On my Buddhist Coach Facebook page I just posted a link to this piece on mindfulness of the body, observing just how much emphasis has been placed on mindfulness as a primarily mental (i.e. thinking/ cognitive) activity. However, as the author elegantly puts it, “what we translate as “mindfulness” cannot properly be understood as a purely mental activity.”
I’ve been very struck by the huge cognitive bias in the way in which mindfulness is being promulgated, and I suggest that a key reason for this is that the people who research stuff are very heady, and that’s how they make sense of the world. I’ve been delighted to see the results of all the research that has been undertaken into meditation and mindfulness in the last few years, and at the same time there’s a little bit of me that complains “we’ve known this works for nearly 3,000 years, why do we need a a CAT scanner before anyone believes us?”
However, this isn’t just a modern phenomenon, the same process is evident in the Pali canon, where emotion-based practices such as the cultivation of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity (the Brahma Viharas) were downgraded as practices by the monks who transcribed the Buddhist oral tradition. That’s because the kind of people who want to write down and tabulate an oral tradition are the kind of people who make sense of the word primarily through the medium of ideas, and so don’t really understand or value body-based emotional experience.
The biographies of Tibetan teachers often show them as being expert scholars, who then have a spiritual crisis of some sort that forces them to recognise that they have to go beyond the intellect – Naropa being a classic example. The important thing for us to remember is to avoid the temptation to swing to the pole of rejecting rational thought altogether – as happens sometimes, especially in New Age circles) – we need to be mindful of both the mind and the body.
This stuff is important to me because it has been, and continues to be, my working ground. I came to Buddhism with very little awareness of my body or my emotions, and the longer I practice, the more important I understand the body to be. I have a lot more to say on this issue, but I’ll leave it there for now.
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17/03/2011 at 5:00 pm
Advocatus D.
Bravo! I thoroughly enjoyed this post. I’m just beginning to learn about Buddhist (although the more I learn, the greener I feel), but your “little rant” has been illuminating for me. Thank you. 🙂
-JM (@jmattocks on Twitter)
18/03/2011 at 11:45 am
Alan Ashley
thanks JM, glad you found it useful
17/03/2011 at 5:50 pm
informationforager
Mindfullness, I’ve heard that a lot lately. It’s actually really hard to do I think. It’s almost like walking a picket fence, it’s easy to fall. Thanks
18/03/2011 at 11:46 am
Alan Ashley
Yes, it certainly requires consistency, persistence, and finesse.
17/03/2011 at 6:58 pm
Jayarava
Mindfulness is a weird translation of ‘sati’ or of any of the other related Pāli terms for paying attention to experience. It literally means ‘recollecting’ or ‘keeping in mind’. In traditional Buddhism it is a definitely *cognitive* term related to the verbal root √smṛ ‘to remember’. However the first thing to ‘keep in mind’ is the physical body – kāyānussati ‘recollection of the body’ in the foundations of mindfulness.
I’m not sure that mettābhāvanā was even a practice in early Buddhism – the term does ever occur in the canon, but seems to crop up in the Milindapañha (a couple of centuries post-parinibbāna) and the two commentarial ‘niddesa’ texts. Where does the idea that Theravādins play down mettā come from? Bhante? On what basis is he saying that it was once more prominent?
It seems to me that mettā was a result of standard practices. One doesn’t so much develop it (bhāvana) as ‘dwell with thoughts associated with mettā’ (so mettāsahagatena cetasā… viharati – from the Vatthūpama Sutta MN 7, which I’m in the middle of translating). Such dwelling is never down played in the Pāli Canon and often is a feature of ideal disciple (ariyasavaka). I’ve no sense that developing mettā was a practice in the way we approach it until later. The emotion one worked towards in the early days, via morality, was joy (pamojja) which gave rise to rapture and the rest of the Spiral Path. Mettāvihāra seems to me to be a result of samādhi, not the cause – this is certainly the case in MN7.
Closer to 2000 years actually.
I think your emphasis is fine – we do need to cultivate body awareness and it has huge benefits – but your details are a bit doubtful IMHO.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
18/03/2011 at 11:45 am
Alan Ashley
Thanks Jayarava
I’m always happy to bow to your greater knowledge of Pali sources.
13/05/2011 at 1:54 pm
Bodhipaksa
Mettā bhāvanā was definitely a practice in early Buddhism: Yasmiṃ bhikkhave, puggale āghāto jāyetha, mettā tasmiṃ puggale bhāvetabbā. (When one gives rise to hatred for a person, then one should develop lovingkindness for that person). AN 5.161
Most often, though, we see lovingkindness as being developed in a directional manner — to the four quarters, rather than directed towards specific individuals — and the specific form of the meditation practice as we do it isn’t (AFAIK) found anywhere in the Pali canon. But the practice of developing lovingkindness was clearly established early on.
13/05/2011 at 2:04 pm
Alan Ashley
Thanks Bodhipaksa, you’re another person who knows the Pali Canon better than I do.
I was going to revise my original post, but think I prefer to leave it with my errors in, and leave your comments as a corrective to my misunderstandings.