mindfulness

First of all I probably shouldn’t be writing about expectations when it comes to mindfulness. It’s not a goal driven practice so to harbor any expectations would run contrary to the spirit of mindfulness. That being said, I’m going to let myself off the hook by saying we can expect anything when we begin to practice mindfulness. Since expecting anything is the flip side of expecting nothing it puts me perfectly in line with the spirit of the practice.

Although expecting nothing is the “skillful” way to approach mindfulness, the reality of what happens is far from nothing. First of all, although the concept of mindfulness is easy enough to understand, putting it into practice is not necessarily easy. On the other hand, I have taught people who eased into the practice quite naturally and found a relatively smooth path in front of them. I must say that this is the exception rather than the rule but nonetheless prevents us from overgeneralizing.

Mindfulness is revolutionary in that it runs against the status quo and the cultural norms that we are used to. It’s a way of being and doing that puts us swimming against the current. There is no way to predict how soon the tide will turn so that we may swim with the current. Like anything new that we embark upon there is a certain degree of resistance to change that comes naturally to us and that resistance express itself in many ways. It’s a hard thing to understand since the nature of life is constant change and you would think that by now we would have adapted to the way things are. Perhaps mindfulness is the means by which we will finally begin to adapt to our ever changing inner and outer landscape. It puts us in touch with the part of us that never changes thereby giving us the wherewithal to keep our sense of balance as we learn to go with the ever changing flow.

Beyond Mindfulness: Excerpts From The Blog at The Huff Post 10/12/2014..With my comments

“Suddenly mindfulness meditation has become mainstream, making its way into schools, corporations, prisons, and government agencies including the U.S. military. Millions of people are receiving tangible benefits from their mindfulness practice: less stress, better concentration, perhaps a little more empathy. Needless to say, this is an important development to be welcomed — but it has a shadow.

Bhikkhu Bodhi, an outspoken western Buddhist monk, has warned: “absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stabilize the status quo, becoming a reinforcement of consumer capitalism.” Unfortunately, a more ethical and socially responsible view of mindfulness is now seen by many practitioners as a tangential concern, or as an unnecessary politicizing of one’s personal journey of self-transformation.

One hopes that the mindfulness movement will not follow the usual trajectory of most corporate fads — unbridled enthusiasm, uncritical acceptance of the status quo, and eventual disillusionment. To become a genuine force for positive personal and social transformation, it must reclaim an ethical framework and aspire to more lofty purposes that take into account the well-being of all living beings.”

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I agree wholeheartedly with the above thoughts. I have noticed the explosion of mindfulness in practically every walk of life and as a long time practitioner and teacher of mindfulness I know how easy it is to develop a mindfulness practice and then let it go for lack of the necessary motivation. I’ve spoken to many people over the years who have voiced this specific concern and want to know how to deal with it. There is consensus that life was better with mindfulness but there is also consensus with many people that they simply couldn’t sustain the practice. Therein lies the big question posed in the above blog. For now, living a mindful life runs against the current of our culture and it is difficult to find the necessary support system to resist the current.

I find that the ethical, social and spiritual seed must be present with the practice of mindfulness otherwise it will wither on the vine. If these things can be included in the training then I think mindfulness stands a chance of sustaining it’s growth and enthusiasm. So how do we instill these things into people who are coming to it for different reasons. I’ve always thought that it didn’t matter what brings a person to mindfulness….that was before “commercial” mindfulness. Now I wonder……My experience has been that it is critical that you bring the social, ethical and spiritual focus to the practice of mindfulness otherwise it won’t last. Even if you do bring these things it can be a road filled with resistance. After all, life can be a road filled with challenges and mindfulness teaches us how to navigate that road. So in the end, I think it will be interesting to see if all these people can plug into those necessary motivations to sustain their practice of mindfulness. It’s impossible to predict what will happen but I am rooting for the best and doing what I can to facilitate long term mindfulness.

Although there have been many studies that tout the benefits of mindfulness I don’t usually see them talking about the exact mechanism that is employed in getting those results. I’ve seen various ideas talking around the “on switch” of the mindful experience so I would like to be very specific in what I see to be the actual mechanism/machinery engaged in creating the mindful experience that so many people for so many years have been able to benefit from.

As a preface to this discussion I would like to say that the following qualities are generally developed over a period of time with earnest practice. The first quality is perhaps the most obvious and is the simple quality of being able to focus or pay attention to what is happening moment to moment as a result of direct experience. That means being able to fully experience life through the body, thoughts and emotions by being fully connected to oneself. Most people have a degree of disconnection they are dealing with as a result of chronic and lingering stress, so to be able to connect to oneself is a real accomplishment.

Once we are able to be present in this way we are more able to accept experiences as they come and go in and out of our field of attention. It’s very important to accept this flow of experience as this continual change is part and parcel of the nature of the reality that we live in. It is the resistance to this change that is at the core of creating stress…..no doubt because we are resisting the very reality we live in. Once we have learned to accept experiences we also need to learn how to let go of them. Since constant change is the nature of life, we need to make room for each new experience as it comes into our field of attention. The only way to do that is to learn to let go of each experience in order to make room for the next one. If we can’t let go then the system gets backed up with experiences that need to move on to make room for the next one. Sometimes I see this as the experiential plumbing getting backed up where the only Drano/Roto Rooter type of effect comes from the ability to fully experience things as they are happening. By attending to, accepting andletting go of each experience we prevent the clogging up of the system. When our system gets clogged up we ultimately have to deal with the repercussions. Why not just prevent the clogging by practicing mindfulness and employing the skills of attention, acceptance and letting go. Once the mindfulness kicks in we can fully experience what an unclogged, free flowing system can be like.