in the US (and I assume the rest of the western world) that we look for a quick answer and when it doesn't work, we go to the next thing. Mindfulness will help even practicing it just a little bit, but people will have high expectations for a minimal amount of effort. I don't see it being so sustainable as to bring major changes to the medical and school fields because of that. It's like when I tried meditation in the early 2000s, it was all the rage on Time magazine's cover and so on, but when I didn't get the results promised, I let it go. So did most others. The people interested in mindfulness now are the same people who were interested in meditation, but gave it up. I think those types of practices lose something when a foundation isn't there. That doesn't mean there is no benefit of course. I just think it's less likely to be sustainable because without the reasoning behind the practice, people are less likely to stick with it.
I think many mindfulness investigate the physical body which is good. I am thinking of Jon Kabat Zinn. My teacher does more with the heart and seeing our desires. That involves the body, but just focusing on the body is only a stage. We can't realize non-harming only by pacifying the body. After pacifying the body we must also train the thinking mind and find a place within us that is neither pacified nor agitated (etc).
I worry about developing mindfulness without the ethical checks & balances that the system of Buddhism (or other systems) offer. I've talked to some people who have the understanding that mindfulness is only being concentrated on one thing at a time, without judging it, and are adamant of that.
We've all heard the warnings from Buddhist teachers about practicing "mindfulness" without wisdom... sociopaths can be quite "mindful" when they kill others, but obviously that's not the kind of mindfulness we're talking about.
But then, how can we talk about "proper mindfulness" without bringing Buddhism into the picture - something that many seem hesitant to do?
I think that it's a shame that religion is considered such a taboo topic in many societies.
Mindfulness and meditation are being taught in the US, but at the college and continuing education levels, as optional courses for those interested.
Bankers are doing it
Be afraid
It is inevitable that Zen was used to create a more efficient Samurai elite. Without the ethical basis what we have is . . . [your estimation here]
@Invincible_summer makes a similar point . . .
I read the other day that a while back, TNH did meditation with the US congress. I think we need to send them all on retreat for like 6 months.
I reckon that a broader appeal will get more people to look and even if most of those who try leave it, casting a wider net will find more who do have a genuine interest and some who even will want to go deeper.
I agree with karasti, who describes the fear and paranoia of the Christian right with anything that might have a link with Buddhism or Hinduism. My work history was in the area of developing public policy (and even had a short stint as a local politician) so I tried hard to find a possible link between mindfulness and public policy.Jon Kabat Zin has had a lot of success with using these techniques to teach people to learn pain management. I suppose that an advocate might suggest that public health insurance should cover the cost of learning this technique. But given the fears that karasti points out, it will never happen in the US, and here in Canada, where we have a pretty good selection of health services covered by universal insurance, it would be considered to be an "allied" health service which a person an choose to use, but at your own cost.
One day this might have to happen . . .
Some politicians study
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings
or the more Christian
http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/aww/
Winston Churchill when in the midst of war and depression had to do meditative brick laying to recharge his batteries.
I suggest the stresses and necessity of coping with public office will necessitate some sort of mental health component. Otherwise we are stuck with the dangerous sociopaths who misrule . . .
I listen to BBC radio 4 a lot, there was a discussion on woman's hour featuring a female member of parliament who had suffered from depression and had used mindfulness techniques to help. Apparently they are teaching mindfulness in the houses of parliament.
A very Christian friend of mine was thoroughly enjoying a yoga class I suggested her to join in order to heal her migraines. As soon as the teacher suggested singing some mantras at the end of the class, she got up and left. When I rejoined her, she simply said to me: "I only sing praises to our Lord."
No way of talking her into wholesome alternative medicine techniques, she thinks she's committing heresy.
Some people fail to see the benefit of techniques borrowed from other religions unless it's in fashion. Which means they'll keep up the routine as long as the fad lasts and forget all about it when the next flavour of the month appears.
I saw that too, @Lonely_Traveller Very cool. That would go over like a turd in the punch bowl in our government. Praise Jesus, yes. Be aware and mindful of your speech and actions? Oh my. No. Heathens!
@Lonely_Traveller I posted the link to that show in another thread, but i can't find it so here it is again: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01ylkmw
Y'know, some people need a narrow focus to make the world work. You see it in all walks of life.
