Mindfulness: Wholesome or Not?
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- Is mindfulness universally wholesome, or not? I'll look at two different viewpoints, one from the Theravāda abhidhamma, and another from a recent monastic scholar.
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✅ Videos mentioned:
Origins of the Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness - • Origins of the Buddhis...
A Hidden Assumption in Buddhist Abhidhamma? The Doctrine of Seriality -- • A Hidden Assumption in...
The Five Hindrances to Meditation: "Armies of Māra" -- • The Five Hindrances to...
✅ Suttas mentioned:
suttacentral.net/mn108/en/sujato
suttacentral.net/mn10/en/sujato
✅ Books mentioned:
Bhikkhu Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna, The Direct Path to Liberation (2003) -- amzn.to/3PQJORW
Bhikkhu Anālayo, Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna (2014) -- amzn.to/469cPOy
✅ Other resources:
Bhikkhu Anālayo, “Mindfulness Constructs in Early Buddhism and Theravāda: Another Contribution to the Memory Debate” Mindfulness 2018. www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hambu... p. 2.
Andrew Olendzki, “The Construction of Mindfulness” Contemporary Buddhism, 2011 -- philpapers.org/rec/OLETCO-3
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00:00 Intro
00:39 Mindfulness and unwholesome mental states
02:47 Wrong mindfulness
05:07 Right mindfulness of hindrances
06:59 Reconciling with the abhidhamma
08:57 Reconciling with the suttas
10:58 Mindfulness’s apparent contradiction
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Thanks, love, peace and meow from Germany! 🐱🤗❤️🙏
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Great topic Doug, because I get a bit irritated now and again at the way in which 'mindfulness' has been seemingly misappropriated by medics for both physical and mental wellbeing, and speak of it as if it's the easiest thing in the world to take a quick class to master and practice. Those five hindrances are actually a mega-headache to the meditator. I disagree that you can't be angry and mindful at the same time. I can be mindful and restless, so why not mindful and angry? Surely the whole idea is to observe your hindrances and work with them! I agree though that you ought not to focus particularly on any hindrance but to sit with it, observe it, let it go, whenever it arises, and in that way, hopefully overcome it. And I believe that to be completely wholesome.
Yes. I think there is a role for mindfulness to play in a medical model (MBSR), but for sure it isn't easy to master. My podcast companion Jon Aaron teaches MBSR classes and trains MBSR teachers so he knows more about all that than I do. But it is part of a deep interest in meditation and the dharma for him, and helps a lot of people live better lives.
Hi Doug 🙏 - Great to see you're making videos outside 🏡 again these days ... but... the gorgeous background is blurred - - - I used to love listening to your fantastic words and losing myself in that beautiful scene - watching the birds 🐦 and (Shambhala) squirrels 🐿 - 😊 and the wind breezing through the trees 🌳 🌲 - the scenery really helped your philosophy to sink in and added a great deal of 'depth' (aesthetic attractiveness) to your videos - - - Can you remedy this ? Can you bring that lovely 💚 background back into focus as it used to be ? Hope you can - I'm sure it's not too much trouble - just a minor camera 🎥 adjustment - - - Loving all your videos as ever. Namaste. 🙏
Sleepiness? I’m doomed!
😂
This is such a great video. You always pick the best topics. ❤
To overcome sleepiness during meditation simply don’t use a backrest.
Yes sleepiness is a problem of mine as well! 😄
Combat sleepiness during meditation by adjusting posture, focusing on breath, opening your eyes, splashing cold water, taking deep breaths, incorporating mindful movement, changing meditation type, using guided meditation, prioritizing quality sleep, and choosing alert times of day. if this doesn't work just go sleep.❤❤
Thank you fellows. I want to meditate at night too, even to replace my sleep. Most times I fall asleep unknowingly.
@@scammecrusherMoving your hands into different muddas
Anger is a temporary state of mind. This too will pass.
Dear Dough I think venerable yuttadhammo Bhikku will be of great help to you. Especially the videos he did under 'The Buddhist Tv' in 2010. They are very insightful 😊
Doug, fantastic video's by the way. I'm learning new things with each one!
Glad you like them!
This subject is serendipitous for me at the moment, thank you 🙏
Glad to hear it!
It's interesting topic, and very well explained, as always. Thank you
My pleasure!
Fascinating, and not a conflict I had considered previously. Regardless of if or how these interpretations are reconciled, the practice for moving past the arising of such unwholesome or hindering states is useful. Great production quality too, Doug. Cheers
Thanks so much! 🙏
Always so thought-provoking Doug, thanks for this.
