The Meaning of Mindfulness: Beyond Non-Judgemental Attention
Discover why mindfulness goes beyond non-judgemental attention and is a quality of awareness that discriminates between wholesome and unwholesome states of mind.
This week I was reminded of a story that is usually attributed to Buddhist Zen teaching. It goes like this:
A curious monk who was on the path of learning Zen went to the Abbott and asked him, “What is the most important thing in Zen?” The Abbott replied, “The most important thing in Zen is awareness.”
The monk then asked again, “What is awareness?” to which the Abbott replied, “Awareness is awareness.”
The point of the story is that awareness cannot be explained in words or concepts. It is something that can only be experienced directly. The Abbott was trying to help the monk understand that the most important thing in Zen is to cultivate a direct, non-conceptual awareness of the present moment.
This made me remember another story I had heard where a monk asked the same question but was given a different answer.
Here when the monk asked his Zen master, “What is the most important thing in Zen?” The master, and Abbott of the monastery, looked at the monk and replied by saying, “Have you had your breakfast yet?”
The monk was taken aback by this reply and, confused, answered, “Yes, I have already had my breakfast.” The Abbott then promptly replied, “Well then, wash your bowl.”
This further confused the monk as he did not understand the meaning behind the Abbott’s words. He pondered and thought to himself, “What does washing my bowl have to do with the most important thing in Zen?” Nevertheless, following the Abbott’s words, the monk went and washed his bowl.
Here, the monk suddenly realised what his master meant, “on what was important in learning Zen”. The monk realised that Zen was not some abstract concept or philosophical idea but the act of being present, engaged and fully aware of what one is doing.
In Zen, awareness is seen as the act of being present and observing what is happening around you without any sense of preference or attachment. This is often referred to in Pali as cultivating “Sati”, a faculty of awareness that remembers, recalls, recollects and clearly discriminates between wholesome and unwholesome states to minimise unwholesome ones and cultivate wholesome ones (Bodhi, 2011; Gethin, 2011). This is translated as mindfulness or awareness, a spiritual or psychological faculty that forms an essential part of Buddhist contemplative practice.
Contemporary definitions of mindfulness have been criticised as they do not reflect the last part that of “recognising between wholesome and unwholesome states to minimise unwholesome ones and cultivate wholesome ones” (Bodhi, 2011; Dreyfus, 2011). As shared in previous posts in western literature, mindfulness is seen as “non-judgemental attention” and has been mostly defined as:
“Nonelaborative, non-judgmental, present-centred awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is” (Bishop et al., p. 232).
Also, with Buddhist practice, “mindfulness” as “sati” holds a very important place and is the first step to be cultivated in “Seven Factors of Awakening” (Hanh, 2006), and considered an essential quality that needs to be cultivated to get a deeper understanding of oneself and the mind.
And through a Buddhist perspective, we practice mindfulness meditation not to relax or become more “attentive” and productive or more able to cope with the stressors post-modern life throws at us (Purser, 2019; Wilson, 2014).
So if it is not to relax, or become more “attentive” and productive or be more able to cope with the stressors, why do we practice meditation?
And this question brings me back to The Tibetan word for meditation, “gom or ghom”, which broadly means, “to become familiar with the mind and how the mind moves”. While in Pali, the word used for meditation is “Bhavana”, which broadly means, “to actively cultivate”. Lama Surya Das (2011) writes:
In Tibetan, the word for meditation is gom, which literally means “familiarisation” or “getting used to,” and, in this sense, meditation is a means by which we familiarise ourselves with our mind. The common Pali term for meditation is bhavana, meaning “to cultivate, to develop, to bring into being.” So we might then think of meditation as the active cultivation of mind leading to clear awareness, tranquillity, and wisdom. This requires conscious effort. (p. 10%)
So ultimately, we do practice meditation to cultivate mindfulness, but that is just the start and not “a means to an end”. Indeed, mindfulness, as promoted by post-modern advocates as “non-judgemental”, has been criticised for losing its emancipatory power. As Ronald Purser (2019), author of McMindfulness, strongly argues, mindfulness just becomes another method to control the individual by shifting responsibility for “feeling stress” on the person while dismissing the possibility that situations external to the person might be the cause of stress and need changing.
To really unshackle ourselves, the mindfulness as a quality of awareness we need to develop is one as understood as “sati”. A mindfulness that discriminates between wholesome and unwholesome states of mind and acts to decrease the unwholesome and cultivate wholesome states of mind—to act with more discernment in life, reflecting qualities of kindness, sympathetic joy, compassion and equanimity in our actions, thoughts and behaviours towards ourselves and others which will ultimately result in the reduction of “Dukkha” (suffering/dissatisfaction) for ourselves and others.
Bibliography
Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., . . . Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3), 230-241. doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph077
Bodhi, B. (2011). What does mindfulness really mean? A canonical perspective. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 19-39. doi:10.1080/14639947.2011.56481
Das Surya, L. (2016). The heart of meditation [epub]. In J. D. Oliver (Ed.), Commit to sit: Tools for cultivating a meditation practice from the pages of Tricycle (p. 10%). Carlsbad: Hay House Inc.
Dreyfus, G. (2011). Is mindfulness present-centered and nonjudgmental? A discussion of the cognitive dimensions of mindfulness. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 41-54. doi:10.1080/14639947.2011.564815
Gethin, R. (2011). On some definitions of mindfulness. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 263-479. doi:10.1080/14639947.2011.564843
Hanh, T. N. (2006). Transformation & Healing: Sutra on the four establishments of mindfulness. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.
Purser, R. (2019). Mcmindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality. United Kingdom: Watkins media.
Wilson, J. (2014). Mindful America: The mutual transformation of buddhism meditation and American culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc.
Yamada, K. (2004). The gatless gate: The classic book of Zen koans [epub]. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.