I'm not particularly interested in what Christians, Muslims, Hindus, New Agers and so on do for their practice. Not interested. Don't care. On the rare occaision where I attend church with my mother, I sit respectfully, but that's all. I don't pray. I don't sing hymns. One notable exception is Christmas, but as the years go by our observance of that holiday wanes.
People get up and leave things they don't like all the time. I took and meditation intro class at the Boulder Shambhala center and we'd lost 3 people out of 6 before lunch. Don't know why. Doesn't matter. Maybe they thought they were committing some heresy - if so they were better off leaving. It's ok.
If we all have to address our own separation from existence in this life, it explains how so many folks look to religion as the cure to that suffering, not as something mystically possible on it's own but for how becoming embraced as a member of a larger tribe (religion) actually assuages those inherited feelings of separation.
Truth for them depends on the feeling of belonging that they experience there and whatever challenges that feeling is the enemy.
@karasti, Turd in a punchbowl - that phrase cracked me up, first time I've ever heard it.
@dharmamom, I was at my support group this afternoon and I was telling a couple of jokes, one of the members who is a very devout christian apologised for not laughing saying he finds it difficult to feel happy. I told him that's anhedonia and its down to the meds. There was a small study at the University of Virginia that showed that metta practice can help alleviate it. I told him you should take up metta practice because of this study. He replied I can't do that I'm not a Buddhist.
We are all entitled to our religious beliefs, but certain attitudes simply stump me.
When my neighbour learnt I practised yoga, she dropped a leaflet in my mailbox on which was stated that if certain alternative practices such as yoga were not mentioned in the Bible they could not come from a good source.
I accept but still don't understand. I have always preferred ideas that expand my horizons, not ideas that cramp me in a square box.
I agree with you, but it's kinda spooky how close "good source" and "right view" are.
... and then there were the 'Christians' who interrupted a prayer offered in the U.S. Senate.
And then there was me who chose to practise 'Mindful Speech' and refrain from comment......
Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness
"Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally"
Admittedly, I've never read any of Dr. JKZ's stuff. What does he have to say about ethics and mindfulness? One could technically murder another person on purpose, while being present, and not thinking about good or bad...
If mindfulness is taught sans an ethical foundation, isn't it basically Sociopath 101?
However, mindfulness kept in its Buddhist context gives practitioners a complete system that includes ethics.
@Invincible_summer
I don't think JKZ addresses the issue of sociopathy. His therapy is for people with physical ailments such as cancer, heart disease, and AIDS. I don't think it has been found helpful even to Axis I mental illness. Sociopath is an axis II personality disorder and I am pretty sure JKZ doesn't address it.
I don't know if this comes from the Pali canon or the Abhidhamma or from some wise teacher of the present, I hope someone more scholarly can identify this:
Compassion, friendliness, empathy and loving-kindness are built into the structure of Life itself. Brahma it(?)self is the essence of metta, karuna, mudita and upekka (kindness, compassion, empathetic joy for others, equanimity).
In other words, a person who diligently practices mindfulness will (in theory!) automatically encounter the essential truth of kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. They don't have to be taught 'along with' because they are inherent essences that will naturally manifest.
Of course 'mindfulness' can be twisted off the framework and take one for a sociopathic ride, minus the empathetic joy, kindness and compassion -- pure isolated equanimity might pervert into sociopathic behavior.
As an aside, I take great heart in my faith that 'morality' is not an add-on, but a natural expression of all kinds of animate and inanimate life.
It's tough to wrap my head around metta, karuna and mudita when I watch Nat Geo Wild, but what do I know about what runs through the heads of the big cats of Africa. Maybe if I remember my past lives I can speak more confidently
One of my most burning questions when I first began meditation and studying seriously was what in the hell is going on with the sociopathic human being. I married one, who on the spectrum was not in the same league as Hannibal Lechter or Pol Pot or even the guy in the next town over that sexually tortured his GF's daughter to death a couple of years ago. But he definitely lacked any semblance of 'empathetic joy' for others, and had very very little compassion in his nature.
In modern psychiatry, the sociopathic brain is structurally different than the 'normal' brain, as evidenced in fMRI studies among others. That said, the differences between a person on the sociopathy spectrum and a 'normal' person are not subtle at all, more like chasms or quantum leaps. There simply is no awareness OR concern occurring in those individuals under any circumstances, except for their own wellbeing.