My pleasure!
@@DougsDharma mindfulness and Zen meditation are the same thing? If the answer is no can you do a video explaining Zen meditation in the same way that you explained mindfulness in this video?
Thanks for this. Around the middle of this, I felt like this analysis is not what I was here for, but I fortunately let go of this mental state and found the latter half to be very interesting.
Glad you stuck it out! Thanks for watching. 🙏
It's me who has to thank you, please keep up the good work@@DougsDharma
The modern discipline of physics allows us to imagine that each moment is not either a white Chiclet or a black Chiclet that you have to go back and forth from one side of the mouth to the other to chew, but you have a series of superimposed states of mathematical probability that, once a decision is made, collapse into a temporary final value before the super impositions accumulate again. The sum accumulation of one kind of karma or another in the form of decision making makes for a vector ofmomentum and that is the development of a heart of your character. Naw, I take that all back!
😄
When I have an unwholesome thought,I say to myself "cancel" and move on. Works for me.
If that works for you, then great!
Man if only it was that easy for me
I thought you were kidding 😂
Try it, it will work eventually.
The type of cancel culture we need
You raise seems interesting questions about the mindfullness of anger. Understanding that these thoughts arise from our positive and negative feelings about the world and the cause of much suffering, it should not be difficult to let these go.
Yes, and yet ... here they are again!
This is such a relevant topic. It seems that mindfulness is not the problem but an understanding of where these states of anger arise.
Sir, I'm from India. I'm very interested in Early Buddhist philosophy as well as the Mindfulness Meditation. Sir, I have already watched your video lecture on Nirvana. But I have few doubts on philosophy of Nirvana. Sir, please make a video lecture on "Ontology and Epistemology of the Nirvana (especially in Early Buddhism)". Is Nirvana No-thing or nothing? Is Nirvana Omnipresent? Is Nirvana same as Nirguna Brahman (i.e. Sat-Chit-Ananda) of Advaita Vedanta Philosophy of Sri Gaudapadacharya and Adi Shankaracharya? Sir, I will be obliged if you will kindly explain this passage from Sutta Pitaka "There is, monks, an unborn - unbecome - unmade - unfabricated. If there were not that unborn - unbecome - unmade - unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born - become - made - fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn - unbecome - unmade - unfabricated, emancipation from the born - become - made - fabricated is discerned."- Udana 8.3 . Sir, Thank You. Have a great day.
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I have an earlier video on this subject: ruclips.net/video/-Wz3N5IAGDM/видео.html
I hadn't seen that video before. The video lecture resolves my doubts. The Buddha was never interested in ontological inquiry and never preach esoteric mysticism of any kind. He mainly taught us 'suffering and its cessation'. Thank You Sir.
"And what is right mindfulness? There is the case where a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself - ardent, alert, & mindful - putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in & of themselves... the mind in & of itself... mental qualities in & of themselves - ardent, alert, & mindful - putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. This is called right mindfulness...
"This is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow & lamentation, for the disappearance of pain & distress, for the attainment of the right method, & for the realization of Unbinding - in other words, the four frames of reference."
- DN 22
Abandoning the wrong factors of the path
"One is mindful to abandon wrong view & to enter & remain in right view: This is one's right mindfulness...
"One is mindful to abandon wrong resolve & to enter & remain in right resolve: This is one's right mindfulness...
"One is mindful to abandon wrong speech & to enter & remain in right speech: This is one's right mindfulness...
"One is mindful to abandon wrong action & to enter & remain in right action: This is one's right mindfulness...
"One is mindful to abandon wrong livelihood & to enter & remain in right livelihood: This is one's right mindfulness..."
- MN 117
From my understanding, being angry is like experiencing anger from the first person's perspective. Whereas being mindful is like seeing your angry self in the third person (and probably without being distracted by the said anger) which can be such an oxymoron of a concept.
Yes, it's very difficult to manage this.
If you remember that everything is happening now - memory, future projecting, the hindrances, then that's Sati. Thanks Doug 🙏
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Mindfulness was one tiny aspect of the 8 fold path, not it's entirety. The West took a one stringed banjo and tried to create a Buddhist musical. Mindfulness can be a temporarily useful tool, but life demands full engagement, sitting on the river bank keeping it at arms length doesn't last for long.
Mindfulness is a huge part of Buddhist practice. It's something we try to do in all things. Anapanasati is based on mindfulness. All aspects of the eightfold path requires one to be mindful, whether that be right action, effort, concentration. To not get lost in samsara requires mindfulness.
@@joltee9317 samsara and you are not two places.
