THE NOT-SO-HEALTHY CORPORATIZATION OF MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is big business. Large corporations such as Apple Computer, Hughes Aircraft, Google, Target, Ford, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Deutsche Bank and AOL Time Warner, and in Australia IBM and NAB to name just two, along with numerous so-called captains of industry following the meditative example left by the late Steve Jobs, are embracing mindfulness in a big way.

Mindfulness is seen as a way of increasing productivity and thus revenue. Well, after all, the evidence is clear and unambiguous: the regular practice of mindfulness produces a calmer, more patient, stable and steady mind, improves one’s ability to cope with and release stress, enhances cognitive functioning and performance, improves concentration, capacity for focus, attention to detail and memory, results in faster sensory processing and greater responsiveness in the moment, and reduces mental distractedness. 

All of this---and much, much more---has to be good for business. Mindfulness is also a tool for enforcing compliance, something employers like to see. I mean, creativity is one thing, but no employer wants their employees to be too creative. You know what I mean?

I have a bit of a problem with the corporatization of mindfulness. Well, more than a bit of a problem. Let me explain.

Mindfulness, without the right intention, and completely severed from its spiritual roots, is not necessarily a good thing. It can even be a bad thing. Mindfulness has its roots most directly in Theravāda Buddhism, which for the most part is a naturalistic form of Buddhism of which there are a number of different schools. Now, you don’t have to be a Buddhist or even religious to practise mindfulness, nor does mindfulness involve or require any religious faith at all. Mindfulness does not require that you believe in one god or many gods, or become a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Christian, or whatever. People of every religion, and none, can derive lasting benefits from the regular practice of mindfulness including mindfulness meditation.

However, this fact cannot be ignored. Mindfulness meditation, even in its most secular form, has its ancestral spiritual roots in a specific type or practice of meditation known as vipassanā meditation, which is used as a psychological and educational tool in Theravāda Buddhism. Vipassanā meditation is also known as insight meditation, insightful meditation, sensory meditation and thought-watching meditation. Now, there are several different techniques of vipassanā meditation just as there are several types or forms of Buddhist meditation, but whether mindfulness is practised as a spiritual discipline or as a psychological tool, right intention is extremely important.

Buddha Shakyamuni gained enlightenment through the practice of mindfulness. Enlightenment means waking up. You come to see things-as-they-really-are for the very first time in your life. Thereafter, nothing is ever the same again. Your whole outlook on life is different. The emphasis on worldly values disappears, if not immediately then certainly over time. You become more compassionate. You practise and seek to spread loving-kindness. This is not just a Buddhist thing. Christianity speaks of the same experience, but uses slightly different language and thought forms. Other religions do as well. So does Humanism which, in its secular form, is not a religion at all.

According to the Buddha, there are three kinds of right intention, which counter three kinds of wrong intention: first, the intention of renunciation, which counters the intention of desire; secondly, the intention of good will, which counters the intention of ill will; and thirdly, the intention of harmlessness, which counters the intention of harmfulness. Now, there are many decent and ethical businesses but we see so much evidence these days of corporate greed and wrongdoing. Witness the recent scandal concerning Volkswagen. I suspect it’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I worked in the ‘big end of town’ for a few years. I saw the greed and the ugliness. I worked with so many people who thought that the answer to their existential angst was to make a shitload of money as fast as possible. Desperately trying to give meaning to their lives---lives that had lost all traditional spiritual and ethical values---these people would stop at nothing to make a commercial success of themselves. That was their sole aim in life. Pitiful beyond belief.

Of course, we are all guilty at times of greed, rapaciousness and harmful behaviour. Just look at our appalling consumer society. Consumerism---these days it's the de facto religion of the majority of Westerners. Actually, we all need to practise right intention and learn to moderate our seemingly insatiable desires, make do with less, and try to do no harm, including doing no harm to the environment.

Mindfulness should never be seen as a means to an end, unless the end be a noble one, namely, to become a more compassionate, more loving and kinder human being—a human being who seeks to heal, and not assist in the ongoing destruction, of our already very badly damaged world, a human being who, having undergone a Copernican revolution, has come to understand that the world does not revolve around him or her. There is an old Christian hymn written by Helen H Lemmel that contains at least one wonderful line---‘And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.’ Such is the experience, and the right intention, of which I speak.