This question is not so burning any more, but at the time I began practicing I was still very much healing my life from that 'encounter', and unfortunately will continue to do so.
Not many of us have had intense contact with a sociopath, but we've all had encounters with their lesser brothers and sisters; the abusive spouse, the con artists, certain CEOs and erm government officials all the way up to heads of state and country. They are all over the place, in every chink and nook in society.
It's a good question to ask, what the practice of mindfulness can be perverted into by a person innately lacking the capacity for kindness, compassion and empathetic joy.
One small example is 'mindfulness' being used at a corporate level to improve employee performance (ie, improve efficiency and hopefully diminish awareness of the exploitation of the worker).
Other than that, I can't see how pure secular 'mindfulness' is not a GOOD thing no matter where it shows up, in schools or corporations or government. I don't perceive it as sacrilegious but I don't perceive Buddhism as a religion in my own life either. Hell, whatever inspires people to be kinder to each other, less impulsive and quick to outbursts, wiser and more efficient in all their life can't be a bad thing.
@Hamsaka I think that employees implementing mindfulness would actually become more aware of their own exploitation, possibly quite disillusioned with productivity quotas and the like (if they don't actually enjoy their job). It could backfire on the employers and be helpful for the employees.
Note, I am NOT making a link between autism and sociopaths!!
My son, his father, and my partner (my older sons' deceased dad) all have Asperger's, which is the high functioning side of autism.
While all of them are good people, they all had to be taught empathy, how to consider others, how to understand how others feel, and so on. They never truly get it, they just learn that others get it, and thus they have to get it, in some way, to get along in life. I think sociopaths are that much farther removed where they even lack a little bit of the "getting it" portion of considering others feelings.
My dad said, when his best friend's wife died of cancer, "I can't relate to what he is going through. I can't even begin to understand why he is upset, why he is sad, why this is so hard for him. I cannot connect with people on that level. Death just happens, there is no reason to be sad."
My son is a bit the other way, he understands more than my dad (and more than his dad) but he still has to be taught a whole lot about others emotions and needs and social expectations and he'll do it, he'll realize he should do it (offer comfort, and so on) but he doesn't truly understand why the other person needs it.
Sociopaths, I think, are farther removed yet, where they not only don't get it, but they don't understand why they should bother trying.
The big difference between autistic folks and sociopaths is that sociopaths don't CARE, and autistics don't KNOW. Once they 'get it' that others have internal experiences just like their own, autistic people are clearly on board with it all. At least they can have genuine respect for the interiority of another person whether they understand them or not. Their empathy is actually intact, but like so much, they have to learn social stuff 'manually' or deliberately. It might not occur to them otherwise.
Sociopaths are quite keen about what motivates other people, what their hot buttons are, what they like and don't like. Their orientation is where it goes wrong. They exploit what they sense is going on in the other person for their own purposes, and if they don't 'need' anything from the other person they could care less.
There's a passage in the Pali canon about compassion, where it says in so many words that compassion includes a deep visceral response to witnessing pain or injury in another person. It happens automatically like a reflex. This seems to be what's missing in sociopaths (to a greater degree). An autistic person who sees severe pain or an injury react appropriately but respond in their own particular way. They feel that instant of distress but may not understand WHY in their own minds.
It would make life and reality look a LOT different if you didn't have the reflexive response to another's pain or injury, now wouldn't it . . .
Just as an aside, my ex husband, early on, was just learning the limits of my tolerance (this was an absolutely horrifying time, so confusing). He did whatever he did, and watched me respond with pain or fear and you could see his wheels turning, like he was fascinated or just plain puzzled. He was smart enough to learn how far he could go, until I changed how far I was willing to go. His 'abuse' was most often gross insensitivity and lack of concern for consequences. It wasn't 'personal' to me or targeting me in particular. It was just his extremely abnormal psychology and how it rubbed up against my relative 'normality'.
Adressing both @Hamsaka and @Invincible_summer's comments above, it is through the practice of mindfulness, through a relentless observation of his thoughts and feelings, that the Buddha discovered the two truths of impermanence and the interconnection of all beings the night before his enlightenment.
The practice of mindful awareness in the present leads to right thought and to right view, and perceiving the interrelation of all things in the universe helps develop our feelings of empathy, compassion and loving-kindness.
There is always the risk that good tools fall into the wrong hands, but the practice of mindfulness in the context of people who don't suffer from serious mental pathologies, can positively impact in the quality of their life.
