Mindfulness
Is defined by Jon Kabbat-Zinn as moment-to-moment nonjudgmental attention. As we learn to calmly acknowledge and accept our feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, a heightened state of awareness, tranquility, and peace will be experienced.
Sections
Origins
Theory
Experience
Origins
The Buddhist practice known as mindfulness can be described as open-hearted awareness of one’s internal and external landscapes, moment by moment. Those practices, which originated with the historical Buddha 2500 years ago, have become over the past three decades useful as secular and therapeutic practices. They are now widely used by clinicians to treat anxiety, depression, ADD, and stress-disorders. In addition, medicine uses mindfulness practices to support the treatment of hypertension, heart disease, gastro-intestinal disorders, and many others. Mindfulness practices support recovery from serious illness and diminish our fear of death.
Beginning with the ground breaking work of Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts and his system called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), mindfulness-informed psychotherapies have been integrated into the many therapeutic theoretical orientations without the explicit teaching of traditional mindfulness meditation.
Why did mindfulness become such a large part of modern culture?
Mindfulness has become popular in the modern world for stress relief, emotional balance, and cultivation of mental focus, but its roots go more than 2500 years. Mindfulness also gifts us with an undogmatic, secular way to experience inner peace, or what might be called “the sacred” or the numinous. Mindfulness is an ancient technique with enormous modern benefits.
Mindfulness is seen as the capacity to focus on the moment we are in, and to be aware of our inner life, our thoughts, and feelings, as well as to be present to our environment. However, its ancient religious origins had a much wider context. The practice developed not as an end in itself, but as a path to “living a wholesome life and cultivating loving-kindness to all sentient beings.” The ultimate goal of all Buddhist practice is to become completely awake and free.
Buddhism teaches mindfulness as a way toward awakening.
Steady attention to physical sensations, and especially those of your breath, is the gateway to the present moment, which is the magical place where you are free from the troubles of the past and worries about the future.
In order to come to this precious place of “Now,” Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron suggests, “This is not about watching the breath like a hawk, it is not about concentrating on the breath. This is feeling the breath, or any word you can use to be one with your breath.” What is important here is to be with the felt sense of the breath and to let ourselves flow with and surrender to its sensation and movement.
Mindfulness practice helps you to cultivate heightened awareness, tranquility, and inner happiness. You begin this practice by turning your gaze around and looking inwards. Besides noticing the always-changing sensations in your body, you can witness the quality of your mind, whether you are restless, alert or drawing a blank. You notice whether you are ruminating or whether your mind is calm and quiet. You notice when there are emotions passing by, such as sadness, anger, fear or happiness. With mindfulness, you become kindly and patiently aware of your relationship to life. Mindfulness is often understood as affectionate attention, meaning that you learn to live with an underlying attitude of kindness and warmth.
Sati is the ancient Pali word for mindfulness or awareness. It is a spiritual or psychological faculty that forms an essential part of Buddhist practice. Sati means the “moment to moment awareness of present events”. It also means “remembering to be aware of something”. To attain wisdom, Buddhist practitioners train mindfulness not only in formal meditation. Being present in daily activities such as walking, sitting, eating, working…is also important. Ultimately the fruits of this practice show themselves in the quality of our relationship with others and with our world.
When you align your attention with your exhale and let go of volition, then you can feel that your body breathes all by itself. As your body breathes you, you begin to experience the interconnected and always-changing nature of life. Sufi poet Kabir puts it like this: “Something inside me has reached the place where the world is breathing.”.
Buddhism found a home in the various countries; and different versions of meditation practice became popular in different regions. Burma, Sri Lanka, and Thailand became the home of Theravadin Buddhism, China and Japan the home of Zen, and Tibet the home of Tibetan Buddhism, including Mahamudra and Dzogchen.
Theory
Presence
Enhance your connection to yourself, others, and the outside world. Tune in to the hear and now, and call attention to moments throughout your day
Balance
Find stability in your emotions and thoughts. Learning to find solid ground can be a be tremendously empowering
Compassion
Mindfulness helps us to open our hearts, even under challenging circumstances – and develop pathways for acting with greater compassion
Experience it for yourself
Mindfulness is a practice involved in various religious and secular traditions—from Hinduism and Buddhism to yoga and, more recently, non-religious meditation. People have been practicing mindfulness for thousands of years, whether on its own or as part of a larger tradition.
With Mindfulness Practice we learn about the always-changing nature of existence, and that we can be with what is happening without grasping or pushing away experience. Ongoing Mindfulness Practice helps us to develop a background field that is calm and kind from which the present moments of our life emerges. As we live in an aware and connected way of being, our skillful engagement with life follows naturally.
