tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post629513923815439226..comments2023-12-14T20:02:51.470-06:00Comments on The Heavy Anglophile Orthodox: Mindfulness and misunderstanding the selfMatthew Franklin Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15233216128641267240noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-49084292036051211682016-05-27T04:34:34.382-05:002016-05-27T04:34:34.382-05:00There's some valid pushback against mindfulnes...There's some valid pushback against mindfulness as learned complacency in American corporate culture that usually focuses on the error of separating mindfulness practice from its roots as Vipassana. While I'm sure there has been significant interaction between Confucian and Buddhist thought, this is primarily coming from a Buddhist perspective and was never meant to be practiced outside the context of the dharma as a whole. <br /><br />I'm a lay Buddhist practitioner and not an expert, but as I understand it, mindfulness is meant as an aid to understanding pratityasamutpada more deeply as the nature of mind (and everything else) and to ground one not in a sense of self-justification, but in awareness of the causes of suffering and to cultivate a desire to end suffering in oneself and all sentient beings. Deep awareness of Śūnyatā is supposed to accompany mindfulness. As the west has taken it, people are largely missing the other 7 parts of the 8-fold path. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12155293808570530167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-78154071199051955852016-04-21T13:10:03.811-05:002016-04-21T13:10:03.811-05:00I like to practice mindfulness meditation sometime...I like to practice mindfulness meditation sometimes. It's quite popular in substance misuse addiction treatment. However, I don't do it so often, as I spend too much time praying to fit in any secular meditation!Matthew Celestinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02874430461346560520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-87873735740524604892016-04-21T06:54:02.962-05:002016-04-21T06:54:02.962-05:00I think that "mindfulness," like any con...I think that "mindfulness," like any concept that points to something true, can (and pretty much is always) made into something quite false. It's what might be called idolatry. Mindfulness as a "discovering who I am" can, as Puett indicates, become just another means for shoring up the ego, identifying a false self and worshiping at the altar of it. But if it's a way of discovering the various ideas about self and seeing through them, in a continous process, then that seems a good thing, a wonderful thing. And the process must also look without, as you say. That's probably a sign of authenticity. A looking inward that disregards one's fellow beings and the whole cosmos--as being occupied with something supposedly "better" is surely misguided.nonidiomatichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16698322913433781177noreply@blogger.com