Unwavering awareness in the present moment leads to correct thinking, as in learning to make wiser choices about your life, independently of your religious or ethical background. There is a wider scope of people who could be positively benefitted by the use of mindfulness. How a sociopath learns to improve his performance thanks to mindfulness techniques is hopefully in the narrower side of the statistics spectrum.
It reminds me of my mother saying that "Internet is dangerous." Some people using Internet can do dangerous things, which does not mean that Internet in itself is dangerous.
Hi, @vinlyn! I did not quite follow you here.
Right view usually refers to having a correct view of reality, undistorted by ignorance.
If somebody believes that good can only come from one source, namely what that person views as the only source of good, it can't be right view. That person's view, yes, but not right view.
Is that what you meant?
He(Jon Kabot_ Zinn) most definitely does. Ive come to think of him a beautiful man.Here's an except from "Whereever you go there you are"
~~~~
Patience
Certain attitudes or mental qualities support meditation practice and provide a rich soil in which the
seeds of mindfulness can flourish. By purposefully cultivating these qualities, we are actually tilling the
soil of our own mind and ensuring that it can serve as a source of clarity, compassion, and right action in
our lives.
These inner qualities which support meditation practice cannot be imposed, legislated, or decreed. They
can only be cultivated, and this only when you have reached the point where your inner motivation is
strong enough to want to cease contributing to your own suffering and confusion and perhaps to that of
others. It amounts to behaving ethically—a sorely maligned concept in many circles.
On the radio, I heard someone define ethics as "obedience to the unenforceable." Not bad. You do it for
inner reasons, not because someone is keeping score, or because you might be punished if you break the
rules and get caught. You are marching to the beat of your own drummer. It is an inner hearing you are
attending to, just as it is an inner soil that is being tilled for the cultivation of mindfulness. But you
cannot have harmony without a commitment to ethical behavior. It's the fence that keeps out the goats
that will eat all the young shoots in your garden.
I see patience as one of these fundamental ethical attitudes. If you cultivate patience, you almost can't
help cultivating mindfulness, and your meditation practice will gradually become richer and more
mature. After all, if you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment, patience takes care of
itself. It is a remembering that things unfold in their own time. The seasons cannot be hurried. Spring
conies, the grass grows by itself. Being in a hurry usually doesn't help, and it can create a great deal of
suffering—sometimes in us, sometimes in those who have to be around us"
Ive read a lot of stuff over the years and he is my favorite . He says he has come to think of meditation as a "radial act of love" Bob
I feel I should elaborate a bit more about Jon Kabot- Zinn. I've come to know him as a beautiful , compassionate man. One who has dedicated his life work ,through the application of mindfulness, to relieving the suffering of others. Bob
And here's another thing;
Ruby Wax, of all people, helps the MPs out...
Going back to an earlier point, I think its important, maybe for Americans living in some areas of the US particularly important, to remember that Christianity does not equal Evangelical Christianity necessarily.
I was reading just yesterday about a Franciscan Monk here in the UK who is teaching Mindfulness to Primary School kids, and being open about its Buddhist origins.
I live in Maine and know plenty of Christians who practice yoga and meditate. You don't find too many evangelical types around here. Jesus was known to wander of into the desert to meditate. It surprises me that so many Christians ignore that part of the New Testament.
As far as I know, Jesus's meditation stint in the desert lasted only forty days.
Plus the night before he got killed, in the olive garden...
After having done about 30 seconds of research I found 28 references to meditating in the book of Psalms alone. Haven't looked into the NT. There is biblical support for medatating if some one felt the need to reference it.
Good research. But Psalms is before Jesus. He was not known to wander off into the desert to meditate. He did it once. For forty days.
Actually, we don't really know how long he was gone for. '40 days' is a metaphor for 'rather a long time'.
By any standards, three weeks is a 'long time' to sit in the desert and meditate. particularly as nothing is recounted of whether he ate anything, or drank anything during his sojourn....
I'm sure I'm not the only one to see the similarity between this event, and the Buddha's encounter with Mara, under the Bodhi Tree....
Hmm it's interesting that Buddha and Jesus never actually wrote down there own words... Someone else did.
Their!***
And religions are born....Bob
"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary for us to invent him."
Voltaire.
Quite the most interesting fellow....