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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EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 3]

This is the third in a series of blogs discussing the ideas of some of the early Greek philosophers with a view to delineating what there is of value to us today as regards our mindfulness practice.

As previously mentioned, mindfulness is not a philosophy in itself. However, there are a number of philosophical ideas and principles that can be said to underlie the practice of mindfulness in its secular and non-sectarian form, and some of those ideas and principles are of quite ancient provenance.

Let’s look at the ideas of Anaximenes (585-528 BCE) [pictured right] and examine how those ideas relate to the practice of mindfulness.

Thales thought that the basic “stuff” (material substratum, essence or “first principle”) of things was water. For Anaximander the basic “stuff” and qualities of life were opposites ... and those opposites were in conflict. He postulated a theoretical entity (apeiron) to explain observable phenomena.

Anaximenes was of the view that the basic “stuff” and qualities of the world were not opposed (cf Anaximander) but were simply different stages of a continuum of differences, “air” being the material substratum. Anaximenes spoke in terms of an interconnected and interacting fire-air-cloud-water-earth-stone continuum, with everything that exists having developed out of the original air and now being made of air.

Anaximenes’ naturalistic cosmology may seem odd but it was a bold attempt at an overall theory as well as being a constituent analysis. The important thing is not whether Anaximenes was right or wrong in his conclusion that everything was made of air – although we do know that atoms are mostly empty space (cf air) despite the apparent solidity of objects – but that he analysed one feature in terms of another.

His empirical methodology involved making observations and then forming explanatory theories of successively greater generality with the final theory being tested against a mass of superficially unconnected phenomena. He looked for the broader picture in nature, seeking unifying causes for diversely occurring events rather than treating each one on an ad hoc basis or attributing them to supernatural causes.

Unlike Anaximander, Anaximenes’ theory did not rely on any unobservables. His methodology was entirely experiential as he sought to explain how the process and mechanism of change (transmutation) actually occurs.

What has all this to do with mindfulness? A fair bit. In any session of mindfulness practice, one’s stream of consciousness will consist of numerous superficially unconnected and diversely occurring phenomena (thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, sounds, etc). The important thing is not to dwell or focus on any one or more of these ad hoc occurrences but to fix and keep our mindfulness (that is, attention and awareness) at its “post of observation” whether that point be the tip of the nostrils against which the breathing air strikes or that part of the lower abdomen where one can most noticeably observe its rise and fall. This needs to be done in a unified fashion, allowing the process of transmutation (that is, one occurring phenomenon is quickly replaced by another, and then another, and so on) to unfold naturally, automatically and unselfconsciously.

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, keeping your attention focused on the breath enables you to stay with the broader picture (cf Anaximenes) without getting caught up in the detail of each passing phenomenon.

In my next blog (the final one in this series) we will look at the ideas of Heraclitus (c535-c475 BCE) - a real favourite of mine - and how his distinctive ideas relate to the practice of mindfulness.

Recommended Reading: John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd ed (A & C Black, 1920); John Anderson, Lectures on Greek Philosophy 1928 (Sydney University Press, 2008). 

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EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 4]

EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 2]

This is the second in a series of blogs discussing the ideas of some of the early Greek philosophers with a view to delineating what there is of value to us today as regards our mindfulness practice.

As mentioned in my previous blog on the ideas of Thales, mindfulness is not a philosophy in itself. However, there are a number of philosophical ideas and principles that can be said to underlie the practice of mindfulness in its secular and non-sectarian form, and some of those ideas and principles are of quite ancient provenance.

Let’s look at the ideas of Anaximander (c610-c546 BCE) [pictured above], successor to and pupil of Thales, and how those ideas relate to the practice of mindfulness.

Thales thought that the basic “stuff” (material substratum, essence or “first principle”) of things was water. Anaximander raised a logical objection, namely that how can one take one thing as a description of all things? Clearly, Thales exaggerated the “moist” at the expense of the “dry”. What this means is this ... any theory of reality must account for the existence of opposites, for if there were only water, there could not be anything hot, or any fire.

So, for Anaximander the basic “stuff” and qualities of life are opposites ... and those opposites are in conflict. He postulated a theoretical entity (apeiron) to explain observable phenomena. The word apeiron can mean “infinite” as well as “indefinite” (especially the latter, and in a qualitative as opposed to quantitative sense).

One defect in Anaximander’s otherwise realist methodology is that he attempted to explain the observable in terms of some supposed basic unobservable entity, namely the apeiron. As we saw in our last blog, logic compels us to reject the unobservable as the cause of the observable. Nevertheless, Anaximander is to be otherwise commended for his honest and rigorous insistence on and pursuit of the real.