Now, I know this much. The captains of industry who are paying good sums of money to have their staff trained in the art of mindfulness do not want them to become enlightened such that the things of the earth grow strangely dim for them. That would not be good for the bottom line. Grrr.

Mindfulness without right intention is an abomination.

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FOUR MYTHS ABOUT MINDFULNESS

Despite all the information there is concerning mindfulness, many misconceptions remain concerning the 'thing' known as mindfulness. Let’s call these misconceptions myths, for that is what in truth they are.

Myth No. 1: Mindfulness is a religion

Incorrect. Mindfulness is not a religion. A religion ordinarily involves a system of beliefs or statement of doctrine, a code of conduct, prescribed forms of ritual or religious observances, and both ‘faith’ and’ worship.’ A religion is also ordinarily accompanied by a system of moral philosophy, particular doctrines of faith, and a religious community which supports the faith as well as its organization and practices. Mindfulness does not involve or require any faith at all---certainly no faith in a supernatural ‘Being,’ ‘Thing,’ or ‘Principle’---nor does mindfulness involve any worship or impose any system of beliefs or statement of doctrine, code of conduct or prescribed forms of ritual or religious observances. For more information on exactly what is a religion, or if you simply can't sleep at night, you may wish to read my doctoral thesis on the subject.

Myth No. 2: Mindfulness is Buddhist

Incorrect. Many people mistakenly believe that mindfulness is Buddhist. By the way, Buddhism is only a religion in some of its forms and manifestations. Now, true it is that the word ‘mindfulness’ can refer to a specific type or practice of meditation used as a psychological and educational tool in Theravāda Buddhism---a naturalistic form of Buddhism of which there are several schools---known as vipassanā (or insight) meditation. However, mindfulness is not restricted to Buddhism, Buddhists or Buddhist meditation. Indeed, there are several types or forms of Buddhist meditation, and Buddhists do not claim to ‘own’ or have a monopoly on mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. In short, any person can practise mindfulness, irrespective of their religion or lack of religion.

Myth No. 3: Mindfulness is a philosophy

Again, incorrect. Mindfulness is not a philosophy. A philosophy ordinarily consists of numerous teachings, ideas or principles which collectively provide an overall coherent view of the purpose or meaning of life. There certainly are certain teachings associated with the subject of mindfulness, but mindfulness as such does not seek to explain the purpose or meaning of life.

Myth No. 4: Mindfulness is a method and technique of meditation

Now, we must be careful here. Mindfulness is meditation but in a very special, indeed unique, sense. You see, mindfulness differs from all other types of meditation. Other forms of meditation involve the 'method' or ‘technique’---oh, how I hate those words---of concentration upon some image (be it physical or mental) or sound, and are designed primarily to calm the mind. As such, other forms of meditation provide little or no insight into the action of the present moment including one’s consciousness and external surroundings. Mindfulness does involve attention but not concentration as that word is ordinarily understood, although some amount of concentration in the form of a 'watchful' physical and psychological presence is certainly included in attention. Mindfulness is a means by which we can gain understanding and insight into ourselves and our behaviour. Mindfulness requires no 'method' or ‘technique’ as such, but is simply the direct, immediate, and unmediated experience of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. Mindfulness is something which happens, all day long, as soon as we remove the barriers to its happening. Mindfulness has been described as a natural---naturalistic might be a better word---practice which ‘takes’ meditation and then applies it in a direct and most practical way to one’s whole day, indeed one’s entire life.

Whenever I mention that I'm into mindfulness some people immediately think of yellow robes, gurus, transcendental states of consciousness, mind-altering drugs, alternative medicine, alternative spirituality, out-of-body experiences, escapism, and just plain wackiness. Mindfulness is none of those things. Mindfulness is simply going about your daily, everyday life---with your eyes wide open and your mind open, curious and engaged. Got that? Then please never forget it---and pass the word around.