@@MassiveLib even if the notion of self is an illusion, this is how we communicate and understand our experiences in conventional reality. From a conventional perspective, 'you' being 'lost in samsara' is a reasonable way to describe things. The key point is that mindfulness is a crucial aspect of Buddhist practice, not just in the west.
@@joltee9317 I agree, it is conventional. But mindfulness is only ever a temporary tool, another illusion of object/subject. Sadly in the west particularly it is now become a sacred cow that can also clean your drains out, make your life complete. In the end even mindfulness is an illusion that the self props itself up with.
Don't you think that the framing that we bring mindfulness to unwholesome states in order so that we may eventually be rid of them has an element of subtle aversion? I wonder if it is meaningfully different to try and bring mindfulness to them simply because they arise, and for as long as they arise, and to not judge them. Does my question make sense?
Miserable defilements, scattered by the eye of wisdom!
Where will you now run, when driven from my mind?
Whence would you return to do me harm?
But oh, my mind is feeble. I am indolent!
If, with mindfulness’ rope,
The elephant of mind is tethered all around,
Our fears will come to nothing,
Every virtue drop into our hands.
Non-production is just talk. Non-production just appears before the mind’s eye. Non-production is just a flash in the mind. Absolutely it is nothing more than that.
Yes, this is an issue of skillful practice. We practice in order to change something. But often thinking in terms of "change" isn't helpful: we need to accept the thing in order to say goodbye to it. For discussion of a similar topic see: ruclips.net/video/ZTqibLMY1LM/видео.html
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Being angry is not mindful only when you are not mindful when you are angry.
If Right X exists, then Wrong X must also exist. The existence of Right Livelihood means that Wrong Livelihood must exist. And if Right Mindfulness exists, there must be Wrong Mindfulness.
Yes I think so too.
Nice
Thanks!
right mindfilness has the knowledge of non-self built into it. This is due to the basis upon which it arises. Concretlely, mindfulness of the body (in all postures, activities) includes the knowledge of the origin of the body itself, e.g. the necessary growing of the womb and years of parental care which are all outside of ones control. The buddha called this yoniso manasikara, which translates to "attention that comes from the womb/origin". When this knowing is the context of your overall experience, you will admit that there is no place for a self between your desirable object in front of you and the womb where your experience comes from. We forget this origin story all the time and take ownership of the things in the world. This is a direct seeing of dependent origination. It eradicates all doubt because even doubt itself has the body as a basis to arise in the first place. You might want to look into bhante anigha's essay on yoniso manasikara
Majjhima Nikāya 8: "The Buddha... 'Others will have wrong mindfulness, but here we will have right mindfulness.’"
So, to the Buddha there's wrong mindfulness.
Yes, it would seem so.
These early teachings were relevant only to monastic living, not navigating life in the saha world.
The mindfulness of avoidance is life out of balance. Presenting the alternative view gives access to what may otherwise appear unapproachable.
The Buddha spoke both to monastics and to laypeople. Many laypeople meditated in the Buddha's day: ruclips.net/video/F5cXWCpF1Ko/видео.html
@@DougsDharma
Those lay people who were unable to become monastics required other teachings from the Buddha. His message was never homogenous nor consistent until he preached the universality of the Lotus Sutra in the last years of his life.
@@Giantcrabz
The 28 chapters of Shakamuni's teachings from the last 8 years of his life. The Lotus sutra taught that everyone, men and women both, could attain the enlightenment of buddhahood. That he had attained his own enlightenment in the infinite past, that there was one buddha vehicle not three, and revealed the 12 link chain of causation. None of which had been presented before.
Is it possible that an enlightened person sees the anger arising and immediately detaches from it - or even sees it before it arises because of their ability to see the factors that cause anger
So they never get angry in the sense of becoming drugged by it and acting under its powers
It's hard to say. I'm planning a video on the general topic in the future.
now i myself have not read a single word from the abbidhammas but from the experience of watching this channel it seems it's always wrong. just want to know is this the general feeling?
Most of the abhidhamma is perfectly uncontroversial, basically a curated formulation of the dharma found in the suttas. But there are some anomalies here and there, and they are what are most interesting. That's why I and other scholars tend to mention them.
You look a lot older, Doug, be careful, do not go into rebirth again. Rush in calm towards the end of it, hasten to do good, yet let go
SMRTI -> Samadhi -> Prajna
How did
"[...] help support the channel and the work that WE're doing here"
become
"[...] help support the channel and the work that I'm doing here"
?
It's the same. I'm doing work, we all are doing work.
@@DougsDharma is it? There is no 'I' in 'WE'.