Zoning out

 

Mindfulness has taken the world by storm. I happen to know that mindfulness exercises have even been offered to unemployed in Sweden – not clear how on earth that would increase their chances to get a job?! Inevitably, there are people who believe that mindfulness is dangerous and cultic. Like the story about a guy who was followed straight into the men´s room by a chaperon during a meditation retreat. Or what about the urban legend that Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 POTUS elections due to her, or perhaps her staff, constantly meditating according to this method? One of these days, some ethnologist should write a paper about all this!

Meanwhile, we can try to decode two overlapping scholarly articles by Robert Sharf: “Is Mindfulness Buddhist? (And why it matters)” from the journal “Transcultural Psychiatry” 2015 Vol 52(4), and “Mindfulness and Mindlessness in early Chan” from the journal “Philosophy East and West” Volume 64, Number 4, October 2014. Both are available for free at Academia.edu (registration required, but that too is for free). I admit that decoding the articles were quite hard, but I think I got the gist of it.

The practice known as mindfulness isn´t *really* a form of vipassana or Theravada insight meditation, rather having modern roots in a Buddhist revival in Burma (Myanmar). It´s mostly associated with Mahasi Sayadaw (1904-1982), who apparently developed the most well-known techniques. Mahasi wanted a form of meditation that was suited for laypeople, including those who knew next to nothing about Theravada philosophy or liturgy. The result was “bare attention”, a term coined by Mahasi´s disciple Siegmund Feniger. The technique is easy to learn and was rapidly exported to many other Buddhist nations from Burma, both those following Theravada and those practicing Mahayana. Even later, it conquered the world in a secular form and can be used by essentially everyone: Buddhist modernists in the Western world, Christians, prison inmates, hyperactive children, and (perhaps) Madame Clinton´s campaign staff. It´s seen as part and parcel of a universal and non-sectarian Buddhism. It also has a “perennialist” angle, treating spiritual mind-states as cross-cultural. The mystics really did have exactly the same raw experience, although their way of expressing it was culture-bound. And now *you* can get the same experience, almost in your own backyard! Indeed, you can actually get enlightened without following the rather complex and demanding Buddhist path.

Not so fast, argues Sharf. The word translated “mindfulness” is the Pali “sati”, which in turn is the same as the Sanskrit “smriti”. The original meaning is something like “to remember” or “to recollect”. It turns out that the meditative technique bearing this name in Theravada has very little to do with modern mindfulness. In Theravada, “sati” doesn´t mean to observe your thoughts and feelings as they come and go, effectively dismissing them all (the mindfulness approach). Rather, it seems to be the exact opposite: “sati” entails a careful analysis of each thought or feeling, learning to discriminate good “dhammas” from bad ones, according to the moral precepts of Buddhism. Also, the practice of “sati” can´t be isolated from studies of Buddhist scriptures, proper rituals, the communal life of the monks, and so on.

The author further points out that mindfulness is based on a view of the mind not found in Theravada. Mindfulness seems to imply that there is such a thing as “pure” cognition of an object, without any interpretations of the discursive mind. Our consciousness can therefore be trained to look at these qualia dispassionately “from without” (so to speak) and then simply dismiss them. The highest state would presumably be one of entirely pure mind, unsullied by any qualia whatsoever. But according to Theravada philosophy, there is no state like this. Consciousness and its objects arise co-dependently, so if consciousness of objects cease, consciousness itself ceases. At least in this world, that way madness lays. Sharf also points out that modern mindfulness is all about positive thinking (and, I suppose, glossy magazines), while traditional Theravada also sought to cultivate an attitude of world-weariness often bordering depression (by modern American standards). Meditation on corpses is a well-known example. One meditative state was known as “knowledge of appearance as terror” and was likened to a mother witnessing her three sons being executed! No safe space here, bro.

While mindfulness is thus a very modern thing, similar movements have arisen within Buddhism before. For instance within Chan Buddhism in medieval China (Chan is usually known as Zen in the Western world, Zen being the Japanese form of the name). Chan masters who had a substantial lay following developed techniques which seem to resemble “bare attention”. The techniques were attributed to a certain Layman Fu, promised instant enlightenment, did away with monasticism and ritualism, and so on. Sounds familiar? Sharf also speculates that the esoteric Tibetan practice known as Dzogchen may have been another example of such a “dumbed down” practice. He then describes what kind of criticism was leveled against the Chan “bare attention” approaches by more traditional Chan groups. They believed that the radicals couldn´t distinguish between right and wrong, and that their practices led to “falling into emptiness” and “meditation sickness”. This was apparently a dramatic euphemism for the practitioner being cut off from everyday life and society, everything that makes us sane and human. To retain our balance, we have to actively engage with Buddhist doctrine and forms of life. An Indian master named Kamalashila criticized the Chan master Heshang Moheyan during a debate in Tibet by saying that yogis who put an end to thinking end up in the realm of “beings without minds” for 500 eons as mindless zombies!

In sum, then, Sharf´s point is that mindfulness is modern, that similar movements in the past were heavily criticized from more traditional quarters and probably only represented a minority, and that “bare attention” is based on perennialism, erroneous notions about the human mind, fake positive thinking, a chase after sensual pleasure, and commercialization. Almost anything than the actual Buddhadharma. Well, yes, that does sound very modern indeed…

Perhaps we should be mindful of mindfulness? Ashtar Command, zoning out!