All you need to practise mindfulness is a purposively open mind---and, most importantly, a mind that is curious and receptive to whatever is happening in your moment-to-moment experience of daily life. And, after all, is it not self-evident that it helps to be purposefully alert, receptive, and attentive to what is going on in and about us?

So, what then is mindfulness? My short answer is this. Mindfulness is self-education. It's a school for life, where the learning is in the living.

The photos in this post were taken by the author on his
recent trip to France and are of various scenes in the city of Nantes.

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MINDFULNESS AS BARE ATTENTION

Now, please stand to attention ... and give me your full attention. Alright, can I ask for your 'bare attention'? 'What the hell is that?', I hear you ask. Well, let me explain. This post is all about mindfulness and, more specifically, a most important element involved in mindfulness called 'bare attention.' (No, not 'bear' attention, or 'bare' [as in 'barenaked'] attention, just bare attention. Stop being frivolous, Ellis-Jones.)

Let's begin. For what it's worth, my own definition of mindfulness goes something like this:

Mindfulness is the watchful, receptive, deliberate, and purposeful presence of bare attention to, and choiceless awareness of, the content of the action (both internal and external) of the present moment … from one moment to the next.

The word ‘presence’ refers to both physical and psychological presence---of you, your body, and your mind. 'Watchful' presence means that there you are very much aware that you're aware of what is going on in and about you, and this alert and open awareness of your actual awareness proceeds deliberately, purposefully, and receptively on your part. I will speak about ‘bare attention’ in this post. In at least one previous post I have written about the meaning of those words ‘choiceless [i.e. non-judgmental] awareness.’ I use the word ‘content’ because it is ‘content’---in terms of our personal experiences of actual occurrences of things in space and time---of which we are aware and to which we ought to give clear and single-minded attention.

That content may be internal (eg thoughts, feelings, mental images, as well as bodily sensations and the like) or external (sounds, sights, etc), and, as I say, we are talking about the content of actual events be they internal or external or as is almost invariably the case a mixture of both of those things. And it is action in the present moment; thus the recollection of some memory of a past event is a present ‘now’ experience. It is always experience in the present moment. However, as we all know, the present moment is ever so elusive and ephemeral. Life is a constant flow, and never static, and so we speak of the action of the present moment from one moment to the next.

Now, what do we mean by ‘bare attention’? One of the best books ever written on meditation, and insight meditation (or mindfulness) in particular, is The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, by the German-born Sri-Lanka-ordained Theravada monk, Nyanaponika Thera [pictured]. Before I go any further I need to make it perfectly clear that you don’t have to be into Buddhism to practise the type of meditation I write about on my blog. Not at all. Indeed, you don’t have to be religious at all. (Perhaps it helps not to be. Only kidding.)

Anyway, all you need is a purposively open mind---and, most importantly, a mind that is curious and receptive to whatever is happening in your moment-to-moment experience of daily life. And, after all, is it not self-evident that it helps to be purposefully alert, receptive, and attentive to what is going on in and about us? Whenever I mention that I'm into mindfulness some people immediately think of yellow robes, gurus, transcendental states of consciousness, mind-altering drugs, alternative medicine, alternative spirituality, out-of-body experiences, escapism, and just plain wackiness. Mindfulness is none of those things. Mindfulness is simply going about your daily, everyday life---with your eyes wide open and your mind open, curious and engaged. Got that? Then please never forget it---and pass the word around.

Back to Nyanaponika Thera. In his book The Heart of Buddhist Meditation the venerable monk and teacher defines, or rather describes, bare attention in these words:

Bare attention is the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception. It is called ‘bare’, because it attends just to the bare facts of a perception as presented either through the five physical senses or through the mind which, for Buddhist thought, constitutes the sixth sense. When attending to that sixfold sense impression, attention or mindfulness is kept to a bare registering of the facts observed, without reacting to them by deed, speech or by mental comment which may be one of self-reference (like, dislike, etc), judgement or reflection. … [original emphasis]

Now, I can hear you asking, ‘But what if I find myself wandering in thought, or starting to form some liking or disliking of the content of the experience---a reaction, in other words?’ Well, Nyanaponika Thera gives this advice:

If during the time, short or long, given to the practice of Bare Attention, any such comments arise in one’s mind, they themselves are made objects of Bare Attention, and are neither repudiated nor pursued, but are dismissed, after a brief mental note has been made of them.

