Discover the sacred and secular dimensions of mindfulness, its Buddhist origins, modern adaptations, and the cultural and conceptual shifts shaping mindfulness practice today.
Mindfulness as a type of meditation, practice and discipline is something that is often credited as originating within the Buddhist practice. Bodhi (2011) mentions that the Buddha himself gave particular prominence to mindfulness by including it in the noble eightfold path, the fourth of the Four Noble Truths in which he compressed his teaching: suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation. And the way we might do that initially has this building block of mindfulness practice.
Over the last few years, the “Mindfulness Movement,” as it is sometimes referred to (Vishvapani, 2012), has become a significant force within contemporary society. Jon Kabat-Zinn first introduced Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) into mainstream medical settings. Since then, its use to reduce pain and stress has been adopted by hundreds of medical centers, hospitals, and clinics around the world. The application of mindfulness in clinical settings has proven a potent tool for helping patients deal with conditions such as depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorders (Bodhi,2011).
The core techniques of MBSR are drawn from eastern meditational practice, specifically Buddhism. According to Vishvapani (2012), the insights of Buddhist teaching are universal and can be applied outside a Buddhist context. Williams & Kabat-Zinn (2011) mentions that ancient practices are concerned with embodied awareness and the cultivation of clarity, emotional balance (equanimity) and compassion which can be refined and developed via the honing and intentional deployment of attention. This clearly shows that the roots of ancient eastern meditation practices are de facto universal. However, mindfulness and other practices adopted from Buddhism will inevitably find new applications in the modern West, where worldviews and lifestyles are so different from those of southern and eastern Asia. Therefore, it is not surprising that differences emerge with regard to how mindfulness is conceptualised within Eastern and Western perspectives and conceptualisations of mindfulness differ in at least three levels: contextual, process, and content (Keng et al., 2011).
At the contextual level, mindfulness needs to be cultivated alongside other spiritual practices, such as following an ethical lifestyle. This is needed for one to move towards the goal of liberation. However, a Western setting is independent of any specific circumscribed philosophy, ethical code, or system of practices. At the process level, mindfulness is to be practised by contemplating the aspects of the Buddha's teachings, such as impermanence, non-self, and suffering. Western practice generally places less emphasis on non-self and impermanence than traditional Buddhist teachings. Finally, at the content level, in an Eastern setting, mindfulness more fundamentally has to do with observing one's perception of and reactions towards sensory objects. In contrast, in a western setting, mindfulness focuses on the features of the sensory objects themselves.
Traditional Dharma teachers believe that MBPs are said to be diluting the Dharma and offering a “one-fold path,” without reference to the other limbs of the eight-fold path (Wilks, 2014). I agree with this up to a point. However, in our current times, people are increasingly dissociated from their bodies. As Wilcock (2002, p. 3) mentions that “people spend their lives almost constantly engaged in purposeful ‘doing’ even when free of obligation or necessity”. If studies suggest that MBIs are a promising avenue for intervention for improving physiological indices of stress (Heckenberg et al., 2018), then why not embrace the MBI practices? We all know that MBI programmes require a significant commitment to attending sessions and practising. What if one commits to regular practice, then as described by Kabat-Zinn, they help to recognise one’s interconnectedness and wholeness and unmask the unknown? Anyone should take whatever they find useful from the Dhamma even if it is for secular purposes.