What do we learn from the empirical naturalist Anaximander? For one thing we learn the importance of demarcation and differentiation, that is, marking off one thing from other things. We also learn that there is a simple unity containing opposites – not a unity in the sense that all things are one but that a single logic applies to all things, there being a continuous process among different things.

So, in our mindfulness practice we learn to focus our attention on whatever comprises the action of the present moment. Our thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations will often be contradictory in nature but they nevertheless constitute the “content” of our experience.

When we stay in the action of the present moment, being mindful (in an immediate and direct way) of whatever we are thinking, feeling and experiencing from one moment to the next, we are able to separate out thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others from the person each one of us really is. We look and see ... and the mind empties itself of its content from one moment to the next ... and what was previously unconscious becomes conscious.

Like Buddha Shakyamuni Anaximander taught that all things were impermanent. In the words of Anaximander, in Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s physics, “Whence things have their origin, thence also their destruction happens, as is the order of things; for they execute the sentence upon one another - the condemnation for the crime - in conformity with the ordinance of time.” However, there is nevertheless a certain regularity and predictability about life by reason of a certain balancing out of all opposites which act on, dominate and otherwise contain each other. Things flow in and out of consciousness, for such is the flux of life.

Anaximander questioned the existence of the gods in the same way that Buddha Shakyamuni was agnostic on the question of God’s existence. Both taught that one could attain “deliverance” independently of any external agency. Good news indeed.

In my next blog we will look at the ideas of Anaximenes (585-528 BCE) and how his distinctive ideas relate to the practice of mindfulness.

Recommended Reading: John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd ed (A & C Black, 1920); John Anderson, Lectures on Greek Philosophy 1928 (Sydney University Press, 2008). 

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EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 3]
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 4]

EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 1]

Today I begin a series of blogs discussing the ideas of some of the early Greek philosophers with a view to delineating what there is of value to us today as regards our mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness is not a philosophy in itself. However, there are a number of philosophical ideas and principles that can be said to underlie the practice of mindfulness in its secular and non-sectarian form, and some of those ideas and principles are of quite ancient provenance.

The ancient Greeks produced some great thinkers. Although notably disinclined to theology, the Greeks made great philosophers. (Both theology and philosophy attempt to “explain” things, but philosophy, at its best, does so by rejecting unobservable agencies as the cause of observable things. That is the greatness of philosophy, especially Greek philosophy.)

Let’s go back to the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. We begin with some of the more important Presocratic philosophers. First, Thales (c624-c546 BCE).

Thales (pictured below) can be called the founder of philosophy. He was “doing logic” – for logic is about things, and the relations between things, not words or ideas – some 150 years before Socrates.

Thales had travelled to Egypt to study geometry. (It seems that the Greeks derived their philosophy from the Egyptians.) He was the first upon whom the title, Sophist, was conferred, and in his advanced years was visited by Pythagoras whom Thales instructed in the disciplines of a scholar.

It is written that Thales, a proto-scientist, opined that the earth was made of, or rested upon, water, but for Thales that was simply a hypothesis to be tested, and was offered only as an attempted explanation as opposed to some final evaluation. Water was perhaps something out of which things came and into which things returned, as opposed to being a supposed characteristic of all things at all times.

Thales was a naturalist and an empiricist. What is important and lasting about Thales' ideas is not so much his search for a supposed common “substance” of all things but his attempt to provide an overall theory which was general, which was based on observation, and which made no appeal to supernatural causes. (Thales wrote that “all things are full of gods”. That was his attempt at desupernaturalisation – that is, bringing the gods down to earth.)

Thales reminds us ever to reject unobservable agencies as the cause of observable things. Cause-and-effect belong to the observable here-and-now, for life itself is nothing more than a continuum of living things living our their livingness in time and space. Never forget that.

How true that is of the practice of mindfulness! There is a continuity of moment-to-moment experience and awareness ... a continuous process or transformation from one state to another (cf water-ice-steam). Everything is observable, and all things observed exist and are observable on the same plane of observability. Furthermore, there must be a continuity between what is proposed as an explanation for any occurrence and the occurrence itself, for if there were no such continuity it would not be possible for us to say how observable effects are produced ... nor even that they are effects at all.

The legacy of Thales is this ... there is only one order or level of reality. No wonder we speak of the practice of mindfulness in terms of the presence of bare and curious attention to, and choiceless and non-judgmental awareness of, the action of the present moment ... from one moment to the next.

In my next blog we will look at the ideas of Anaximander (c610-c546 BCE) and how those ideas relate to the practice of mindfulness.

Recommended Reading: John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd ed (A & C Black, 1920); John Anderson, Lectures on Greek Philosophy 1928 (Sydney University Press, 2008). 