One of way of doing the latter---and perhaps the simplest and least intrusive way---is simply to say, ‘Thinking, thinking,’ or ‘feeling, feeling,’ or something like that. In other words, any noting should be brief and perfunctory. Now, for heaven’s sake, never try to actively expel the thought, feeling, or whatever. Remember the law of non-resistance? Whatever you resist, persists. Be gentle, and use indirect means. Just ‘note’ and gently---yes, gently, indeed ever so gently---bring your mind back to a state of clear and single-minded awareness of what is otherwise happening in and around you. Observe each thought or feeling as it arises---then let it fade out in its natural manner ... as it always will, provided you don't resist it or get 'carried away' by and with it. 

One more bit of useful advice from Nyanaponika Thera. (Note. He has much more to say about the matter in his book. Please get a copy of it. I think it will help you immeasurably.) Your bare attention should not only be clear and single-minded, it should also consist in a ‘bare and exact registering of the object [of your moment-to-moment experience].’ In other words, let your concern be solely with registering---with passive detachment and objectivity---the facticity and actuality of things-as-they-really-are as they unfold from one moment to the next. Do not personalize this. Just watch and observe, as if it all were happening to someone else (that is, as if you have no personal connection with whatever you observe). That is not an easy thing to do, as we are all so accustomed to labeling, judging, interpreting, analyzing, and otherwise commenting upon things-as-they-happen. The inevitable result? We lose direct and immediate contact with reality. We are no longer with ‘it,’ so to speak. We are some place else. That is certainly not the best way to live. We all know that from personal experience. So, don't dwell upon or otherwise cling to thoughts and feelings. Let them fade out in their natural manner.

Only when we live mindfully, with bare attention, can we truly be said to be living in the 'now,' experiencing life right as it happens, so to speak. Sure, there is a place for labeling, judging, interpreting, analyzing, and otherwise commenting upon things-as-they-happen---but not every second or few seconds. That is not the way to go. Bare attention means being and living attentively, receptively, and purposefully in the so-called present moment ... for moments pass. As I write this, THIS (now past) moment has already gone forever …never to return. Such is life.

By the way, Nyanaponika Thera had this to say in his book about mindfulness. He said that mindfulness---the 'method of no-method'---provides 'the most simple and direct, the most thorough and effective, method for training and developing the mind for its daily tasks and problems.' That's what you really want---or at least need---isn't it? If so, please forget about costly, gimmicky and trademarked forms or so-called 'techniques' (oh, how I hate that word) of meditation, and go for the most simple, direct, and natural means available and proceed to apply it to your entire life. You see, mindfulness takes meditation---in the true sense and meaning of the word---and then applies it to one's whole life.

Happy bare-attentioning, everyone!

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MINDFULNESS AS SOFT FOCUS AWARENESS

One of the best books ever written on Mindfulness---not only for beginners but also for others---is Mindfulness in Plain English by the Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist monk and author Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (pictured above). I wholeheartedly recommend it, as well as all other books written by ‘Bhante G.’

Mindfulness is many things, but above all Mindfulness is the bare attention to, and the choiceless (i.e. no preference, and no prejudice) awareness of, the action and content---both internal and external---of the present moment unfolding from one moment to the next. (Note. It is the attention that gives rise to the awareness.) Mindfulness is not only awareness, it is also the awareness of awareness. But exactly what sort of awareness? Well, for one thing, it is a curious awareness, that is, one in which the observer---that is, you, the person that you are (not some supposed 'inner' observer in your mind)---is open, spontaneous, passively inquisitive, and, above all else, flexible. Also, the awareness is not only direct and immediate, it is of a ‘soft focus’ kind. Never forget that. Bhante G has this to say about the matter: 

When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting instant of pure awareness just before you conceptualize the thing, before you identify it. … It is that flashing split second just as you focus your eyes on the thing, just as you focus your mind on the thing, just before you objectify it, clamp down on it mentally and segregate it from the rest of existence. It takes place just before you start thinking about it--before your mind says, 'Oh, it's a dog.' That flowing, soft-focused moment of pure awareness is Mindfulness. In that brief flashing mind-moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it. …

