Mindfulness

Not that I was there, but someone who was told me that at the Tri-State (Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) Environmental Law Conference this year, a speaker in the "Wellness" Section gave a talk on the benefits of mindfulness, and even led the conferees in a five-minute, silent meditation.

Well, this is good, except for the parts that aren't.  It may surprise you that I have an objection to meditation being taught to lawyers, but my concern is that much of the popular meditation being promoted these days is treated as a commodity, branded as "mindfulness," and held out as a miracle cure for a great many ailments.  In other words, almost the polar opposite of what Buddhism actually proposes.  Of course, I wasn't there so I'm not passing judgement, I'm just expressing my concern.

One of the objects of meditation is to let go of having an objective. True mindfulness is an escape from striving to attain something, even mindfulness, and just calmly, blissfully being - no cares, no worries, no aspirations, and not even any thoughts.

The titles of books on Buddhism can be pretty concise summaries of the contents of the books.  Buddhism Is Not What You Think is a very clever title by Zen teacher Steve Hagen, as it plays on the dual meanings of maybe you don't really know what Buddhism is and Buddhism is not a set of beliefs, ideas and thoughts.  It's not what you think, it's a process of letting go of thought (don't worry - they come back).  

However, in recent years people have embraced the concept of mindfulness as a worthy product of Buddhist practice, and many books have been written on how you can achieve mindfulness now, how mindfulness can solve all your other problems, and how a teacher's advanced state of mindfulness can be yours if only you just buy the book, or attend a seminar, or join a practice group.  Mindfulness is being packaged as a commodity, bought and sold, and advertised as a miracle cure-all.

In Buddhism, mindfulness is but one part of the Buddha's Eightfold Path, along with right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort and right meditation.  But today's mindfulness proponents have made mindfulness the goal itself, not a pathway leading to enlightenment.

The same could also be said about Zen Buddhists and right meditation.  The criticism of Zen is that it puts all of the focus on just one part of the eightfold path, meditation, and ignores all the rest.  Zen Buddhists counter that when one practices right meditation, one is necessarily practicing all the other paths - right understanding (understanding mediation as the essential pathway), right thought (which is no thought), right effort (sitting still without fidgeting), etc.  

But the critics have a point, and I maintain that the emphasis of mindfulness is guilty of the same single-mindedness.  Further, there is nothing more detrimental to attaining mindfulness than holding mindfulness out as a goal to be achieved, thereby implying that you don't yet have it and that it's something outside of you.  The more you clutter your mind with thoughts of "Oh, I have to be mindful," the less mindful your mind is for that very clutter.

So, I'm glad to hear of a ballroom full of lawyers practicing five minutes of mindfulness meditation,  Really. And I believe that no harm will come of it.  But on the other hand, I'm deeply suspicious of the current mindfulness movement, and the West's latest attempt to clumsily appropriate an Eastern ideology, and try to package, market, and commodify it.

There's always something to complain about, isn't there?      

Oh, and happy Ramadan, y'all!