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EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MINDFULNESS [PART 4]

MINDFULNESS, PROFESSOR JOHN ANDERSON AND THE FACTICITY OF THINGS

For most of my “thinking” life I have been an Andersonian ... that is, a student and follower of the philosophy of John Anderson (pictured opposite) ... my academic hero and role-model. Although in recent times I have moved away from certain aspects of his philosophy I still adhere to the central thrust of that philosophy, and when I teach law I use his ideas on the nature of reality to explain to students the nature of “facts” ... for, as Anderson taught, nothing, absolutely nothing, is superior to facts!

Scottish-born John Anderson, who was Challis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney from 1927 to 1958 (and thereafter Emeritus Professor of Philosophy from 1958 to his death in 1962), and the "patron saint" of the Sydney Push, founded the school or branch of empirical philosophy known as “Sydney Realism”.

Anderson was beyond doubt the most distinguished and independent philosopher ever to work in Australia. He was also one of the most remarkable persons to work in an Australian university. Anthony Flew’s Dictionary of Philosophy records that Anderson was “an influential teacher … respected for his independence of mind and his eagerness to take a stand on behalf of numerous unpopular causes”.

The iconoclastic controversialist Professor Anderson waged a relentless war against the utilitarians and the philistines of his day, both of whom, sadly, have multiplied greatly since his death. (I know. I have taught at universities and worked for several politicians.)

If Anderson were alive today, he would mercilessly attack the emptiness and internal inconsistencies of postmodernism, the silliness of New Age spirituality, the intrusive menace of Sydney Anglicans (for whom, and for whose "fairy-tales", he had utter contempt), the loss of academic autonomy, the deliberate dumbing down of education, and the overall decline in academic standards at Australian schools and universities ... and just about most other things.

Anderson lived for many years in Turramurra just a few doors down from where I have lived with my family since December 1987. His house, which is almost a sacred shrine to me, is still there, although I fear it will soon be demolished to make way for multi-storey residential development. Typical. The philistines (so many of whom become successful politicians, captains of industry and even academic deans) do appear to be winning.

The central thrust of Professor Anderson’s otherwise complex philosophy is quite simple ... there is only one way of being, and one order or level of reality, that of occurrence ... that is, ordinary things occurring in space and time ... facts. A fact is an occurrence in space and time (or “spacetime”, as some would say today) ... a “thing-in-itself”. There are only facts ... facts! (Anderson had no time for Nietzsche's assertion, "There are no facts, only interpretations," and I know where he would have told Foucault to put his postmodernist post-structuralism.)

By the way, facts include not just so-called "things-in-themselves" but also thoughts, feelings, images, memories, opinions, bodily sensations and so forth ... all of which occur on the same level or plane of observability.

Anderson also taught that a single logic applies to all things and how they are related, and that there are three – yes, three – “entities” to any relation such as seeing, having, knowing, etc .. viz the -er, the -ed, and the -ing. First, there is the person who sees, has or knows. Secondly, there is the thing seen, had or known. Thirdly, and most importantly, there is the act of seeing, having or knowing.

Now, here is the very important part ... nothing, absolutely nothing, is constituted – either wholly or partly – by or is dependent upon, nor can it be defined or explained by reference to, the relation it has to other things. (For example, the Biblical statement "God is love" [cf 1 Jn 4:8] is logically untenable as a definition of God.) Thus, Anderson firmly repudiated the so-called "doctrine of intrinsic relations" (or fallacy of constitutive relations), which treats relations as if they were terms, and which says that everything is intrinsically related to everything else or, at the very least, is constituted by its relations to everything else.

What has this to do with mindfulness? Everything, in my submission. Absolutely everything. You see, the practice of mindfulness is a relation involving the following three entities:

* first, the person who is mindfully aware of what is occurring from moment to moment,

* second, the thing - in fact, things - of which the person is mindfully aware, each of which is an occurrence in space and time from one moment to the next, and ...

* third, the act of being mindfully aware ... which includes the ever-so-important acts of remembering what is present, remembering from moment to moment to stay present in the action of the present moment from moment to moment, and remembering in the present moment what has already happened.

Three (!) separate things ... each of which is a fact ... and none of which is constituted by its relations to any of the others nor dependent on any of the others. Such is the nature of reality ... and such is the nature of the practice of mindfulness which is the practice of being fully present in the present moment from one moment to the next.

I truly believe that if you can keep those three things separate in your mind at all times, your mindfulness practice will improve considerably, because the level of your choiceless awareness and bare attention to what is will be that much better.

Those interested in the ideas and teachings of Professor John Anderson can visit the John Anderson Archive.

Finally, you may wish to listen to a 1952 recording of Anderson singing "The Sydney Blues".

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