Bhante G goes on to say that Mindfulness is akin to what we see with our peripheral vision ‘as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision.’ Now, here is what I think is the really important thing. In Bhante G’s words:

Yet this moment of soft, unfocused, awareness contains a very deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind and objectify the object into a thing. …

Let’s say that you’re driving your motor vehicle in the middle lane on a six-lane highway. Using your peripheral vision you become aware that there is on your side of the road and more-or-less level with you a red truck in the left lane and a black or dark blue car in the right lane---it doesn’t matter what. You are aware they are there. You don’t need to look closely. It’s more than sufficient that you’re aware they are there---and you immediately adjust your position in your lane to make sure there is no contact, while all the time keeping your eye on the road and looking directly ahead. That is the way to go!  

Bhante G makes the undeniable point that, in the ordinary course of our experience of things---that is, so-called ‘ordinary perception’---this ever-so-brief moment of ‘soft, unfocused, awareness is ‘so fleeting as to be unobservable.’ Yes, we squander the moment, so to speak. We let it die on us completely. So much of our so-called experience of life is, well, a total non-experience. We are not even ‘alive’ to it. Yes, I estimate that as much as 80 or 90 per cent of the moments of our life ‘experience’ are not experienced by us at all. It’s like we are not even alive for most of the time. Sad---very sad---when you stop to think about it.

Yes, we choose to be ‘alive’ (in a sort of a way) to some perceptions but we let it die on us and quickly make it---and ourselves---the past. We note the perception. We label the perception. We react to the perception (in the form of, say, attachment or aversion) on the basis of, among other things, mental images, memories, opinions, beliefs, judgments, prejudices, preferences, evaluations, as well as so-called knowledge and conditioning---and we interpret the perception. Instead of just 'seeing' or 'observing' in a direct, immediate and spontaneous manner, we subject the otherwise fleeting perception to the whole content of our consciousness stream. And, not only that, we start to analyse and judge it---thinking, thinking, thinking. There is no end to it. And where there is thought, there is no awareness. None.

The result---analysis paralysis, judgment, all rooted in the past. For varying lengths of time we cease to be present in the now---we’re stuck in the past. And that's not a good place to be.

In the words of Bhante G, ‘[t]hat original moment of Mindfulness is rapidly passed over.’ He then goes on to say that the purpose of Mindfulness Meditation is ‘to train us to prolong that moment of awareness.’ Now, we are talking about a 'still' moment of ‘pure’, unadulterated, unconditioned (that is, not-in-the-past) awareness---before we start mentally riding off in all directions, so to speak. Bhante G refers to this moment of awareness as a ‘flowing, soft-focused moment of pure awareness.’ Beautiful words. J. Krishnamurti has written, 'To see temporarily is sufficient. If you can see it for a fleeting second, it is enough, because you will then see an extraordinary thing taking place.' He is talking about an attention that is total and complete, that is, direct perception---without memory and thought taking any part in it. Elsewhere, Krishnamurti refers to the state of mind in which there is 'total seeing' as a 'state of negation' in which there is no identification and there are no evaluations, no justifications, no condemnations and no defences. It is a mind or mind-set that is 'choicelessly still,' yet at the same time 'fully awakened.' In the words of Krishnamurti, 'Seeing is one thing and seeing something is another.'

People say to me, ‘Surely there is a place for analysis, judgment, and the like?’ Of course there is. As a practising lawyer I would get nowhere without analysis and judgment of complex sets of facts and circumstances falling for consideration and advice. But, having said that, we are talking about moment-to-moment choiceless awareness and experience of life as it continuously unfolds from one moment to the next. Don’t let those precious moments ‘die’ on you by letting your mind stop to label, analyze and judge. Instead, stay soft-focused in the now, remaining curiously but passively alert to each perception---that is, ‘flashing mind-moment’---as close to its moment of ‘arising’ as is humanly possible in all the circumstances of the moment. Do that---and you will truly come alive!

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